What are the pros and cons of giving students assignments to write Wikipedia articles? The Wikimedia Foundation initiated an education program at U.S. universities that in 2010 encouraged government, law, and public policy students from 33 classes at 22 programs to contribute to Wikipedia (https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education). Surveying 463 students in the public policy program revealed that they were motivated to work on Wikipedia articles that could reach a larger audience and could impact the society more than traditional class paper. In addition, classroom characteristics, and level of class engagement were strong motives to engage students to contribute in the future. You can find more information about this research at:

  Roth, A. Student contributions to wikipedia. Tech. rep., Wikimedia Foundation, 2011.
  Lampe, Cliff, et al. "Classroom Wikipedia participation effects on future intentions to contribute." Proceedings of the ACM 2012 conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. ACM, 2012.

In addition, the following paper shows that researchers in collaboration with the Association for Psychological Science (APS) involved 640 students from 36 courses in editing scientific articles on Wikipedia. As a result, students improved the content of over 800 articles and both students and faculty endorsed the benefits of the writing experience that would be read by a large number of people.

  Farzan, Rosta, and Robert E. Kraut. "Wikipedia classroom experiment: bidirectional benefits of students' engagement in online production communities." Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2013.

Before relying on these studies and defining Wikipedia based assignments for my students, I want to consult with you about pros and cons of this idea.

For which types of courses does it work and for which it doesn't?

For which types of assignments does it work and for which it doesn't?

Will it improve students' motivation to learn?

How can one define a rubric for this type of assignment?

More importantly, I was thinking asking students to contribute to Wikipedia for credit, might mitigate the altruistic nature of contribution to the public good.

Is there any study investigating the behavior of these student accounts on Wikipedia after the end of the semester? Does in absence of the personal incentive, the contribution decrease?

I have on several occasions given students assignments (in math classes I was teaching) to contribute to Wikipedia, either for bonus credit or in lieu of a traditional final paper. Both I and the students were very happy with the results and with the fact that our efforts (which included fairly substantial involvement on my part, see below) resulted in the creation of a valuable resource for the community. I am therefore inclined to view this idea very positively.

That being said, in my experience this type of project would definitely not be suitable for all students and in all circumstances, so one should consider carefully (as you are indeed doing by asking the question) the various implications and factors involved.

  For which types of courses does it work and for which it doesn't?

The idea is suitable for advanced classes where you cover topics that are not currently well-covered on Wikipedia. E.g., something like a calculus class is a bad idea, but a graduate class on differentiable manifolds would almost certainly involve several topics that Wikipedia needs help with.

  For which types of assignments does it work and for which it doesn't?

The first rule should be "do no harm". What I mean is that some students do not have the writing skills to make a positive contribution to Wikipedia with a reasonable effort of the sort that a course assignment should involve, and we certainly don't want them making negative contributions. Thus, my philosophy is that a Wikipedia assignment should be elective - i.e. either being for extra credit or being an option the student can choose instead of a traditional paper/essay.

Another reason for this rule is that some students would feel self-conscious about writing material for public consumption, and I think it's wrong to force them to do it, even if the contribution is anonymous. Finally, submission to Wikipedia requires agreeing to its Creative Commons license which means giving up certain rights to your creative work. For legal and ethical reasons I think it's untenable to make this a grade requirement unless specifically agreed to by the student who prefers this over alternative assignments.

  Will it improve students' motivation to learn?

I've definitely seen students who became very enthusiastic about the writing project and after creating a page on a new topic continued to expand it, which ended with them adding quite a bit more material than was the minimum I required. I'd also like to hope (but don't know if it's the case) that some of them might have caught the Wikipedia bug and continued contributing "for free" later.

On the other hand, some students were clearly just doing it for the grade and didn't do any more than the minimum, so I guess for them there wasn't any improvement to their motivation.

  How can one define a rubric for this type of assignment?

Good question. I was using my own subjective judgment to assign grades. Those were small graduate classes and in practice almost everyone got an A or A-, so that wasn't too much of an issue, but for a larger-scale project one might have to give this question some more careful thought.

Let me add a few thoughts about things you didn't ask about. A key thing to keep in mind is that writing for Wikipedia is very different than writing other kinds of content, both technically, stylistically and philosophically (in particular the collaborative aspects). Good Wikipedia content has to be extremely neutral, unopinionated, well-referenced, and written in clear and error-free language. Frankly, in my experience very few students would be capable of producing by themselves a draft for a new Wikipedia article that would not be either outright deleted or heavily modified (possibly to the point of becoming unrecognizable) very soon afterwards by other Wikipedia users/editors -- needless to say that would be quite bad for motivation... For this reason, in the projects I assigned I ended up taking on a fairly substantial role of reviewing and helping polish up the original article drafts before they were officially submitted. This was done in a sandbox page. It was practical for me to help out in this way, first of all because I was happy to do it, and second of all because only a small number of students were involved (4-5 in each of the courses I tried this at). At the same time, there is an obvious problem of scalability here, and I would be very reluctant to attempt such a project in a large class. The bottom line is be prepared to put in quite a bit of work yourself if you want the project to be a success.

A final thought (sorry for the long answer) to consider is that it would be wise for you as the instructor to propose to the students a list of possible contributions they can make (in the form of either new articles or new sections in existing articles). Some students can also come up with their own ideas for what to write about, but I feel that most would prefer being offered a list to choose from. Good luck!

Edit: as @Thunderforge helpfully pointed out in the comments, Wikipedia has a dedicated page with guidelines to students and instructors for Wikipedia-editing course assignments.


Is it appropriate to use emoji or similar icons in a paper? I'm not in academia anymore, but spend quite a bit of my time reading papers and using the findings as part of my job.

Today I picked up a paper that contained a couple of emoji-type icons in the figures. It was to show which of two conditions was preferred. There's a smiley face next to the desired condition and a sad face next to the undesired one. It's an electrical-engineering/computer-science paper.

It's the first time I remember seeing something like this in a paper and it made me question the quality of what I was reading. I googled a bit and it was presented at an FPGA conference in February this year and is associated with a well-known university in the USA, so it seems reputable.

Perhaps I'm just behind the times. Is this more common than I realise?

I'll answer from the perspective of a different field. In the biomedical sciences, it isn't uncommon to use some cartoonish representations to depict animal tasks/procedures, particularly because actual pictures of animal subjects are often avoided for a number of reasons. The same can be true for human subjects.

I wouldn't think twice about seeing a smiling versus frowning monkey indicating task performance in a figure, as long as it was instructive/guiding and not interrupting/distracting. Same for other types of icons like thumbs up/down. Certainly emojis in text would be totally different.


Where to publish comments on a scholarly book? The past year, I've been reading a mathematical manuscript from a well-known university on a particular well-known, graduate curriculum subject. The manuscript language is not English. One can imagine a manuscript on, e.g., Algebra in, e.g., Spanish in the form you usually give it to your students before you hand it over to, say, Springer.
At a certain point I found myself latexing my comments; now they have a subjectively better quality than the original manuscript, and they can be used as auxiliary material for everyone working with that manuscript. The comments are in English. Today, the manuscript volume is around 300 pages. The comments are around 50 pages, are 90% self-contained, and could be potentially turned into a small booklet. The comments are evolving and growing. The comments do not repeat any manuscript material except the usual stuff such as defining notation and claims which deserved new, better proofs. Subjectively, the students who wish to comprehend the manuscript need such comments or equivalent ones.

I have no time for 100% self-containedness (which would take me a few weeks), not even any time to find a coauthor (which would take me at least a few weeks till infinity). But I do have time to put the booklet into a publishable format, which will take me less than a week.

The author of the manuscript is out of question to be contacted in any way (the reasons therefor are private and cannot be elaborated on here).

Now I learned that the manuscript is in the process of being turned into a book by a well-known research publisher. What would be the best way for me to publish my comments

to get research credit by entires in traditional listings of research papers/journals/books,
to get an ISBN, if possible?

I would like to know whether such auxiliary material is typically accepted by an established research publisher (say, AMS, or Springer, etc.) and, if so, what are the typical conditions. Or, otherwise stated, if it is possible to get it published at the same publisher as that of the manuscript at all or whether I should take another one?

PS. This question contains no personal details in comparison to a previous one, which I deleted.

UPDATE: It is no more my intention to earn a bit from selling. It would be just a moral support to get 1 cent per sold copy, but nothing else.

From your description, about the most it sounds like you could do is post your notes online.

Why?  Your notes are not self-contained and I haven't seen things like "study guides" published in concordance with graduate texts, which indicates that there's little market.  Even if there were some market for this, if you don't have time to make your notes self contained, you likely don't have time to get them in a publishable format either.  In any case, the amount of money you would get should be minimal.  Grad texts are not a cash cow.  I also don't see much advantage in an ISBN, but you could get an arXiv id if you post to the arXiv.

Free online notes can give you just as much if not more "recognition" than publishing, depending on the situation (free notes are easily accessible, hence can get wider distribution).  I've done this for some courses I've taught, and while I don't have any measure of how much recognition I'm getting (nor is it that important), sometimes I meet people at conferences or what not and they say nice things about my notes.  Conversely, I've gotten a good impression of many young people by coming across some nice notes they've written.

Of course, if you do this, you should make sure to give the author due credit and that you will not be infringing on copyrights.  Note that the presentation of material and choice of definitions is a big part of the originality of the author's manuscript.  I spend a lot of time thinking about order of presentation when I write notes.


How to find funding for your PhD? (Canadian university) I am considering pursuing my Phd in Canada.

However, I see that I will have to secure funding to cater for my tuition and accomomdation costs, unlike in  the UK where we are treated as University employees and given a monthly pay.

I have done some online research into scholarships and funding, but still need some assistance on how the Canadian systems work on funding.

The best option is to contact prospective supervisors as the scholarships available and rules that apply will depend on the province, university, discipline etc. There are situations where you will receive monthly pay during the PhD from your supervisor as a Research Assistantship, or the University as a Graduate Teaching Assistantship. Generally, the less funding available from supervisors and scholarships, the more Graduate Teaching Assistantships you need to do. In Ontario, there is a competitive scholarship called 'Ontario Trillium Award' for international students. But you need to have a supervisor in mind who will suggest you as a candidate, which is often the case for scholarships at the PhD level. A big funding body for science in Canada is NSERC (equivalent to NERC in the UK). There are scholarships available for internationals, but they are very competitive/very few.

I suggest you think about what it is you want to study and contact professors who have a similar focus. Also keep looking online for funded PhD's on specific topics. If you find one, contact the Principle Investigator to find out your options.


What is a soft-money research position? I have read the term "soft-money research position" a few times.

E.g. Path of a postdoc.

  Another consideration for interviewees is whether to pursue a
  "soft-money" position. A tenure-track university professor is
  typically paid a nine-month salary to teach one or more courses,
  conduct research and train graduate students. During the summer
  months, the professor can optionally pay his or her salary from grant
  money. In contrast, non-tenure-track research professors often hold
  soft-money positions, which require them to cover 100 percent of their
  salary from research grants, teaching and/or administrative
  responsibilities. Soft-money positions offer the advantage of few
  teaching responsibilities, which frees time for grant writing and
  conducting research, but at the expense of job security, since winning
  grants is a necessity. The Hutchinson Center and some other private
  institutions offer a compromise between these systems, covering up to
  half of a faculty member's salary from institutional funds, so
  research grants only have to cover the remainder.

Advice for stats students on the academic job market gives a clear distinction between soft and hard money:

  Before listing the options I should explain the concept of hard versus
  soft money. Revenue in academia comes from tuition (in public schools
  the state kicks in some extra $), external funding (e.g. NIH grants),
  services (e.g. patient care), and philanthropy (endowment). The money
  that comes from tuition, services, and philanthropy is referred to as
  hard money. Every year roughly the same amount is available and the
  way its split among departments rarely changes. When it does, it’s
  because your chair has either lost or won a long hard-fought zero-sum
  battle. Research money comes from NIH, NSF, DoD, etc.. and one has to
  write grants to raise funding (which pay part or all of your salary).
  These days about 10% of grant applications are funded, so it is
  certainly not guaranteed. Although at the school level the law of
  large numbers kicks in, at the individual level it certainly doesn’t.
  Note that the break down of revenue varies widely from institution to
  institution. Liberal arts colleges are almost 100% hard money while
  research institutes are almost 100% soft money.

I'm still confused regarding the exact definition of a soft-money research position: what is the threshold soft-money : hard-money above which a position is regarded as a soft-money position?

Conversely, what is a hard-money research position? Is it any research position that is not a soft-money research position?

It's actually a little bit more complicated than "soft money" vs. "hard money," but the basic idea is that any scientific position can be categorized on the basis of where the money to support it comes from.

In general, "soft money" refers to positions where the funding source is based on external grants and contracts.  As long as there is a sufficient supply of such money that a person can obtain or that somebody else is willing to devote to their support, they are employed.  If that money dries up, however, the position dries up with it, becoming part time or disappearing entirely.

In contrast, "hard money" positions are not directly project-dependent, but instead are created for a purpose by an organization.  Termination from a hard money position only comes either for cause or due to the organization deciding to remove the position and not shift the person to another position.  They are often more secure (thus the notion of "hard"), but not necessarily.  Tenure-track faculty posts are typically seen as the ultimate in "hard" money: they are ultimately supported by tuition, and even if the students stop signing up for a department, it is typically slow enough that universities tend to prefer to allow departments to age to extinction rather than fire faculty.  A corporate research post is also often "hard money" because it is created by fiat in a company's strategic plan, rather than being dependent on external funds.  It is much less secure, however, because it can be removed by fiat as well.

Where it gets complicated is that various different sorts of "hard" and "soft" positions have different levels of vulnerability.  For example, some "soft" positions are effectively amortized over a large group or include bridge funding, such that they may be nearly as secure as a tenure-track position.

It's a good first-approximation, however, in talking about the challenges of academic fundraising and career management.  The basic rule of thumb is: a PI in a "soft" position needs to raise money to pay their own salary, while a PI in a "hard" position does not.  Thus a "soft" position has a hard time surviving on small grants while a "hard" position merely ends up with few students for a while.


Lower division vs Upper division In the United States, what is the difference between lower division and upper division in colleges and universities?

"Lower division" courses are those typically taken by freshmen and sophomores (first and second year students at a typical 4-year bachelor's program).
"Upper division" courses are those typically taken by juniors and seniors (third and fourth year students at a typical 4-year bachelor's program).
Given that you've used the community college tag, it may also be relevant to point out that often community college credits are equivalent to lower-division courses and may be transferrable to a four-year school to substitute, as mentioned in answers to your previous question.
You could also possibly use the terms to group the students into 1st+2nd year and 3rd+4th year students, though these are also often referred to as "upperclassmen" and "lowerclassmen" (I'm not familiar with other gender-neutral substitutes - would appreciate an edit or comment if someone could add one).
There are not typically strong barriers to students taking upper division courses in their first two years (provided they meet necessary prereqs) or lower division courses in their second two years (especially electives outside their major).


Is there any value in publishing screen-cast lectures? I am getting close to finishing a PhD in applied math (next May), and I'm starting to think about job applications next fall.  I taught for 5 years as a GTA (graduate teaching assistant), but I still feel like my teaching portfolio could use a boost since the last 2 years of my degree I was funded on a research grant.  One idea I cooked up was to create and publish a series of Khan-academy style "screen-cast" lectures on various interesting topics in mathematics.  Since this could potentially consume a fair amount of time, I'm wondering what the benefit of it would actually be for an application to say, a teaching post-doc or tenure track at a SLAC (selective liberal arts college) or (not R1) public university.  Obviously if they're good, it demonstrates an ability to clearly organize and present material, but would anyone actually look at them if they saw it on a CV or in a teaching statement?

I would advise against doing this, even without knowledge of tghe hiring processes in SLACs (never heard about those before) or the universities you're interested in.

On principle, it does not make sense to have projects in life whose main or only purpose is make your CV look better. If you're passionate enough about this to do it for its own sake - say, because you feel available material is not engaging enough and you had good feedback from your students - then maybe it could be a reasonable use of your time. Otherwise, your days are better doing proper research, or other publicly-visible math-related projects which are of interest to you.

Also, if you got good feedback on your teaching, I doubt your focus on research will be held against you, especially since you do have a solid 3 years. Perhaps some letter of recommendation from professors/lecturers who were in charge of the courses in which you taught could serve as guarantee of your capabilities.


Should one put their Master's thesis online? I think of a thesis as sort of an immature document, by definition.  It delineates the university era from the professional era, and is bound to lack some practical elements.  Should a student refrain from publishing his or her thesis on the Internet, for this or any other reason?

Every document is, in the way you define it, immature. With everything you write your writing improves. Your papers will not be better because you have a degree. They will be better, because you learned something (i.e. made mistakes) before.

However, there might be reasons not to publish your thesis, but it is not so different from normal working papers. Maybe your thesis is just bad, you did not get any meaningful results, you have made significant mistakes, etc.

So if your university allows, publish it online if you want to (or if you think it may be worth reading / you can not think of a good reason not to); everyone knows, it is only a master's thesis and will read it in a different way than they would read a published paper (or not at all).


How to deal with constant pressure given by advisor I am a third-year PhD student in mathematics from a very reputed institute in my country. I have one problem to share and discuss that is related with my guide. He is a senior professor in our department. The day I joined that institute he gave me one research problem and asked me to study about that and present. I did as much as I can and presented. In return, instead of appreciation I was being scolded for small mistakes. And it has continued for the last two years. Seniors say it is his way of working. I have lost my happiness. Sometime I cry for joining this course. My prof is not impressed with my good academic record and my hard work.

Second thing that worries me is that he is not much aware of my research problem. I feel like I know much more than him. He has no paper on that topic, although he has a good number of papers in other topics.  I never got help from him in solving research papers. I have to study papers on my own and then have to present to him.  And again for small mistake I have to suffer his taunts. I am scared whether I would be able to finish my degree in such an environment or not? Is this normal? Does every PhD student suffer such mental trauma?

I need  advice. Thanks.

Every PhD student suffers mental trauma. You say your advisor "scolds" and "taunts" you. I think of scolding and taunting as personal attacks, and hence unacceptable. That said, your English makes me unsure if he is attacking you or your work. Attacking someones work is a common occurrence in academia. We tend to get one sentence notifications about our successes and pages and pages of feedback about our failures. Even the best researchers fail more often then they succeed. The key thing to remember is that, in general, it is not personal. You need to identify if your advisor is attacking you or your work.

You say your advisor "is not impressed with my good academic record and my hard work". Successful academics tend not to be impressed by academic records and hard work since it is par for the course. This doesn't mean they do not respect you. The best way to find out what your advisor thinks about you is to ask. Ask what you are doing well and what you can work on. Also say that you are feeling unsure of yourself and looking for reassurance. Some advisors will give you reassurance and a shoulder to cry on, others will simply tell you that you are not failing. Not failing is another word for a major success.


Mentioning mental health in a supplementary application essay I'm applying for a PhD in neuroscience and I've recently finished writing my SOP and supplementary essay. My supplementary essay asked me to respond to the prompt "Please tell us about an incident in your research where you experienced failure. Include what you did about it and what you learned from the experience." I wrote about how due to my social anxiety I failed to reach out for help in preparing for graduate school, leading to a delay in attending graduate school. I wrote about how I corrected my behavior to no longer respond to anxiety with avoidance. Most of the essay focuses on what I did to correct my behavior and my talk of mental health is kept fairly minimal. I asked the admissions whether it was okay to write about a personal difficulty I overcame throughout my academic career instead of a technical failure in the research process, and they said this was fine. However, when I showed my essay to my academic advisor he said I should avoid mentioning mental health and therapy as it might scare off the admissions committee. The specific lines he had a problem with were as follows:

  "However, towards graduation I became preoccupied with moving away
  from my parents instead of preparing for graduate school. This was
  despite the fact that they offered to pay for my graduate education on
  the condition that I stay. I later learned, through working with my
  therapist, that I was attempting to escape an abusive environment."

I feel as though these lines are very important to contextualizing the situation. Would a line like this really scare off admissions?

I'm pretty sure you misinterpreted the question. I would think that they wouldn't (dare) ask about your personal failings or mental state. The question as I interpret it is about a setback in the research itself. Suppose you don't get enough subjects to properly carry out your experiment as proposed. What do you do. Or you learn something part way through an experiment that invalidates it and you have to go back and revise.

If you never have setbacks then I'll guess that you aren't trying hard enough to get to the important questions. For a mathematician to be able to prove every proposed theorem says those theorems aren't very consequential. (I've been in that place, actually).

Focus on the research, not your own psychology. Your application should clearly indicate that you are absolutely the best person for this position and will obviously be a success. Moreover you are flexible in overcoming the unknowns that pop up during the execution of it.


Should I inform authorities of someone falsely claiming a non-existing PhD? I know a person who falsely claims having a PhD in computer science.

His name card reads as "Name, PhD" and he has long been working in a high profile and remunerative position for a semi-government company.

However, he does not have a PhD!

He had enrolled for a PhD program in a X university, but his PhD program was terminated, because he could not publish any papers within the allotted time. I have complete details on this person including his registration number with the university, supervisor name, the company name, address and company supervisor name.

Specifically: the maximum duration of the PhD program in this X university is 6 years. To graduate, the university requires the candidate to publish one ISI indexed journal paper or two Scopus indexed papers. This person did not meet the requirements and, in fact, does not even have a conference paper to his credit.

I often feel like informing the company he is serving, as I find this infuriating and deeply unfair, but I just can't seem to make up my mind:

Is this the right thing to do?
Why should I report this?
Why shouldn't I report this?

It is certainly appropriate for you to bring this to everyone's attention. However, it is also important that you do so in a way that will protect yourself from retaliation as you seem to suggest the person has some power.

The dilemma, of course, is that an anonymous accusation is easy to dismiss. But if you can just direct people to source of your information so that they can independently verify your claim it will stand a better chance of being heard.

It is also possible, that the "authorities" are already aware of this and are, in fact, invested in the career of the person. This happens in some places, so, depending on the norms of your location, it may be especially important to protect yourself, and in the worst case prepare for the situation that it won't be addressed.


Asking University for quick admissions decison So I have received an offer from a school (University A) which requires I send my decision to join them by a deadline, coming soon. While the other school (University B) still hasn't decided.

Should I inform the admissions committee of University B by email so that they can send their decisions quickly? If so is it a better idea to share with them the admission letter of University A? University B requires a supervisor that approves students for admission. Should I tell my prospective supervisor about this?

Asking for a definite quick decision might, in some cases, result in a rejection. This would be the case if the university has strict rules about admissions and about treating all applicants fairly. There is no guarantee of that, of course, but it seems more likely than a quick decision to admit. But different places have different rules and procedures. In the US, for example, every university is unique.

But you can certainly ask for the status of your admission and what is the earliest you can know. You can say that you have other decisions pending, but I wouldn't be precise about them. On the other hand, I think you can be more forthcoming with a prospective advisor. They might be able to at least get access to information that you can use to make a decision.

You can also ask for a small delay from the place that has accepted you, saying that you need some additional time to consider the offer. The likelihood of refusal of the request is probably high, but not absolute.


How can I find open physics postdoc positions in Europe? What are the most common ways to find open postdoc positions in physics, in Europe?
I use inspires and academicjobsonline, but on both sites, there almost haven't been any new positions in my field (4 in total since december).
Are there any other sites / tricks I'm missing?

(EDIT: my subfield is theoretical QCD)

Many jobs are only advertised on the website of the respective universities. Often professors post positions on their home pages or group pages, so it may be a good idea to keep an eye on them. Sometimes job openings are also mailed around to colleagues, so it is a good idea to let people know you're on the market, so they can forward these announcements.

Depending on your particular subfield there may be other relevant websites as well.


Relational Reference Management Software? I'm looking for a reference management program to do three things:

(1) Manage references. There are plenty of solutions for this.

(2) Manage quotations. Similar to this question, whose suggestions were surprisingly lacking.

(3) Map relationships among references. Somewhat similar to the problem posed by this question. When doing research, I often (naturally) find new sources via reference from a current source. It would be extremely useful if my reference manager could look at all sources referenced by all of my current sources to reveal data gold mines like which sources in my library are referenced by other sources in my library, or (even better) what sources are referenced most frequently by all of the sources in my library.

For instance, if my library/collection contains sources A, B, C, D, E, then I want to see that A references B & E, B references D & E, and C references E. This information would also lend itself to useful descriptive statistics like "E is referenced by 3 sources in your library {A,B,C}" and even visual mapping of references.

With the vast array of reference management software available, I am amazed that I haven't found anything even close to this. Does anything like this currently exist?

As far as I know, there is nothing pre-canned for point (3). If you want to do it yourself, you'll need:

a way to retrieve automatically the references cited in each paper of your collection -- see here for some solutions. Note that an important part of this is giving each paper a unique identifier, something that is dealt with in literature databases.
a graph visualization/analysis tool. See for instance here.
Writing code -- sorry, there is no way around this. :(

EDIT: just noticed that this answer suggests a program called Google Scholar Citation Visualisation Tool -- give it a try!


Citing a source that is yet to be published in a conference proceedings I wanted to ask how IEEE cites a paper that is submitted to a conference, approved BUT is yet to be published.

For example, Author A gives a talk entitled Title B in Conference C which is supposed to take place 5 months from now. But the article is accepted already by the conference organizers.

I tried googling it but I was confused on how the answers came about.

Just cite it as you would normally, but add a note stating it will be presented in the future.

Just make sure you get an advance copy or a final draft to have some solid basis for any claims you do on it. You might want to state this in your note in the bibliography. Also make sure to update the reference as needed.


Query on UK visa options for South African postdoc at Birkbeck University funded by a South African organisation I am from South Africa, and have been awarded a freestanding post-doctoral fellowship award that I am expected to take up at Birkbeck University in London. The fellowship award is from a South African based funding organisation (NRF). The funding is valued at $26000 per annum which amounts to 18 000 British pounds. I realise that this amount does not qualify me for a tier two visa. I was wondering if I could get any assistance on what other options I have to qualify for a UK visa.

Unfortunately, short of marrying an EU national, you likely do not qualify for a UK visa and there is nothing that can be done about this. This document contains the information about salary thresholds. These apply strictly, there are no exceptions. Even if your position fulfils a shortage occupation the salary threshold still applies. You will need to find some more funding, or give up on taking up the fellowship in the UK. You may also consider contacting the university to see if there is anything that can be done to help your situation.


Being asked to review a paper in conference one has submitted to As stated in the title (an IEEE conference). Does this create a conflict of interest antithetical to the reviewing process? Is it possible that accepting or refusing to review could jeopardise the chances of one's own paper being accepted?

No, there is no conflict. Your advice will be backed up or not by other reviewers. Likely the conference committee already knows that you are also a submitter.

But if you want double assurance of this, just send a note to the program chair that you have also submitted. If they see any issue, they will deal with it.

Just give an honest review as you would in any case. And trust that your paper will be accepted or not on its merits. Of course, there is quite a lot of competition, but that is always true.


Should I charge entry for a public lecture? I am a research scientist, and as part of my role I am expected to perform some form of public outreach and engagement. I enjoy outreach activities and giving public lectures.

I have a suspicion that free public lectures are usually poorly attended. I suspect that the attitude is one of "Well, it's free and you get what you pay for". Certainly the quality of artistic performances that I've seen is strongly correlated with entrance fee.

While it is a reasonable expectation that my Faculty would pay for the costs of lecture room hire, advertising, possibly even tea and biscuits, I wonder if there is an advantage of charging a nominal fee to attend, to overcome the low-quality perception of a free lecture.

I doubt exclusivity as represented by an entrance fee would attract people to a lecture. After al, it is the subject that is of importance. thus the advertisement is key and the way you set your topic in a wider perspective. If the topic concern people such as climate change, environmental issues, medicine to mention a few, people will come. It will be more difficult to attract people to topics they either do not know anything about or are not interested in (or in the worst case, is not widely reported in media). Thus, my negative perspective is that the success of attracting an audience is to a large extent a question of how the topic is known by and an interest of the public.

So, I would advice against charging for the lecture and put all efforts into making the lecture as interesting as possible for the intended audience. And, to do this by coupling the topic to a larger picture that is relevant to the public. And finally, if you do not get a huge audience, it does not mean there is anything wrong with your research or lecture, public interest varies over time and research can have huge relevance for important aspects of society and life without attracting a wide audience.


Collaborations during Mental Health Duress Throwaway account for obvious reasons.

I'm in the middle of a research fellowship/postdoc working with a bunch of people on various projects (in mathematics). Over the last 8 months, I have had a tumultuous relationship with my mental health that has led to many days being unable to do work. I have about four to five research collaborations that I am working on at varying stages of completion. I haven't been able to work on them as efficiently and effectively as I wish, but each is making some amount of progress to the point where no one has actively stated their discontent on the progress of said projects due to my performance.

I'm debating telling everyone what has happened over the eight months and I am unsure to what extent I need to explain my lack of engagement with each project due to personal issues. On one hand, I don't want people to think I was slacking off, but on the other hand many people will write letters for faculty positions and I don't want them thinking I cannot hack it. I hope to not mess up my academic reputation.  There's no requirement to tell anyone as I am on my own funding, so there's no "boss" that I need to tell when I take days off for mental difficulties.

What is the best way to deal with mental health issues when one is in the middle of collaborations and can't work at their standard pace? Do I tell collaborators of my current struggle or do I keep discretion as personal life should not interact with work life?

That's a pretty big "if" @YemonChoi has there.

Yes, ideally there should not be a stigma. But realistically, even if your collaborators are professional enough not to stigmatize you, are they also professional enough not to mention such a communication to others?

What has been said cannot be unsaid.

I would recommend to let sleeping dogs lie. As long as nobody has complained, you don't need to explain yourself. (Maybe people not only didn't complain, but also didn't even notice lower productivity on your part - your productivity may have been just fine for your collaborators. Consider the "impostor syndrome".) It's better to work on your issues than to explain them.

Good luck!


How to find a good topic for a PhD research proposal? In many countries an application for a PhD position includes a written research proposal, so my questions is what are some advises/strategies to come up with a good topic/idea for a PhD research proposal and how can one assess the quality/fruitfulness of an idea? As an undergraduate student one just doesn't have the experience to foresee which ideas might have promising research results and which probably won't have. (And I doubt that potential supervisors have the time to comment on every idea of every potential applicant in cases where it is possible to establish some kind of contact before the actual application.)

Jot down your interests.
Future goals (long term and short term). Doesn't have to be accurate but just to give you the "big picture".
Speak with your PhD advisor (if you already have one).
Align his/her interests with yours and see if you have common ground (you may need to lean towards his interests or find another advisor)
Once you have a list of topics that you could explore, do a literature review and figure out for what topics you'd have a taste.

Each person has his own formula on what to choose as their PhD proposal. This was the way I went about it.

PhD (Mechanical Engineering Expected Fall 2012)


How to address any professor in formal letter When we write to any professor, we write Dear Professor X. If we write only Professor X, is it weird?

Professor X,

Best Regards,

In Germany, omitting the dear is close to an offense, even though most people know that it is common in the US.

So the answer to your question is definitely country specific.


Does the second round of reviewing process typically take a longer time than first round? I would like to firstly state that I do understand the essence of the reviewing process in scientific publications.

I have submitted my article to a material-science relating journal. The first round of revision was very fast; it took less than 10 days. One of two referees suggested a minor revision while the other asked for a moderate amount of questions.

Currently, it takes 3 weeks after two reviewers agreed to make the second round of reviewing.

Thus, is it common that the second (and later) reviewing process require more time as long as the first one?

P.S. Editor privately informed that they are same referees.

In my experience, it is usually the other way around.  The first round of reviews typically takes longer, because the reviewers are new to the paper and first reading it and forming their opinions.  In the second round, they are more likely to be simply looking at differences and seeing whether they agree with your adjustments and replies to their comments.

There is, however, a lot of noise in the process, because in most cases the main amount of time is not spent in reviewing per se, but rather in waiting for the reviewers to make time in their schedules to review.  It differs from journal to journal of course, but sounds to me like in your first round of review you got unusually lucky with the reviewers' schedules and things went very fast, and the second round of review is taking a more "normal" length of time.


Is it common to perform a campus interview before asking for letters of recommendation I was recently invited to an on-campus interview after having a skype interview. I noticed, after checking with my referees, that this particular school did not request letters of recommendation for me. It just seems odd to me that the search committee would commit to flying me out and having me complete two full days of interviews without first reviewing letters of rec.

Is this unusual? What would the advantages of doing the interview before reviewing letters be?

I think they will ask for the recommendation letters at a later stage. It seems to me that they first want to interview you.


Why doesn't arXiv have a comment section? One of the main criticism against arXiv is that while there is some basic filtering, but there is no scientific review of the papers. I wonder whether adding a comment section has already being discussed publicly and why as of now arXiv does not have a comment section.

Comment systems cost money to develop and moderate.
Some people may not want their preprint commented on.
You can comment by submitting your own preprint.
Third-party sites provide this service.
Journals do not not have comment sections on their websites.
I doubt many people are asking for a comment section.


What to do in case when advisor refuses to provide a reference letter for a postdoc position? What to do in case when PhD advisor rejects everytime (by his own choice) a request for reference letter for a possible post doc position? Majority of decent post doc positons requires PhD advisor's reference letter.

In the industry, a company cannot dare to hold the experience letter for an employee. But in academia, the situation is not the same. In such a scenario what is a possible solution? Is it that till the time he is ready to provide a reference letter I have to wait? or is there some way out of this?

I do not know your exact field but in most fields you could put someone else from the same lab (e.g. a senior postdoc you worked with) stating that this person was the day-to-day supervisor and the official supervisor is too busy.

But apart from this way out you should also clarify why your supervisor does not want to write the letter. No time? Different scientific opinion on some of your results? He thinks you are not good enough for academia (sounds mean but some supervisors have that opinion on some of their students)? You could become a competition as you know key results from the lab? For each of these points solutions can be found but I would need more details ...


Letter of recommendation repeat I asked my thesis advisor to write me a letter of recommendation, giving her a copy of the letter of recommendation written by another professor for me the last time I applied to colleges. Turns out, she has submitted the same copy I sent her, with a few minor changes. While, this is not problematic per se, I am applying to a few colleges that I had also applied to last time. Will the admissions office view this negatively, considering pretty much the same letter has been sent by two different individuals in consecutive years?

No, that's not a big issue for you. I'd be very surprised if anyone sees that the letters are similar (who would compare letters of recommendations between two different years?). And if they do notice and are interested in you, they can always contact your thesis advisor (it does reflect a bit strange on her tbh).


What Kind of Research Method is this? This is something I've been confused ever since I started my undergraduate research.

My research related to User Interfaces. Based on some of the previous years undergraduate research or from some research in the same year as me, as far as I see, have these steps:

Suppose we wants to design new interface for a system-X
We do the survey about the interface of system-like-X (but not X) to the users
From the survey, we get the data: what the users don't like from the present system interface, which part should be improved, etc
Then, we propose the new design based on that data
We then, again, test that new design with users

And now, my steps, according to my advisor

You design the new interface
Test it

I'm so confused, because, based on what would I design the interface? What standard or principle I should used? Also, in my case, I have to implement or develop the testing tools myself, which means that I got more work to do compared to my friend's workload. Could that be why step 1-3 skipped? But this is academic, I can't say the reason I choose that design is because "well, because that feels good/looks nice!". But my advisor never told me by what should I based my design on, she just "Yes, you design it first". But that's not my question here.

My questions are:
In this case, where if I do not base  my research on data, by what should I based it on? Should I use a principle to back it on or what? Is there a research method like this? What is the name of this research method?

In case I ask in wrong place or there's lack of information, please tell me.

You can base it on the data collected by other people already. There are many facts about user behaviors available in various research papers. This list has a seemingly good compilation of conferences.

So you base your design on facts and observations and user preferences that someone has published. Then your contribution can be using those principles to create a user interface for a domain, device, or a situation that no one else has explored yet.

I am not a usability person, but since the question was on research method, I thought I would provide my opinion.


I suspect someone deliberately ruined my experiments by poisoning my lab insects. What should I do? I'm a graduate student who's currently working on an experiment involving some animals. I have two separate places where I keep my animals, and one of them is in a locked section of a lab (which is only accessible by myself, my PI, and a few other investigators).
A few weeks ago when I came into the lab, I noticed that all of the animals in that locked section had died. Without going into too much detail, after a quick investigation I found that a gas valve must have been opened to kill the animals, and then closed again. It is impossible for the valve to open spontaneously, let alone open and close. I also determined that it couldn't have been a gas leak because I have a habit of always setting the valve to a certain position after closing it, and it wasn't exactly in that position when I checked it, so it must have been physically moved.
I thought that maybe the stars unfortunately aligned and I had gone wrong somewhere for this to occur, so I left it alone and kept it to myself but have been careful to check the valve everyday afterward.
A few days ago, the animals were dead once again. The valve had also been moved. Although I don't have concrete evidence, I'm strongly suspecting that either my PI (who I don't have the best relationship with) or another investigator in the lab is deliberately killing the animals. I don't know what to do now, who to approach, and what to say. My entire experiment is now also in jeopardy. What steps do I take?
Clarifications / responses to comments:

The "animals" are insects, so "animal care regulations" are limited
No one has commented on the deaths. My section of the lab is rarely used, so they may not have noticed.
There are no security cameras.

I assume you're doing CO2, in which case you frame it as a serious safety concern and insist on looking into it. You're in an enclosed space with an asphyxiant that appears to be leaking. This is a critical health and safety issue and should be treated accordingly.
It's unlikely in my opinion that you are being sabotaged but if you are whoever is doing it will stop if these issues are investigated


If "learning styles" are bunk, then what is the most effective form of learning? I have read research claiming the idea of multiple styles of learning does not hold up. If so, what does the research say is the best form of learning/teaching?

Recent eagle's-eye overview of best-practice study methods: Dunlosky, John, et al. "What works, what doesn't." Scientific American Mind 24.4 (2013): 46-53.

Gold star winners:

Self-testing. That is: doing homework exercises and checking the answers.
Distributed practice. Studying regularly in batches over time (not cramming).

Runners-up (mixed evidence):

Elaborative interrogation.
Self-explanation.
Interleaved practice. ("Mixed practice")

What doesn't work:

Highlighting.
Rereading.
Summarization, keyword mnemonics, and imagery for text learning.


Should I include 'future work' in a paper, when I don't intend to do that future work? I am in the process of writing a paper that I think introduces a novel concept.  There are some related factors (perhaps even foundational factors) that should be worked out in order to perfect my idea.  I plan on putting these ideas in a 'Future Work' section of the paper.  However, I have no interest in actually doing anything I put there.  After this paper, I want to move on to another topic.

Should I include those ideas in 'Future Work'?  Should I state that I have no plan to work on them myself, so as not to leave anyone interested in the work 'hanging'?

It depends how you phrase it.  Do not write This will be shown in a subsequent paper.  Do write This and this still needs to be done.

I think it is very informative to inform the audience of the next steps that need to be taken in this research.  For example, shows you are aware of shortcomings of work done so far, and it can be useful to refer to in funding applications.  However, there can be many reasons why next steps are not actually carried out.  It might be your personal interest, but more often than not, project-specific funding runs out, PhD students or postdocs finish and move to new institutes, etcetera.

This is particularly true for PhD theses.  The final chapter may be full of future work, which, in many cases, is never carried out.


Trust issues with my PhD advisor, is it worth fixing or can I get out? I am a math PhD student considering changing universities.
I have suspicions that my supervisor has not been very honest with me
since I told him that I considered changing universities (and therefore
supervisors) because of shift in interests. He got angry with me, told me that it would bring
bad reputation to the research group and that I can't just leave after
1 year.

In a conversation I mentioned a university, in which there is a professor,
call him professor M, whose work interests me.
My supervisor said that professor M is the only
one in his field in the university (apparently
with the intent of discouraging me from
trying to apply to that university).
I looked up the website of professor M's research
group, which seems to tell a different story
(plenty of PhD students, at least one post doc).
I found this a bit suspicious.
Moreover I recently realized that my supervisor
has coathored an article with an emeritus professor, who
is in the university, who has worked on the same field, although
not part of the research group of M. The "research group" in my
university is not that active itself.

When I told him that I want to consider alternatives
he told me that the doctoral programme is collecting
information about PhD students (which was true), and
that he needed to know whether I was part of the group or
not. He gave me 3 days to decide whether to stay or leave the
doctoral program. I asked the coordinator of the program about this,
and he told me that the list in question changes all the time and
that it is not nearly as serious matter as my supervisor claimed.
It should be noted that my supervisor is notoriously bad at
bureucratic/adminstrative university matters.

I suppose in all the above cases it is possible that
the explanation is something less malicious, such
as ignorance or misunderstanding.
In any case I am not in good terms with my supervisor
and I don't think we trust each other very much.

The dilemma is that the funding is good and secured, and that
the alternatives are abroad (and uncertain).

Could the situation be worth fixing?
Should I run for my life?
Is there a risk that if I try to change universities
he will refuse to write a recommendation letter or
write a mild one (he supervised my Master's thesis)?

Faculty are human beings. We might be given only one slot a year for a doctoral student to work with us and we thus invest (or we feel we invest) an incredible amount of time into the students in our lab. We aren't paid extra for this, which perhaps exacerbates the feeling of ownership.

While I don't know you or your advisor, I would find it easy to believe that his feelings were hurt by your desire to shift PhD programs. You are basically taking his investment in you (which you may feel is minimal, but he may feel is considerable) and throwing it in the trash.

Managing people's feelings are part of being a professional academic. You might as well practice being good at it.  Some day you'll be on the other end of the equation -- being told by a student that you had high hopes for that they no longer value working with you and that they want to move to a different program altogether. It's all part of the karmic cycle of being faculty.

Now, with that preamble out of the way. You need to let your advisor know that your shifting programs isn't seen as any rejection at all of his lab or his style of mentoring you, etc. etc. (even if part of this might be true); but rather that you are seeking something different at the other program. It's the stereotypical "It's not you, it's me" form of a break up.


Studying for the exam or for learning? Is there time later? I don't know if there's a correct answer to my dilemma, but I'd like the opinion of other people, in and outside the field, maybe older and more "experienced in life" than me. This is my situation

I am a graduate student in theoretical physics, I started my undergraduate courses in an extremely humble way, looking at professors and physicists in general as some kind of superhumans I would have been unable to match. Thus my only intent was to exploit them and get from them as much knowledge as I could, before coming back home and looking for a job, even totally unrelated with physics. So I always studied for passion, taking exams just to be able to be get the degree and then follow graduate courses to extort more knowledge to the professor. Without taking the degree my parents wouldn't have allowed me to stay here with no "tangible results" while receiving their financial help, so I couldn't just follow lectures and study without doing exams.

During the years I kept studying for passion, the results at the exams where excellent and I started considering the fact that maybe I wasn't that bad. Then I started to get closer and closer to professors and assistants, and my view of them changed, they became mere mortals, I thought I could fit there and actually become one them one day, maybe not a great one, but still a person who can be properly called a physicist.

That's the birth of my problem: I decided I can become one of them, I still know quite a lot excellences that I think I can't reach but I can definitely be an average guy in the field, in my mind that's a fact now, and I want to be that guy.

This semester I started graduate school. To stay in the field after it, you have to keep the highest marks and all sort of things in order to get the PhD and to keep working with people better than you who can teach you and make you a better scientist.

This is changing the way I study, I started studying for the exams, and not in the free and careless way I used to do before. A problem is that in Theoretical physics there are a lot of different approaches, styles, conventions and notations to do the same stuff. Two years ago I would have taken 3-4 very good books, my notes from lessons and then I would have mastered the subject in the best possible way for my level. At this point I would have taken the exam mainly careless of the mark, especially if positive. A negative one is a sign you probably didn't master the subject at least at the level required, so I would have cared about it.

That's what I'd like to do now, but I have to be realistic, graduate school is a little bit harder (at least for me) and doing that would require me a lot more time than it used before, slowing down the pace at which I take exams and making me finish graduate school later. But now I suppose I have to care about the exams and taking them as soon as I can. And if doing as I always did I don't master the subject good enough to take the highest marks? I could have prepared that exam in less time just focusing on it and take the good mark that would allow me, in future, to stay in the field.

I have a lot anxiety for the upcoming exams, they never scared me, but now they do.

I don't like the situation, but should I maybe just accept it, swallow the bitter bill, study just for the exams, stay in the field, getting the Phd, and then and only then studying what I want more freely?

In a line: Time and marks has never been a problem for me, now they are a burden.

PS:
I don't consider myself able to do decent research on my own staying out of the academic world, far from better minds I can get help from, so studying just for me and then doing my own research isn't an option here.

In my experience (which has been both as a student and a professor), the best way to do well in theoretical physics graduate school is to get a really good understanding of the material.  That will give you the best path forward.  If you try to memorize a bunch of recipes for solving all different kinds of exam problems, you are missing the forest for the trees.  Moreover, once you are done with courses and exams, you will need to put what you have learned to use in a research context.  In doing research, it's how well you really understand the underlying physics that is going to matter the most.

To solve particular problems in E&M or quantum mechanics, you may learn a lot of mathematical techniques, which can seem unrelated or disconnected at first.  However, many of them are really variations on the same underlying methodology.  For example, the solution of the Schroedinger equation using energy eigenstates is really a form of separation of variables, like that used in E&M.  Similarly, separation of variables in spherical coordinates is really the same as a multipole expansion.  The best way to see these connections is to work examples problems, and most good textbooks at the graduate level have problems that are specifically designed to illustrate the deeper connections between the different techniques you have learned.

So my advice to you (and to the students I teach) is to go for deeper understanding of the physics and why certain strategies work in certain situations.  If you master that, you will also learn how to apply various techniques as a necessary corollary.


Asking good questions in lab courses We are re-writing a bunch of our lab manuals for a first year circuits course.  We want to make a mix of focused questions ("what was the voltage across X?") and thought-provoking questions.

At the moment, the "thought provoking" questions in the current lab manuals are all variations on "comment on the differences between your pre-lab and your experiment".  These invariably get students to just chime off a litany of "errors in the equipment" without really thinking it through.  What I would like to see the students doing is a thorough comparison and making a value judgment, and mentioning their observations.

I feel that the issue I'm having is that the focused questions are way too specific (just write down the number) but useful for learning certain things like how to take measurements.  Thus they are valid questions if not outstanding ones.  The thought provoking questions, though, are vague and don't get us what we're really looking for.  Can anyone suggest some in-between questions that give students a hint at what we are looking for without just asking them out right?

I can tell you how I've been seeing this handled at the K-12 level.  (I don't know if this is a good way to do it at that level or at the college level.)

A math problem is posed.  Then the narrator outlines how a fictitious student, e.g. Marisol, reasoned.  Often, this reasoning is flawed.  Then the student is asked to evaluate Marisol's reasoning.


Ethics on shortening project in grant application to raise chances of success I am currently writing a PhD grant application, and I completed the first draft. The project is ambitious, but I and my advisors think feasible, but my advisors told me that it is quite dense and could be daunting for the grant reviewers, who may label it as unrealistic (which is a criterion of admission) and thus they may reject it.

I have no problem in working on simplifying my research project's description to make it more concise and readable, but my advisors suggested to strip half of the project, in order to raise the chances for it to be accepted. But they told me that of course, I can do the rest of the project too with the grant I will get, I just shouldn't mention that in the application.

Is it ethical and honest to "sell" a research project based on only half of its description and goals? Not only that, but also the logical reasoning and the bigger goal get totally lost, so are these worth losing against displaying a more realistic target? To me, it seems like reasoning that the end justifies the means...

I should mention that almost all the ideas for the research project are mine (the advisors helped me with naming the methods I will use, but the concepts, bibliography and goals are my own), and I was really motivated by the original whole project.

Yes, of course this should not be a problem.  The funding agencies want to see projects that are on a realistic scale.  If it will probably not be possible for you to achieve your main goals, given the time and money allotted to the project, that certainly makes it seem like a poor investment.  Conversely, the funders know that if you reach your projected goals early, you are going to use the remainder of your funding to extend the research further.  So you should try to set achievable goals in your proposal, but if you manage to exceed them, nobody is going to be unhappy.

Naturally, cutting major tasks out of your proposal is going to require some rethinking of the justification.  If the projects you think do have time to complete are less interesting by themselves than the later projects you will need to cut, they you still need to explain why they are important stepping stones toward the ultimately most important work (even if you won't be getting to that work yet).  It can be subtle to get this right, but think you would be wise to trust your advisor's judgement about how much to include in your proposal.


Should one put poster presentations on their CV in maths? I have presented posters at poster sessions at a few large conferences in pure mathematics. Is it worth putting these down on one's CV?

For context, I am a PhD student and have also given talks at several seminars and (smaller) conferences, so my CV is not especially in need of bulking up. Currently I do not have them on my CV. Moreover, my feeling is that posters in pure maths are not peer reviewed at all (in contrast to my impression of other areas), though I do not know this for definite.

Given that you are a PhD student (in math; I am also in math), I think you probably should put this on your CV.  Going to conferences shows some professionalism and interest, and giving poster presentations does too.  I don't want to suggest that this will be a key piece of information for your job search and/or early career, but...it certainly can't hurt.  You may want to take them out later when your CV has filled out in other ways.

The fact that they are not peer reviewed does not seem directly relevant to me, as long as you don't lump them together with publications (why would you?) or suggest in some way that they are something they were not.


Dealing with conflicting deadlines for positions It often happens to have misaligned deadlines. E.g. the deadline for accepting a temporary position (say, for a fixed duration research assistantship) is before, but not by much, than the interview for another position.

One cannot with confidence refuse the first option, due to the aleatory nature of the interview to come which offers a competing/somewhat better position.

What is a good way to deal with such situation?

Is it a good idea/possible/usual to ask an extension on the first deadline?

Should one attempt to accept the first with a warning that you have a pending interview at some later stage? Should this have been disclosed previously (but I guess this would have led to not receiving the offer in the first place)

How orrible and damaging is to take the interview and eventually bail on the first position after accepting?

Alternatively, it might be viable to go to the interview and state that you are currently busy and ask if it is possible to move the starting date of the RA after the first job is over?

The key here is to communicate. It is perfectly fine to let either institution know that there is another position that you are interested in. Then try to work something out (prolonged response time, shift of an appointment, etc.) Normally, people are quite willing to show some flexibility.

After all, nobody has an interest in hiring somebody that already regrets signing up before he/she even started.


What are ways for graduate students to make additional money? A friend of mine started a PhD program after finishing his diploma with the best possible grade.

Unfortunately the institute does not have a lot of resources so he is being paid from a project fund for 3 years for a part time job.

He needs the full time to work on his PhD thesis, however, so works half the time for free.

This and his friends starting to work in the industry for considerably more money made him feel left behind, questioning his choices and that he is being taken advantage of.

The project that is funding him is capped at 3 years, so he doesn't think he could work part time to supplement his income.

Are there any ways, scholarships for example, for these kinds of situations, or does my friend simply need to reconsider his choices and quit his PhD to go into industry as well.

The field is aero-space engineering.

Finish the PhD quickly.  People with PhDs are paid more than people without PhDs.  Becoming a PhD faster will get you to higher pay faster.  You will also keep that pay for longer, because you will work more years of your life if you finish your education sooner.  (note:  correlation between education and pay does not always imply causation; also in certain disciplines the pay is terrible both with and without a PhD)
Quitting the PhD to go into industry is a good choice if making money in the short term is the goal.
Switch to a university which provides decent funding.  This works best if you are early in your PhD.
Apply for outside fellowships.  However, keep in mind none of these pay that great.
Working a job unrelated to the PhD while enrolled will make the PhD take longer, delaying the time when you are paid more.  Do not do this if you can avoid it.


What is expected from a mathematics student bachelor's thesis? Well, I like maths, I like studying it and applying it. But I always feared the moment when I'd actually have to do a thesis. I'm in my third year of bachelor's studies. What I was wondering about is what kind of topic should I be looking for, for my thesis? It just is hard to me to see how I could actually research and contribute something to the field as a bachelor's student, as in something not trivial and that no one with much more education has come up with before.

From merely passing courses to coming up with something of mine is a huge leap for me, and I can't see how I can do something meaningful with the limited education I have. I'm feeling a bit like in maths, before say a phd there would be nothing new for me to come up with.
I am interested in cryptography, so I was given by one of my teachers a paper on elliptic cryptography that seemed interesting and a nice starting point. But now I realise I don't know where to head.

What is expected varies dramatically between different schools. In my experience, bachelor's projects in math can vary from trivial to nontrivial, and also from expository to original research, and the two scales are somewhat independent.  I have supervised both trivial and nontrivial expository papers, as well as several undergraduate original research projects.

The concerns you have about being able to do research are common, but they are somewhat misplaced. You can almost certainly do more research than you believe you can do.

Here is an anecdote. In the 1980s, U.S. math departments began to offer "Research Opportunities for Undergraduates" (REUs), summer programs for undergrads to work on research. At the time, these were viewed very skeptically by many mathematicians. I have heard personal anecdotes that the NSF and NSA gave out a few initial grants on a purely experimental basis, not expecting to see very good results. But the projects flourished! Now there are many math REUs, and grants that allow schools to offer them are very competitive. The math community went from doubting that undergraduate research was possible to embracing it. Many math faculty are now required, or at least strongly encouraged, to mentor in undergraduate research if they expect to get tenure. See "Undergraduate Research
in Mathematics Has Come
of Age" from Notices of the AMS, 2014.

The key thing is to find a good project - which means finding a good advisor. Your advisor is responsible for finding a question that is accessible to you, for pointing out the background that you need to learn, and for mentoring you as you go. You still need to work on the research - we won't do it for you - but we don't expect you to operate as if you have already earned a PhD.


As a PhD student, I want to limit myself to 40 hrs/week. How to maintain this boundary? So I am considering a PhD position as it appears one opened up and I was contacted about it by a professor. I'm not desperate to get a PhD. I think it's a nice goal and I am interested in the subject but its completion is not something I am dead set on.
I have read some horror stories about hours worked which I refuse to fall into. I plan on documenting my hours worked and limit it to about 9-5, mon-fri, basically view it as a very poorly paying industry job while maintaining time for personal projects/startup ideas.
So my question is if my advisor starts to get pushy and demand I spend more time working, what's the best way to respectfully maintain my boundaries?
I figure the worst that could happen is my advisor cuts my funding at which point I would terminate. Practically speaking my MS is complete so besides giving me a bad reference there's not a ton that could be done to me.

First of all, I know many PhD students (also myself) who did exactly that and finished their phd:
They worked 40 hours a week (or less), had a "normal life" , knew they would go to industry afterwards and wanted to learn/do research before (and stay connected to the system "university") because they loved uni/studying. It helps that in my country, studying and also titles are traditionally seen as something valuable (so there is no feeling of "only study if this aids you in your future job" in my country).
Some students also saw it as a fun experience to live abroad before returning home.
For me, it was similar: I didn't want to become a researcher because for me the postdoc life seems horrible -- but one can do a phd realtively risk-free. (Now I teach at university).
It is certainly not possible to work only 40h with all profs/in all subjects. Maybe also not in all countries (in which one do you want to study?) Probably it is also not possible with the most famous universities/professors.
I do recommend you to do good research on your prof what kind of person they are. Is it possible to do this kind of work with them or not?
I do think your attitude "I am not dead set on completing" is great. If the prof makes unreasonable demands (or other things like misconduct), just go. When they suggest longer working hours, tell them you don't want to do this unless absolutely necessary, if they keep insisting, just go.
Do keep your eyes open while doing the phd for skills you need in industry.
Note that there are even (incredible) people who finish a  PhD and have little kids (and some of them, no partner!)
(Of course, you might have two fewer papers afterwards for a good university career, but as this doesn't seem to be your goal..)


Are papers corrected by the publisher after acceptance? I am submitting the camera ready version of a paper for a conference in machine learning. The proceedings will be published by a well known publisher of the area. I have a question:

after the upload of the camera ready version, is the paper edited in some way by the publisher? Assume that I add typos or strange/not existing english words: is the paper going to be published with these errors, or there is someone-not-scientist who corrects the paper?

I cannot speak for that conference, but for all the conferences I happened to participate in my field (in a couple of cases as a member of the organizing committee) for camera-ready submissions, there were no corrections after the submission.

Usually, the editor of the proceedings puts together all the submitted papers and adds page numbers, table of contents, list of participants etc. That's it.


Advisor's wife is having a baby, should we be getting him something? My advisor's wife is having her first baby and he told us about it at our last lab meeting.  We understand that this will mean he might need extra time/patience as the big day approaches, but are we supposed to be doing anything else?  What is the etiquette for this as one of his students?  Should we be buying him some kind of baby gift?

A personal gift from you, as an individual student, is not expected, at least by European or North-American etiquette. It may be nice to pool with other students and group members to offer a small gift (either something for the baby, or something for the father). It'd be more customary to offer it after the baby is born, rather than now.

On the other hand, there is no strong expectation that you offer a gift. I.e., if you decide not to for any reason, he won't think it weird.


Attending a conference dinner I have registered for a conference, but there is additional registration fee for a conference dinner. Since I am from developing country and I haven't got a refund source, I find it expensive. Can I go to the restaurant and order something cheaper for myself?

You’d have to check with the conference organizers. However, usually when such dinners are organized, the conference has already contracted a reduced price per attendee in exchange for a volume order with a fairly limited menu selected in advance. You usually don’t get to order à la carte off the restaurant’s menu.


How to organize lots of assumptions/equations in a math paper? (I need to refer to them in my main theorem) I'm writing a paper. It has a lot of lemmas that are used to prove a theorem. I put those lemmas first and then my put theorem at the end.
In the lemmas, I introduce assumptions (they're displayed equations that I label so I can recall them later) that are needed to prove the lemma.
Then at the end of the paper, when I get to my theorem, I say "Let equations (1), (5), (21), (24) and (45) be true. Then this wonderful result is true: blah blah blah".
Now a referee for my paper said that it's not nice to do this because he/she has to go back to find (1) and then (5) and then (21) etc.
What's a good practice or the best practice for this? I could collect all of the assumptions right at the start and then refer to them separately later in the lemmas, which doesn't look nice, but then the theorem would look nice because I could say "Let equations (1)-(5) be true..." Another reason against doing this is that the assumptions are different in nature so it doesn't seem natural to put them together, especially if there are like 10 of them.
Does anyone have any advice or examples?

Possibly you could lessen the problem by also mentioning this in your introductory paragraphs, such as saying something along the lines of "Our main result, Theorem 6, will follow from (1), (5), (21), (24), and (45)." If the following applies, even better would be "... and (45), which have independent interest" (or "which are of", or "which we believe have", etc.).


What kind of work is expected in Masters dissertation for admission to PHD in Number Theory in Europe I am a Masters students in mathematics at a University in Asia.

I am applying to European Universities for Phd position in number theory.

I am interested in Analytic number theory and wanted to do my Masters dissertation in it, but no one in my university works in analytic number theory.

But fortunately, 1 professor from another Institute agreed to guide me . So, he has given me a research paper to study when I went to his institute to discuss with him but we couldn't discuss more about msc dissertation as he was very busy.

  My question
  1. what is exactly expected in a masters dissertation by European Universities in pure mathematics for admission to a PhD program?
  2. Am I expected to prove new results?
  3. If I am unable to prove new results then how many papers I am expected to read given that I have 4 months of semester for dissertation along with 3 compulsory courses?

What will European universities expect of me in my masters thesis?

I think the most important thing is that you do well by the standards of your own institution and that you get good letters of recommendation from professors there.

Note that standards for a masters degree vary around the world. In some places very little research is required and the degree is based mostly on coursework. The "thesis" might be little more than an intelligent summary of some subfield. Perhaps something like a literature review for a doctoral dissertation. Other places the requirements are more research directed. While published papers are required in some places, it isn't universal.

But, it is in the nature of mathematics that if a research program is strictly time limited then what can be expected is also, necessarily, limited. Some problems remain unsolved after 100 years. Insight can't be scheduled.

Then, the question is, how will an admissions committee in a given place, say Europe, evaluate candidates from such a wide variety of programs and backgrounds.

Normally, it isn't a question of counting papers. Normally, it isn't any single thing. The admissions committee will be looking at what they hope is a complete record that indicates both the necessary background and a high likelihood of success in a PhD program at their university. Lots of things contribute to that. If you have done a dissertation, it will be a plus. If you haven't, but have done other "interesting" and relevant things, then those things will be a plus.

In the US this would be much less of a problem, of course. But, flexibility is required everywhere or a university would be forced to exclude too many good candidates based on things that matter less than qualities such as demonstrated focus, hard work, preparation, and potential.

Do good work by the standards of your own university, even if it isn't yet in the narrowly focused field you want to study for the PhD. Develop some insight, generally, into mathematics and especially number theory. Get good letters of recommendation.


Is it acceptable to look up a student on the Internet to find out whether I have a conflict of interest? This is a follow-up to this question, which I ask due to debates arising in the comments. While I ask it in the first person to keep things simple, it is not based on a real experience of mine.

One of the students in my course shares a last name with another person, I depend on (say a supervisor or teacher of my own courses). This name is not very common, so I suspect that they are related and I have a conflict of interest.

It is acceptable that I look up the student’s name on the Internet to find out whether they are actually related? I am not talking about an intensive search here, just what is publicly and directly available on social media and similar.

My current thought about this is:

If I do not investigate or find out that they are related, I would report a conflict of interest.
If I find out that there is no connection, there is no conflict of interest and I save all the time of the above step.
If I do nothing, I may be accused of knowing (or suspecting) the connection and having a conflict of interest afterwards. So this is not an option for me.

I am mainly interested in the ethics of the situation. Assume that there are no official rules covering the situation. Some commenters on the question linked above considered this stalking.

First of all, let’s get something out of the way. You, and me, and everyone reading this, has on occasion googled the name of someone we know - a friend, colleague, student, professor or whatever - to see if we can find out more about them. Some of us do it more frequently than others, and some of us are fine doing it out of sheer curiosity while others feel a need to rationalize their behavior with arguments about trying to avoid conflicts of interest... but all of us do it. So, if it’s “stalking”, then everyone’s a stalker, and the word “stalking” ceases to have any meaning. Which would be a shame, since there are in fact genuine stalkers out there, and it’s sadly necessary to have a word to describe their behavior.

Now, getting to your specific question: you ask about ethics, but this simply isn’t an ethics issue. You can ethically google whomever you want whenever you want. It’s what you do with the information you obtain once you have it that may or may not be ethical. It may also be inadvisable to google your students, or generally to develop the habit of googling lots of people, for reasons unrelated to ethics. Personally I try to keep my people-googling to a minimum so that I don’t walk around feeling that I’m a nosy person who gets into other people’s business that doesn’t concern me. (I also worry that I might find something I would be better off not knowing, and then I’ll have to either pretend that I don’t know it, or admit to the person that I know it because I googled them - pretty awkward either way...). In any case, I don’t think it’s unethical, and if you feel like you have some good reason to do it, I think it’s perfectly fine.


What is the right place to acknowledge another (simultaneous) paper with the same result? I'm refereeing a paper for a math journal at the moment.  As happens fairly often, some other folks came up with basically the same result independently at the same time, I think the manuscripts showed up on Arxiv a few days apart.

The authors acknowledge this (and of course this is perfectly normal and won't affect my recommendation on whether or not to accept the paper), but they do it at the very end of a long-ish paper as part of the acknowledgements.  This is not unusual but it strikes me as ungracious and an unnecessary hangover from the pre-digital-publishing era when these coincidences were usually addressed by notes added in proof.  Should I ask them to move it up to, say, the end of the introduction, where it is more likely that readers who might be interested in the other paper will actually see it?

Τhe sections of Introduction and Related Work of a paper serve the purpose to inform the reader exactly about related results/attempts/techniques etc in order to put their result in the correct perspective. As such, the "other" result should be mentioned and cited there, preferably with a direct comparison of the possibly different techniques involved. Anything else, could be potentially misleading and/or suspicious and should be avoided.


How to recruit a PhD student without a strong connection to teaching? As a postdoc, I'm considering to apply to research-only positions (for instance in a research institute, and not a university), and I know that one of the responsibilities of being a researcher is to recruit PhD students.

I personally only know people (including me) who have been "recruited" for a PhD by one of their teacher (usually at Master level), and so I wouldn't be sure of how to proceed in order to recruit a PhD student as a young researcher:

Are there some specialized websites where to post ads?
Is it better to contact some teachers to see if they have good students to recommend?

Moreover, in this case, which criteria can one use? If I were to teach, I would have a whole semester to know a student, and to decide whether it would make a good fit for a PhD, but how to do that during a one-hour interview?

PhD studentships are quite often advertised like "normal" jobs, i.e. on general job boards/recruting websites. If you have contacts, by all means use them. As for evaluating the candidates, similar guidelines as for evaluating applicants for any jobs apply. I don't think there's a one-fits-all answer. Note that the hiring process may also depend on what institution you'd be working for. They might have an HR department that screens/selects the candidates.


What should I do if I've enrolled in a badly organized course? I am nearly finished with my master's degree. Recently, I enrolled in a required course that is a terrible mess. I'd like to wait another year, and take it again with an instructor who has their stuff together and will actually answer student questions and prepare lessons that match the exams. Delaying graduation seems preferable to wasting more time on this course.

Some classmates gave the teacher what I believe are reasonable suggestions, but the instructor just gave excuses.
I looked all through the course catalog, but only see policies that assume students are the problem-makers. For instance, after one week into the term, students get no tuition refunds and a "W".
I'd rather not create problems for the instructor, who is new to this job.

Are there any steps I can take to clear myself of this mess?

I have seen cases where the instructor is given a module just two weeks before it starts, has no time to prepare, and might not have the proper background to teach it.

You might consider that the instructor is doing his/her best with what they have to work with. You might consider talking with the instructor to see what they believe you should be doing in order to succeed in the course. If they say "read the book" then you should read the book and study with little support.

Not all instructor are good and some are good but in a bad situation (that is, a situation not of their own making but rather one forced upon them). Either way, talk with them and find out what you can do to succeed.


What are the risks associated with taking a semester off while doing a Master's degree? I am curious about this -  I'm currently undergoing a Masters degree and am almost finished.

I finished the coursework, however I still have the thesis project plus the thesis. And it's looking unlikely for the Spring semester.

My prof is a little bit agitated, but i'm just strapped for time. I'm working full-time and school is simply becoming second-fiddle to work. I come home from work, and if I'm lucky I can spend 20 minutes on school material. Weekends are tough also, as I travel to meet family.

However, I feel that taking a semester off only hurts my overall situation. Because even being registered for 1 hour of thesis credit is a sort-of motivation for me. I.E "OK i'm paying money so I better get my money's worth"

However I see the other argument which is "well if you knowyou can't graduate this semester then why not just do the work without paying.. then register  the following semester?"

But I am worried that there'll be some hidden snag associated with re-enrolling?

Does anybody have advice/suggestions? Intuitively i'd rather pay-up and at least stay enrolled, but I caan sympathize with my prof's view.

I know several people who have deferred their degree's at all levels for one reason or another.  In all these cases, the student has spoken not just to their professor but to the relevant department admin person and it's been pretty straight forward to enrol and pick up from where they left off.  None of them have suffered from taking time out.

I think you need to ask yourself a couple of questions so you can figure out which is the best solution for you.  Here's a few that spring to mind....

Is taking a semester out really going to solve your time problem?  If you will have the same issue again the next semester you enrol in then taking time out is probably a little pointless.

If you take time out, do you think you will stay motivated enough to re-enrol again?

If you stick with it this semester, what can you do to generate more time?  You mentioned you travel to see family at weekends - is this something you can stop doing for the semester or is visiting an absolute necessity?


How do the admission committees look at an applicant's profile if he has not yet figured out his area of research? I want to go for masters admissions (and a PhD at some point too). The problem is I am not sure where exactly my research interests lie. As of now, I have almost equal research experience and publications in distributed systems and computer vision and I'm equally interested in both.

In my personal statement, I can't quite figure out if I should stick with one of them or simply state that my domain will be one of these two.

How well will the committee see this issue if I mention both?
Will it be fine if I stick to distributed systems and yet mention that I have research interests in computer vision too?

In CS in the US, you should be fine however you state it. There might be a few exceptions, but as long as the university has a large enough faculty to support both of your interests they will likely be happy to take you other things being equal. The MS level still has a lot of room for "seasoning" and learning what you want to do. There is coursework available in which you can explore each of these more deeply. There is the opportunity to meet faculty who might impress you as being good to work with in one or the other of your interests.

Personally, I see little value in "nailing down" a future too early. There are a lot of variables and there is still time to explore. You don't want to choose arbitrarily and later suffer "buyers remorse".

Note that you will probably be assigned an advisor when you enter. Treat that as a temporary assignment. If you learn you aren't interested in that person's research (or personality) you can (and should) ask another professor to take you on after you learn more about the faculty.

In my own case (long ago) in mathematics I entered interested in both Topology and Analysis. But I don't think the university even knew of that. Once I got there the first courses helped me decide.

There are places, however, and fields, in which you need to be hired into a specific lab in order to be accepted. In such places you need to be "pretty interested" in what that lab does, since you will be participating. It isn't impossible to change in such a situation, but it is harder.


Delayed manuscript publication by publishers I am a PhD candidate in biology. I have a paper that I need to be published for me to graduate. It was accepted for publication in November 2017. I returned corrected proofs in December. In January the production team asked about "problems to be fixed" before final production and I immediately responded. Now, in February, the paper is still not available online.

I've noticed that there are papers in the same journal which were only accepted in the last days of January and now are already available online with pages and volume. I also noticed that there are papers still 'in-press' for a very long time already.

My concern and curiosity is why there are articles stayed as in-press (corrected proof without bibliographic information) for a long period of time while there are newly accepted paper automatically out with complete bibliographic information. for example below is two paper:

In-press until present: Received 6 May 2017, Revised 7 October 2017, Accepted 10 October 2017, Available online 16 October 2017.

Available online with complete bibliographic information: Received 23 August 2017, Revised 15 November 2017, Accepted 18 November 2017, Available online 6 December 2017.

What may be the reason for this?

Would it be right if I email the production team of the journal if it is possible to release my paper since I am waiting for it for my graduation application this semester?

Unless your paper was intended as part of a special issue, you absolutely should contact the journal to inquire about why the publication has not yet been published. In this digital age, three months is more than enough time to get a paper through the post-acceptance pipeline.

In your first email, I would just ask about the delay in publication. If you do not get a satisfactory response, then I would escalate and mention the need for the paper to be published to graduate.

Also, I would check with your school about the need for formal publication to occur. In many instances, an acceptance memo is sufficient.