Applying for postdoc in a mathematics department where no one has similar research interests I'm a PhD student in mathematics, working in a quite unpopular field (recursion theory). As I'm now applying for postdoctoral positions in the US, I've encountered the following problem: The number of mathematics departments in the US having notable researchers in my field is quite small. As I'm quite flexible with my research interests, I added departments with researchers in related fields (such as model theory and set theory) to my list. But even then, there are less than 20 relevant departments across the US to which I can apply.
I heard that in order to maximize the chances of getting a postdoctoral position, mathematicians often apply to 50 positions or even more. I'd like to do the same thing, but I have some questions about it:

Are there any arguments against applying for postdoc positions in math departments where your research interests are not even remotely represented?
What should I do in order to increase my chances of getting a postdoc position in such a department? More specifically, what should I write in my cover letter (where applicants usually mention relevant faculty members, and sometimes also explain why they fit the position)? Should I contact a faculty member? What should I write to him/her? Any other useful advice?
Assuming that I have a strong application, do I have a reasonable chance of getting a position in such departments?
Bottom line question: Should I invest time and effort applying for positions in such departments?

I sympathize with your situation - recursion theory as a whole is essentially the size of a sub-subfield in other areas of mathematics. Of the relatively small number of U.S. departments with logic programs, many are also extremely selective, and so getting a postdoc in any area of logic is challenging.  It certainly cannot hurt to apply to every program with a logic group that is hiring a postdoc, although if they are not looking for a recursion theorist this year your chances will be much lower.

On the other hand, the recursion theory community has at least one advantage due to its small size: many of the researchers in the U.S. know each other, and know each others' students.  I have always thought it is a friendly community, at least compared to the rumors about some other fields.

Two more things that are also worth note.

If you cannot get a true "postdoc", it is sometimes possible to find at least a temporary position at an institution with a logic program. Some of the logic departments are quite large, and may have another round of hiring for instructors later in the spring or summer. So, if you don't have a postdoc offer by the expected date, make sure you reach out (and/or ask your advisor for advice) to schools where you might be able to work while you apply again next year. It is particularly helpful in this case to try to get more research done in the spring, before you graduate, to strengthen your applications for the following year. I find it is always hard to get research done in the first fall at a new institution, while also applying for jobs.
Depending on the type of department you are looking for, you may want to consider broadening your search to less-famous schools. If you are interested in both excellent teaching and excellent research, by doing some internet legwork you can often find schools that are not prestigious but happen to have strong research programs (relative to the kind of school). These schools are often less picky about the "area" you work in, and you might be able to sell yourself as a discrete mathematician or mathematical computer scientist. Ironically, you sometimes have more research flexibility at these schools, for various reasons, which is a good thing if you are a recursion theorist. So look for choice tenure-track openings as well as postdocs. Just be well prepared when you give an interview - tenure track interviews are not like postdoc interviews.


Finding Mistake After a Conference Proceedings Do conferences such as IEEE allow authors to change/update a published conference paper due to some minor issues and mistakes such as equation caption errors or footnote mistakes that do not alter or affect the actual paper's data and information?

If yes, what would be the procedure?

Regards.

Obviously you cannot change the printed version of a conference paper as soon as it has been printed. Whether or not it is possible to change the online version (or to add an errata list) depends on the publisher. Check the publisher's web site and/or contact their author support by e-mail.


What are reasons to update your website and CV frequently, when not on the job market? When I was looking for jobs, my website and Curriculum Vita (CV) were more or less updated in real-time, since I needed to make sure recruiting committees were aware of my latest work. Since landing a position, I have become a lot more lazy about putting up my latest papers on the website/CV. I was wondering if there are any compelling negative consequences to my tardiness. For context, I am in a field where everyone uses the arXiv, so I would imagine anyone interested in my latest work will just look there.

A CV in academia is useful to you and others in many different contexts.  Applying for jobs is a very small component of that.
CVs are useful to you and others. Keeping an academic CV up-to-date will often make your life easier, other people's lives easier, and may also open up opportunities for you.

Here are a few ways that having an up-to-date CV is helpful:

Communicating achievement to others: The decision of others in relation to you may be influenced by perceptions of your experience and achievements. Your CV documents this (although google scholar profiles and personal websites can also serve this purpose). There are many examples that could be given: (a) another academic is working out whether to invite you onto a paper and wants to understand your expertise, (b) potential phd students are looking for a supervisor and are trying to understand whether you've supervised before or how much and how well you are publishing, (c) your colleagues at your own university are trying to understand what you do.
Grants: When you apply for grants, you will need to incorporate information about your track-record and achievements. Your CV can be an up-to-date source of this information. Furthermore, you might be part of a grant that others are leading. The grant will often require a lot of information about the investigators on the grant. These other people may be able to fill out relevant sections directly from your CV.
Annual performance review: If you have an annual performance review, it is often helpful to share your current CV.
Internal promotion: Systems for promotions and levels vary throughout the world. In Australia/NZ/UK you typically have levels A to E. If you want to move up a level, you need to document your achievements. Having an up-to-date CV can help.
Course accreditations and related matters: In some cases, your department or university might be seeking accreditation as an educational provider in a particular area. These often require documenting number of staff, educational attainment of staff, evidence of research active status.
Annual or other reviews of programs: In addition to performance reviews, programs, larger research groups, and departments often compile documents reviewing annual (or other timeframes) achievements (e.g., publications, grant funding, outreach, etc.). Administrative people can go to your CV to get this information. Or it may be that you open up your own CV and copy and paste a bunch of things.


Is it considered misconduct to omit a university that you were enrolled in, but didn't attend any classes at, on graduate application? Is it considered an academic misconduct to skip listing a university's name in the graduate application, in which somebody got admission but never attended any class/lab/test/exam whatsoever and as a result his transcript is shown failed in all courses in one semester?

Whether someone has performed "academic misconduct" is something that a specific body of people must decide upon using both general principles of academic ethics and the specific rules of the academic body in question. It depends at least a bit on who is doing the considering.  So it seems better to think in terms of whether certain actions could reasonably or likely be construed as academic misconduct by certain parties.

When it comes to graduate admission, the relevant academic parties are the admissions committee and the authorities (faculty, administration...) of the institution.  It depends a bit on what the application asks for.  If you are asked to supply all college/university level transcripts (a common request) and intentionally omit some, then certainly you are behaving dishonestly in the usual sense.  Whether the dishonesty will be construed as academic misconduct if discovered is up to the relevant academic parties to decide, but: yes, there is a real risk of that happening.

You make it sound like "somebody" got a bit of a raw deal by getting failing grades for classes that were never attended whatsoever.  If somebody never showed up at all, then it seems like there is a good case that the enrollment was some kind of misunderstanding and that grades should not have been given.  Somebody should seek to fix that with the institution that issued the failing transcript.  It will probably be at least a certain amount of fuss -- e.g. contacting every instructor to get them to confirm that the student was a pure no-show.  If somebody's best efforts do not suffice to resolve the question, the ethical thing to do -- and the path which nullifies any claims of academic misconduct -- is to include the transcript together with an explanation of what happened, possibly along with parties to contact for additional corroboration.


Scientific paper format / layout If you were to write a scientific paper which must include a section on 'Basic definitions', would you put this section after the Abstract and the Introduction, or before the Introduction?

What do you think about this layout?

Abstract
Introduction
Basic Definitions
Some chapters on the work / Methods used
Review of the literature
Results
Conclusion

Now about "introduction and definitions".

Unless you really cannot do this, the introduction should in the ideal case be more accessible (say, understandable not only to an absolute specialist in your subfield). Even more importantly, the introduction should motivate the problem and present an informal overview.

This is introduction:

  The order of the sepulation of sepulka is a well-known and important problem in Sepulka Sciences. We suggest an ordering of sepulation that increases the performance of almost each sepulka bundle.

This is main paper text:

  Let ∆ be the main sepulation index of the current sepulka bundle, orderded lexicographically [Lem, 1957]. We denote with ∂µ the difference of sepulation gradient for...


Have there been famous/documented cases where people die from working too hard in the lab? Have there been famous/documented cases where people die from working too hard in the lab, similar to this and this in finance/marketing?

The term that is typically used for this is karoshi (unsurprisingly, a Japanese term).  To the best of what I have been able to determine, there have not been any cases where an academic at a university has been diagnosed as having died through Karoshi.  There are some significant deaths, however, of people in industry who could certainly be considered as being part of the broader community of scientists, notably a lead engineer at Toyota and more than one engineer in Taiwan.

Note, however, that there is also a strong cultural component, both in the manner of death and the classification of that death.  An American, for example, might be less likely to die quietly at their desk and more likely to commit suicide or engage in criminal activity (see, for example, the tragedies in the development of the Apple Newton).  Moreover, since karoshi is not generally recognized in American culture, deaths that might be attributed to it in a Far East nation would likely be blamed on the proximate cause of death instead.


How to make data management plans machine readable? More and more research projects are now required to have a data management plan, sometimes already upon submission of the proposal, sometimes early into the then funded project.

These plans lay out the kinds and amounts of data to be generated by the project, as well as information about their storage, archiving, accessibility and related questions. There are also software management plans or more generic project management plans, which serve similar purposes.

A big issue with these plans — which so far are usually just text documents, and often not even public ones — is monitoring compliance, i.e. if statements made in the plan have been followed up by appropriate action.

I think this problem could be eased substantially if these plans were both public and machine readable, which would also allow them to be used for things other than monitoring compliance, e.g. as a discovery tool — imagine you could subscribe to the feed of all data of kind X acquired from sources of kind Y.

What I mean by machine readability is expressed quite well in the introductory part of the Wikipedia article "Machine-readable data":

  "Machine-readable data is data (or metadata) which is in a format that
  can be understood by a computer. There are two types; human-readable
  data that is marked up so that it can also be read by machines
  (examples; microformats, RDFa) or data file formats intended
  principally for processing by machines (RDF, XML, JSON).

  Machine readable is not synonymous with digitally accessible. A
  digitally accessible document may be online, making it easier for a
  human to access it via a computer, but unless the relevant data is
  available in a machine readable format, it will be much harder to use
  the computer to extract, transform and process that data."

Any advice on how best to go about achieving machine readability for data management plans?

I am aware of https://dmponline.dcc.ac.uk/ and https://dmp.cdlib.org/ but as far as I can tell, their machine readability is limited to non-existant.

I think that one of the optimal solutions to the problem of "achieving machine readability for data management plans" could be as simple as specifying procedures of data conversion from source formats (human-readable or semi-machine-readable) into desired machine-readable formats for further data analysis. Those procedures might be coded in natural language instructions or, alternatively and preferably, via algorithms for benefits of automation and reproducible research.

Conversion from machine-readable formats to human-readable is an optional step, based on projects' requirements (while optional, this is a typical step for most projects, implemented in their reporting phase). The types and details of data conversion functionality IMHO obviously depend on projects' specifics and, therefore, should be determined and specified on a project by project basis.


My advisor talks about me to his colleagues in their native language I am in a country where English is not the native language. I have some proficiency in that language but none of the team members know this since I have always communicated with them in English.

Recently, I have been struggling with certain tasks. During a lunch, my advisor was talking about my progress to his colleagues in their native language, and how I was unable to get some basic facts correct. What he said is technically true but I feel insecure to be exposed like that and humiliated that he is willing to talk about me behind my back.

The idea of responding in their native language came across my mind, but confrontation is too scary to me.

Without knowing more about what was actually said, or the tone of it, I would dismiss it as your advisor concerned about how best to advise you. I think these sorts of conversations are relatively common when a prof, especially an inexperienced one, has a problem helping a student that s/he can't resolve.

Unless you think they were joking about you or implying you weren't adequate to the task, you should probably just forget it. But discussing your troubles with colleagues can be a valid way for the professor to actually find the best way to be of assistance.

There are worse interpretations, of course, but don't assume the worst unless it is really necessary.

I've had students, actually, who missed some essential things in their early education. They can be hard to advise since there isn't time for them to go back and fill in those gaps. It is an important problem.


Is there a difference between a (under)graduate and honours studies - also concerning thesis? Is there a difference between an undergraduate and an honours thesis? I came across the latter during some online research on US colleges and it seems to me that honours are only known in those institutions. Is this correct?

Moreover, it seems that some colleges offer normal undergraduate as well as undergraduate honours studies/classes/degrees. I heard that the difference is that the latter have to write a thesis while the former seemingly don't. Is this correct and are there other differences?

Does this separation also exist on the Master's level and graduate schools?

Just about every possibility exists somewhere in the United States. There is no one answer.

Some colleges or universities do not require any type of thesis for an undergraduate degree. Others may require students in an honors program only to complete a thesis or project. Yet others may require all students to complete a thesis or project for an undergraduate degree.

At the graduate level, there are research master's degrees and non-thesis/course-only master's degrees. The latter may still have a project or paper. A research master's degree is usually for those who are going on to a Ph.D.


Own Idea vs Professors Project for Masters Thesis? I'm in a masters program where a thesis is required. I haven't officially started my thesis yet but I wrote a work-in-progress paper for an IEEE conference. The topic is on a mechanism I thought of to prevent unauthorised account use using AI. I found 2 professors to give me some feedback and they became co-authors on the paper. Though the feedback was mainly related to writing as neither had any background in security, though they are familiar with AI related topics.

Now that the work-in-progress paper has been submitted I received an email from one of the professors asking if I wanted to collaborate with him on a project. He mentioned he doesn't have funding for it now but he just applied. The topic is related adaptive learning systems making use of reinforcement learning. It seems many of the professors in my department are interested in how AI and computer systems can be used to improve education. Where as no one is working on anything security related.

I'm trying to decide if I should work on the project proposed by the professor for my thesis or the original idea I wrote about in my work-in-progress paper. I'm more interested in my own idea, but I'm thinking working on the other idea might give me access to research assistant funding (though this is not a sure thing). Is it normal to take on topics popular in your specific school's department?

Pursuing a topic beyond a school's core competencies (e.g., security) might result in worse supervision. For instance,

Due to the inability of staff to provide the required guidance. That said, at your level, competent staff should be capable of supervising you.
Poorly aligned student-supervisor interests. (Ill-alignment shouldn't matter in theory, but does in reality.)

These risks can be mitigated against, e.g., by finding an external supervisor/mentor.

Beyond your short-term goal (getting a degree), you should consider the longer-term: What do you want to do next? If you want to entertain the idea of pursuing a research career in security, then pursuing a thesis on the topic will help you decide whether that's the right path and will help you get on that path.


What incentives do academics have to write text books? As noted in this question, academics should write research articles. In many fields, these are way more important than books. It's original research that counts for getting a PhD position, a post-doc, a tenure-track position, grants, etcetera. Writing a good textbook about an advanced subject is very difficult and very time-consuming. Its advanced nature means it won't sell many copies, so the money can't be much. Then why is anybody writing advanced scientific textbooks at all? What are the incentives?

Another reason to write an advanced text is that you have developed a body of research around a topic, and it's stabilized enough that you can present the material in a structured form. The incentive here is that the distilled understanding helps you understand your field, and it helps others work in the area as well. In addition, a well-written book can get you lots of citations, impact, and recognition (the same kinds of things you get with papers, but possibly even more).


How to decide what writing sample to include in a phd application? I'm finishing my MA in about a month and I'm thinking of applying to a Phd program in the US (political science). My GPA is as high as it gets and my recommendation letters will be great but I'm worried about my SOP and my writing sample.

I don't know how to choose a good research topic...I feel like my interests are too broad and I don't know what topics could actually work...My MA thesis was closely linked to sociology and my preferred Phd field is International Relations...should I change the direction completely and go with something more orthodox for this field?

Regarding the required writing sample...I wrote a 200-pages-long research paper on collocation of recent social movements and included an original case-study. It's written in English so theoretically it should work but my professor never corrected a single word...which is disconcerting...how do I know it's actually good? Part of the problem is that I'm studying in Italy so I can't find a professor who understands the American Phd application process or anything of the sort.

Any suggestion would be highly appreciated since I'm navigating this application process on my own and I'm afraid I'm running in circles...

I think most of the other advice given above is sound. Let me add two things that I've noticed in reading work by first and second year european grad students who are transitioning into the US system.

The paper you send for a writing sample needs to have a clearly identified thesis in the first or second paragraph of the paper. If you can't think of something better write, "In this paper I am arguing that . . . " Many of my european colleagues want the thesis to emerge slowly, reflectively, at the very end of the paper after all the scholarly qualifications and so on have been properly put forward. Don't do that for an American audience. Tell us up front what you are trying to say.

Second, hire a native english speaker to proofread your paper for you and really work on grammar, spelling, idiom, and style. Writing well is really hard and it's the primary job you'll have as an academic. (Your writing in the question is excellent. I'm just saying having somebody who really knows English double-check it.)  Coming from Italy, I don't think most admissions committees are going to hold language against you constantly. It is easy to create a subconscious impression of carelessness with casual mistakes in the language. For something as important as getting into a good grad school it's worth spending some money to get this part right.

Good luck.


How to deal with a busy research partner? I'm working on a research, and I have a partner. We both should be working on the same tasks, but he's very busy, as he has teaching load and I don't, so I end up doing most of the work myself.
This is not a big problem to me, but my advisor sometimes blames us for delayed results or little achievements, and I find it not fair to be blamed because he expects an outcome of two when there's actually only one working, and I get embarrassed to tell him that it was only me, because my partner is actually also my friend.

How does one deal with this situation? I know my partner is very capable, this is not an incompetence claim, it's just he has little time compared to me.

As the comments have said, you need to go with your partner and explain this to your adviser face to face. It's not an incompetence issue and you need to make sure that you make that clear to your partner - it's a workload balance issue.

At the end of the day though, there are only two options available:

Either your partner reduces their outside workload or,
Your adviser reduces your workload to account for it.

This is something that needs to be decided between the three of you.

However, I'd strongly advise that after you've had the talk, that you put in place a very rigorous project plan for your next tasks with a strict timeline. Often, this situation ends up just repeating itself as your colleague says 'oh I'll find more time' or your advisor says they'll slacken off but not much happens, so a rigorous project plan helps highlight if the talk has worked or not.


How to revise/resubmit a rejected article taking an unorthodox view This question is similar to Overcoming Fear of Rejection, but not the same.

My experience in academia was teaching Computer Science for four years at a mostly liberal arts college, and that was 30 years ago.
I frankly found the world of work to provide more challenging intellectual stimulation, at least in the sort of practical issues I cared most about.

There are highly technical issues in software development that I and other practitioners have discovered that are quite orthogonal (to say the least) to the trend of publishing in those areas.
So when I try to publish it is hard to build much of a bibliography.
When I submit (through an online submittal process) I tend to get responses that vary in quality, but are generally negative.

I am tempted to revise, in such a way as to address the concerns raised by the better quality reviews.
I could buttress the claims with stronger mathematical arguments, but it's hard to tell if this would make the paper more or less approachable.

Then there's the question whether I should resubmit to the same journal.
There don't really seem to be any others at the same level of relevance to practitioners.

Sorry if this is a noobie question.

I certainly can't speak for all reviewers, and what I'm saying might be true only for me, but when I review a paper, I try to ask myself three questions: is it interesting for the venue? is it correct? is it improving the state-of-the-art? I need to be convinced that all answers are "yes", and the burden of convincing me is on the authors.

A problem I've seen with some papers is that they focus mostly on showing the correctness of their approach, and at first glance, it seems to be the case with the paper you're describing.  Showing the interest of the approach is tricky, because often the authors are convinced it's interesting (otherwise, they probably wouldn't work on it), and they to think that everybody else understand why it's interesting. Similarly, explaining why it's improving the state-of-the-art might be tricky, especially for novel approaches, but it's necessary to explain why other approaches won't work. You have the right to write: "To the best of our knowledge, this approach has never been used to tackle this particular issue", but then, as a reviewer, I need to be convinced that your knowledge is good enough to make this kind of claim.

Basically, in your situation, what you need is a compelling example (e.g., a situation/use-case where your approach is either the only viable one, or where you can show with experiments or formal proofs that yours is better than others). If you can focus on that point, then you can probably resubmit it to the same journal, but it's possible that you will get some of the same reviewers you had the first time.

Another solution could be to publish the paper first as a technical report (e.g., on arXiv), try to submit it a short version without the proofs and technical details to a specialised workshop, where maybe you can get interesting feedback from the community (for instance, some recent related work), and then use that feedback to improve the paper.


How to deal with particles in a last name in a reference list Let's say I am citing a person called Emilia Di Martino. How would she go in my MLA reference list?

Possibilities I can think of:

Martino, Emilia di.
Martino, Emilia Di.
Di Martino, Emilia.

And how would I refer to her work inline?

One thing to keep in mind is that there is a substantial difference in several continental languages between uppercase and lowercase versions of a last name: it is wrong to write "de Martino" if the person's last name is normally written "De Martino." This is a historical artifact, where the use of the capital letter indicates nobility, while the lowercase letter denotes a more traditional relationship. Similar rules apply to "von" in German and "van" in Dutch, but not to "de" in French or Spanish.
Therefore, when capitalized, the particle should always be treated as part of the last name. If lowercase, you can treat it as a suffix that goes after the first name. The exception are names like "de Gaulle" where "de" is followed by a one-syllable name.
So, it's:

Beethoven, Ludwig van
Clausewitz, Carl von
de Gaulle, Charles
Di Martino, Emilia
Martino, Emilia di
Maupassant, Guy de
Van Allen, James

My source is the MLA Handbook.


Can I directly start a French Masters 2 with a UK 4 year integrated masters? I'm currently in my fourth and final year of my UK masters degree in Physics. The course is accredited as an MSci, equivalent to doing a 3 year Bsc followed by a 1 year Msc.

I'd like to apply to study nuclear engineering at Universite Paris-Saclay in France. The masters available there consists of a Masters 1 and a Masters 2, 2 successive years of study. I'm trying to find out if it's possible to start directly in the Masters 2, but it's difficult to figure out what exactly my MSci will be equivalent to. The course states it requires a Masters 1 or equivalent, but with no information on what it considers sufficient.

Under the bologna process, the UK masters is equivalent to the French (nominally), so in theory I'll already be above the required level.

Does anyone know of a student starting a French masters in the second year?

Yes, your integrated masters from the UK counts as a "Masters Européen"in France.

Source: I directly began a PhD immediately after finishing my MPhys in the UK, at Paris-Saclay, last year. If I was able to do that, I have doubts (although it's possible) that you would have trouble doing a M2 here.

As others have said, and as the other answer said, you should contact the university / admissions team as a first contact, to verify this. During the admission process you'll have to send your transcripts, and so in the end, they'll decide this for themselves. If it's anything like my admissions process, you will also have to send your MPhys dissertation, because it proves that you have done M2-equivalent work and a project with a significant time commitment and research result.

However, I'd be very surprised if you had any problem.


Staying in same lab for a while after finishing PhD? I will soon defend my dissertation and been thinking on what do next after successful completion.

My situation is probably a little different than for most PhD students, since I have been working on my PhD while working full time in industry as engineer (for last 3 years). So, I have no urgent need to look for a new job after completing my PhD, unless I want a promotion (in industry) or to commit fully to research (which I been wanting to do).

If I put off doing postdoc or switching from industry to research, how would it look for me to continue working in the same lab, with same professor(s), to finish some unfinished projects or possibly get involved in recently awarded projects of my professor(s) (advisor and co-advisor)?

The original intent of the post-doc, in addition to giving a young PhD time to establish a solid publication record, was to learn and develop a new skill, technique, or research area. A few decades ago, it was not uncommon for newly minted PhDs to go straight into a TT position; today, its quite rare, making the post-doc almost assumed, and many do elect to stay in the same environment.

In my opinion, for someone who aspires to an academic career, the best post-doc is completed elsewhere: it extends one's education beyond their PhD studies into a new (but probably related) domain, builds on their research toolbox, and introduces one to a new way of thinking (avoiding so-called 'intellectual inbreeding').

However, there's nothing inherently wrong with doing a post-doc in the same lab, except that it usually doesn't offer a whole lot of opportunity to learn something new. I can think of several individuals who landed a great TT position after a post-doc in the same lab. But do consider that doing a post-doc somewhere else might make you more marketable in the long run.


Should I avoid using personal pronouns in an abstract? I was somewhat surprised when reviewing the Full Paper Template from the Journal of Computational Chemistry, which states that the abstract text should contain "no personal pronouns".  I have seen many articles which go against this and even several that have been published in this journal recently (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jcc.24217/full,  http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jcc.24225/full, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jcc.24252/full).

In this specific case, I plan to follow whatever instructions the editor provides.  In general though, is it better to avoid using personal pronouns in the abstract for scientific writing?

The requirement you have found refers to the text of the graphical abstract, not to the textual abstract. A graphical abstract is an image with little text: thus, it is reasonable to have stricter requirements, with respect to standard abstracts, on what is allowed or not.

See also this page on graphical abstracts.

As for standard abstracts, I quickly checked a few author guides from IEEE, IOP and AIP and none of them seem against the usage of personal pronouns in abstracts. Also The Chicago Manual of Style, 16ed, does not mention anything about the usage of pronouns in abstracts. I've used the pronoun "we" in several abstracts and no one objected.

In general, the main requirement is that the abstract should be self-contained: no citations (if really necessary they should be written inline), or references to figures and tables.


Saying "After doing this work we learned..." in a paper I have seen several math papers which end with a statement like "After completing the research in this paper, we learned that all the results are already known."  I wonder what are the situations in which such a comment is appropriate.

Such statements usually sound lazy to me, as though the author opted not to do a literature search at the outset, and after learning of previous work the author opted not to edit the paper (or withdraw it from submission for publication) beyond adding one sentence.  Putting the comment at the end of the paper seems especially questionable, in that the beginning of the paper gives the reader the impression that the results are new.  But I realize that mine is an extreme perspective which does not apply to all situations, and I would be interested to hear other perspectives.

In part, I agree with you: if one finds out the result one has proven is in fact "trivial" (for various definitions of trivial), the "right" thing to do is to not bother submitting it for publication. (Though leaving it up on arXiv, for example, may be useful.)

But, here are some possible defenses:

In mathematics it is not always the result that matters: the journey getting you there is a big part of it. This sentiment is very well-expressed by Thurston in his essay "On Proof and Progress". Just because one has re-proven a well-known result doesn't necessarily mean that the paper is trivial! If the approach is new this can lead to better understanding. But in this case I, at least, would advertise this fact in the introduction beyond a single sentence.
As indicated in the comments, most of the time when I saw such a sentence it refers to fairly recent (perhaps even simultaneous) publications. Given that sometimes mathematics research takes time to complete, it is not entirely impossible that the authors genuinely started working on an open problem only to have the result solved in the mean time. And if the problem is somewhat obscure, I think the authors can be forgiven for only doing a detailed literature search before they start their research and not repeatedly doing it once every few months. In this case the language you quoted seems rather appropriate.
It could honestly be a case of ignorance! Suppose the same essential problem manifests in two distinct field of mathematics which have their own lingo. Then it is quite possible that even most experts in either field would not have recognized easily that the two results are the same. (The "two-way" relation above can also be a "one-way" relation, where researchers in field A generally don't know about result B in field C, while for researchers in field C the applicability of result B to problem D seems obvious.) In this case having the duplicate paper published will (a) help raise awareness that the problem has been solved and (b) perhaps even help the two fields become aware of each others' results.
Similarly, one may have discovered a simplified proof for a special case of a very powerful general result. While the result may be well-known, having this simplified proof in the special case maybe worthwhile, if only for pedagogy.
In the modern day of electronic communications this should happen less, but one should remember that in the history of mathematics there are many results which have been discovered, forgotten, and then rediscovered. And even with the advent of MathSciNet, sometimes very technical results are hard to search for: you have to know exactly the right string of keywords to discover it in the literature.


Postdoc job market in relation with PhD topic I switched from Software Engineering to Machine Learning when started my PhD in France. After 3 yrs with 3 (average rank) conference papers, I finished my PhD with an on-going journal manuscript that I'm still working on it with PhD supervisor. I was struggling to get my first postdoc and got it after several months. Now it's coming to an end with no publication after more than 1 yr, and again I'm trying hard to find the next one.

My questions are:

Does the PhD topic have a significant impact on academia job opportunity afterward? I got publication and now realize that it is not in "mainstream" as postdoc jobs mostly require "mainstream knowledge". On the other hand, it could have been harder for me to publish during PhD if I chose "mainstream" as I have had no background of it (Statistics). The lack of Statistics knowledge of a Software Engineering guy inconvenienced my 1st postdoc and my job search.
How long should it take to convert a Software Engineer to Statistician?
Data Science is trendy in general, but does its academia job market become more and more competitive?

Everything in academia (as most things) becomes more and more competitive. You are facing economic pressures of course. Some academic fields draw a lot of interest because the problems there are seen as useful to solve.

However, I worry that you are chasing a job - any job - rather than a profession. I'd advise you to think about how you want to spend your life  rather than the next job. The economics and the "trendy jobs" are bound to change and it is difficult or impossible to predict what will be "hot" next year.

As to your statistics question, it is relatively easy to learn provided you have an adequate maths background. There are a lot of books. You need at least a bit of the underlying theory (including probability) so that you understand the principles. You also need a grounding in how statistics are applied in scientific endeavors (experiment design). But there are, as I said, plenty of books for that. You needn't try to pursue another degree or anything like that. It is the knowledge you need, not some certification.

Finally, yes, your topic affects your job prospects in the short term. However, no one should choose a topic based on what is hot today since it may be lukewarm or cold by the time you finish. Find something satisfying to do and then find a way to do it. But keep some flexibility in your plans so that if you fall into a poor job market for your skills you have other skills you can apply.

I graduated into a very poor job market in mathematics. I quickly taught myself computer programming and later computer science. I had a very successful career after a slow start.

Self study in statistics is normally sufficient to use statistics for other things. I don't imply it is sufficient (necessarily) to do research in statistics itself.


When can scientific publications have a dedication? Under which circumstances can a scientific publication have a dedication?

It is not uncommon for theses (Bachelor, Master, PhD, ...) to have a dedication. Furthermore, some big publications in high impact journals happen to have a dedication.

However, what about regular journals? Can I include a dedication in the 'Average Journal of okay results'? It is assumed that I will not have a top journal hit publication in the near future. Would such a request be turned down immediately?

(Mathematics:) I have dedicated a few journal articles "to the memory of" recently deceased colleagues (one in a "special issue journal" for this purpose, but others in regular journal issues). I just included the dedication in the submitted paper, and no-one complained about or commented on it, and it appeared in the published version.

Regarding placement: The place of the dedication seems to depend on the journal style; in most cases I encountered it was between the author list and the abstract.

Actually, the first time I dedicated a paper I put the dedication into the acknowledgment section, the (copy) editor then moved it to the proper place. From that time on, I placed the dedications there myself, using in LaTeX (amsart class) the command \dedicatory{Dedicated to the memory of N. N. (1930--2010)}. So far all journals left the dedications there; apart form one who moved it to an own section between the abstract and the acknowledgment section.


Interview with potential supervisor for graduate program. Should I keep contacting other potential professors? I applied for winter 2020 entry. The applications open in September but I was recommended to contact potential supervisors ahead of time. I emailed my CV, transcript and quick background about myself to few potential supervisors and landed an interview with one. I went to the interview and we discussed the research endeavours and my research proposal. The 45 minutes interview seemed positive and the prof mentioned me to email him when applications open. He said he will be a potential supervisor. Acceptance into the program is conditional upon securing a supervisor. Should I continuing contacting other profs or assume my prof is secured based upon the interview? I am worried if by the time applications open another potential grad might catch his attention and take my spot. Thanks in advance.

You should continue contacting and interviewing possible professors until you have an official offer of admission that you have accepted, especially at other institutions.

It seems like this professor is most likely willing to take you as a student, but only if you are accepted to that program (which likely does not depend only on that professor's opinion), and only if nothing else comes up including an applicant they like better, unexpected personal circumstances, changing financial situation in the lab, etc.

As you say, acceptance to the program is conditional on having a supervisor: that means it is necessary for admission but not sufficient. The professor has only granted you permission to identify them as a potential supervisor on your application, this is not an offer or promise of admission.


Overcoming hostility from a senior PhD student I am a Ph.D. third year student. In our college for most of the work we have to depend on our seniors as our advisor rarely takes interest in our research. My senior is always rude to me, and never supports me in anything. Sometimes she doesn't talk to me for a whole day, and even sometimes she misguides me. I feel so low. It becomes so difficult to be in a lab where only two people are working and not even talking to each other properly. How can I deal with this?

A friend was in a similar situation during her PhD.

  I am a Ph.D. third year student. In our college for most of the work
  we have to depend on our seniors as our advisor rarely takes interest
  in our research.

There is really only one bright side to this situation: you will have to become a self-motivated and independent researcher quickly. Even if your advisor does not 'take interest' in your research make sure to meet with them regularly to discuss what you have done and what you are planning to do. This keeps them in the loop and aware of your efforts. To get additional input, you can contact other faculty in and outside your institute to get ideas or feedback on what you are doing. Former students from the same lab are also a good resource.

  My senior is always rude to me, and never supports me
  in anything. Sometimes she doesn't talk to me for a whole day, and

As @Dawn pointed out, your senior clearly does not want to be friends. The best you can do is be cordial in person, and keep all important communication over email.

  even sometimes she misguides me.

Attributing this to ignorance, rather than malice, is the most productive solution here. You can take her suggestions/answers/advice but make sure to use your own judgement to verify this - whether from other students/researchers, literature, simulation, etc. This will also help you become a better researcher.

  I feel so low. It becomes so
  difficult to be in a lab where only two people are working and not
  even talking to each other properly. How can I deal with this?

Treat the lab as your workplace. I have seen labs/groups that feel like family, and others that are unbelievably toxic. Focus on finishing your degree and moving on. Ensure that you maintain a social life with family/friends outside your lab, and get lots of fresh air and exercise.


Creating a schematic figure based on an existing one In the context material chapter of my masters dissertation, between other things, I must write about the state of the art on the thematic presented. There are some very expressive and simple schemes in other authors works that I would like to use. I was wondering: is it legitimate if I create schemes by myself that convey the same structure and information and reference the sources in the following manner: "Image based on [Reference]" ?. The result would be different looking (colors, shapes, and several other visual elements) schemes that would express the same content.

I've looked at How much do figures need to differ to avoid copyright claims? but I wasn't sure if the context of that question is enough for the answers to apply for me.

Thanks.

No, I think it would be insufficient to say : "Image based on [Reference]".

Because, from what you've written, it's not just the image you're using: you're also using the intellectual content that is the structure and information.

So, not only do you need to cite your reference for the image, but you also need to credit the origin of the structure and the information explicitly in its own right.

So do say:

  Image based on [Reference]

And also say something like (using the example of the image being a classification of the existing literature):

  In creating this classification, I have followed the classification scheme set out in [Reference], using information from [Reference] and [other Reference]


What is the minimum contribution expected from an M.Sc. thesis? I am writing a thesis for my M.Sc. dissertation, and I am struggling to identify how big the contribution of my paper has to be.

I've heard professors in our campus saying "you don't have to save the world, just add a little bit of something to an already existing work." But that is vague and seems too little for an M.Sc. program. Do you have any advice on what could be considered a sufficient contribution?

Ps. My field is distributed systems (cloud computing) and it would be nice if you could explain it in that context.

In my opinion and experience, it is relatively rare for an MSc thesis to yield truly original research resulting in a paper. The primary goal of a MSc thesis is to teach you important research skills: come up with a general idea of what to do, researching literature, coming up with a specific question that you want to address, performing research (computations, fieldwork, lab experiments), and finally writing it down in a thesis. If you successfully complete this cycle, I think your MSc thesis is a success. If the thesis, after some editing, is original enough to end up as a journal paper this is a big bonus.


How should PhD student show importance of research proposal in cover letter requesting access to important dataset? I am a PhD student,  and I am applying to be part of a cohort of graduate student researchers who will be using data from a national survey (that everyone in my field wants to get to) to answer policy questions. The dataset  will most likely be a part of my dissertation.

The application requires a cover letter that needs me to explain certain parts of my research.

Here is what i wrote:

  My current research interest is concerned with the interactions
  between families, students, teachers and staff in Head Start programs;
  specifically families who frequently encounter structural barriers due
  to their race, ethnicity and/or limited English proficiency. This work
  is important because of many reasons, but to name a few: the current
  climate of uncertainty experienced by families from diverse
  cultures/ethnicity/nationalities and how it pervades the education of
  their children, the forecasted minority/majority shift our population
  is going under and the overall right to equal access afforded to every
  child in the United States. I believe my work will contribute to a
  better understanding of the barriers these families confront on a
  daily basis and to a dialogue about practical solutions in the form of
  policy changes in order to ameliorate said barriers

I asked my adviser for feedback, and she said

  You have said why the work is important and how you will contribute.
  But from what you have written, I do not know what it is that you are
  doing that will contribute to the field. What is your research,
  exactly? Why is your study, specifically, important?

I am really not getting it. I have been grappling a lot but i end up writing things like my methods. Any way you can illuminate will be appreciated.

Your advisor's critique is exactly right.  You've made a convincing case that your subject is important, but not that your work is important.  This:

  My current research interest is concerned with the interactions between families, students, teachers and staff in Head Start programs

is the sort of vague writing that a lot of academics are prone to (I'm always trying to beat it out of my writing).  Being "concerned with the interactions" is a very abstract, high level statement that doesn't actually say anything.  Concerned with how?  Which interactions?

Finding out whether teachers say "hello" or "hi" more often to family members is an investigation of the interactions among the people you describe, but it's an utterly uninteresting one.

Start concrete, with the specific research questions you plan to ask.  Think about what you excited about your research. How would you describe your work to a non-academic? What's the story you that keeps you excited about how your research will actually matter - the line of causation from the work you're going to do to actually making people's lives better?


How to deal when submitting an extender paper to a journal from another editorial? My situation is pretty simple, years ago I submitted a research article to an IEEE workshop and it got accepted. Actually I have made an extended paper of it and I am considering to submit it for a non-IEEE journal. I have read the information for authors of the journal which I plan to submit, and it does not say anything about extended papers. So I was wondering if I:

Should I ask first if they accept extended papers before submitting my article to this journal?
Should I just submit it and also include the original article from the workshop and point to them that is an extended article? This just in case that the submission site has an Observations or Aditional Sections part where I can explain this. Or maybe should I put a small presentation letter stating that I am submitting the original article from the workshop and the extended paper?

Which would be the best course of action?

That depends on what you mean by "extended". If it just extends the results of the conference presentation, all you have to do is to state this in the introduction and cite the previous paper. If "extended" means longer than the page limit of the journal, it is very probable that it will be rejected outhand or only accepted for further consideration if you cut it down to size. You might try to ask for leniency from the editor, but only after doing a serious effort to make it fit (perhaps by dividing into several?) and have good reasons why it can't be shorter.


References in a PhD thesis in mathematics I have a few questions about the references in a PhD thesis in mathematics:

What would be a "normal" range of items there? I am not sure if there is only a few items in the reference it may not be suitable. Would 30 be good? 50? Or 100?
Is there any conventional way to order the references?
When I add a paper to the reference, do I really need to read the paper? For example, I may read from some other paper that "the following result was proved in [1]". Then can I also add [1] to my reference by writing "the following result was proved in [1]", without really reading [1]? It is possible that [1] may be too long/tedious/difficult to read, difficult to find, or not in English, etc.

'Normal' is not really relevant. You must reference your sources. You must not artificially pad your reference section by citing things that aren't relevant. The question left then is how many standard texts etc you reference with regard to things like well-known background. This will probably depend on exactly what you study.
Yes, but it depends on field to some extent. In mathematics, references are almost always ordered alphabetically by first author's surname but check your university rules first, then a standard journal or three if that doesn't pin it down enough.
I'm sure this must have been answered before. If you quote something because someone else did, are you certain they were right? People make mistakes (and maybe occasionally deliberate false claims).


Do references count towards the word limit for Science Magazine? Quoting from Science Magazine's General Information for Authors,

  Reports (up to ~2500 words including references, notes and captions or ~3 printed pages) ...

This seems to suggest that references are to be counted towards the word limit.

But the reference style guide says,

  Science includes titles in references. These are displayed in the online HTML version, but not in the print or the PDF versions of papers.

The printed (and PDF) version of papers do not have full titles in the references, which makes the reference list much shorter than in the HTML version.  In the end this makes a huge difference in the word count.  If I include titles, the word count of just the references makes up more than 30% of the stated word limit.  This doesn't seem very reasonable!

In general, I am finding it very hard to navigate the author guidelines.  Can someone provide a link to where the word limit (and what counts towards it) is most clearly stated for this journal?  In particular: do references count towards the word limit, and if they do, does that include the titles?  What about counting things like formulas, which might contribute significantly if counted variable by variable, as a naive word processor would do?

I'm seeing much higher word counts in already published Reports than what the guideline says.  For example, this random report appears to have ~4000 words without references, as counted by pasting to Word from the HTML page.

If you want to get published, follow the guidelines for authors meticulously.

If you're not bothered about getting published, then you are free to reinterpret them as you wish.

But if you do want to get published, read the words, obey the words.

You've already given us the definitive link for authors. The guide says 2500 words including references. So that's your limit. Keep to it. Yes, it does include titles. References include titles.

It doesn't matter that published articles are longer: they've been through peer review and editing. Your article hasn't, yet.

So if you want to get published, follow the guidelines for authors meticulously.

If there's still any doubt in your mind, talk to the editor. Remember, you want the editor to treat you fairly, so treat them fairly, be polite, don't waste their time, and don't ask them things that are already explicit in the guide for authors.


Referencing Android, using the word 'Android' in a paper I want/need to use the word 'Android' referring to the Android-System/Software in a paper/thesis. I found these guidelines. Do I have to use both, the TM-symbol AND a footnote? Like AndroidTM - It looks strange...

Your thesis or paper is in this respect similar to a newspaper article about the product ("Independent coverage"). Do newspapers use the "TM" symbol if they write about products? No. (At least no newspapers or magazine I know does.)

It is used by people who have an agreement, are cooperating with the proprietor of the brand name in question, to show exactly that.

These "guidelines" (same as e.g. Microsofts EULAs etc.) are not even a binding contract in many legislations, because they try to force them on you after you have already paid for the product.


Affiliated institution wants to remove name from already published paper? We have published a review article, years ago, and since then all of the authors left the institution. Now the institution has suddenly woken up and realized that the authors did not get permission before publishing the article. And the institute does not want its affiliation any more on the already published article. What to do now?

It sounds like you and your co-authors committed an error in publishing this paper against requirements imposed by your institution.  The institution would probably be within its rights to insist that you withdraw the paper altogether, so asking you to remove the affiliation markings from the paper is probably not too bad a compromise (it's hard to know for certain without knowing the regulations and situation in detail).

As such, I would recommend getting in touch with the journal and requesting a correction to remove the affiliations, explaining the situation.  The journal may or may not be willing to make the correction.  If they are not, then you likely just need to leave the two institutions to battle it out and hope that you have a paper left when they are finished.


How to nicely communicate to my professor that I prefer a different topic/project Soon I will be assigned to a project with industry partner X which will start in couple of months and is very loosely related to my major research interests. The project might not be very challenging and time-consuming, but it has close to zero contribution to my actual research, that is why I am not so keen working on it. Also, there is very little potential to get any publications (although unrelated to my topic) from there.

On the other hand, a new industry partner Y is approaching our group. This partner is willing to offer funding for multiple topics, and they work in the field 100% related to my research.

I fail to understand why the principal investigator would assign me to a project with X, while we were anticipating the collaboration with Y, and knowing that the X project will not be mutually beneficial. But, I guess the decision was made just because X approach first.

How can I communicate clearly and nicely to my PI that I would fancy working in project with Y, and make the point that it will be beneficial in terms of tangibles (more research output in an area of interest to PI, me and company Y) and intangibles (more motivation for me)?

I am sure all this is obvious to the PI, but the PI is probably note concerned about anything but the money.

Directly and honestly. It's your job to champion your concerns, not your professor's. They might not have realized Y would be a better fit or have some thoughts about X you are not aware of.

  Hey Prof. Awesome,

  Do you have a few minutes to talk about the recent projects assignments? I'm much more interested in working with Y because of reasons. I also think it would be more beneficial to my research because reasons. Can I stop by sometime this week to discuss your thoughts on X and whether it would be possible for me to switch to Y?

  Thanks,

  Kristof Tak


Applying for PhD programs after graduating from a small/unknown college I have just entered my final year of Undergraduate degree in Computer Science and engineering from a rather unknown/not-popular college in India and I want to get admittance in a PhD program in Computer Science. I'm thinking of applying for colleges in the USA and I'm worried that graduating from an unknown college will affect how universities will perceive my application and I regret my decision of joining this college in the first place. I still have one year before I apply. I want to know what I need to do to maximize my chances of admission. And any general suggestions you'd give for a fourth year student who is looking to get into research programs.

Things may not be as bad as you fear. I was in a similar situation long ago. One advantage you have is that, at a small place, you probably have good access to your professors and they know your work pretty well.

First, check to see what connections your own professors have to other schools. These could be places that they went to school, or personal contacts at conferences or co-authors of papers. Enlist the help of your profs in promoting your candidacy.

Second, find out if other students from your current place have gone to universities you would find interesting. Find out how they did. If someone before you has set a good example at another university it can work in your favor.

Failing that, write application materials stressing heavily what you can do, mostly by stressing what you have done. Ask your professors to analyze these to see how your projects and performance will be perceived.

And since you have a bit of time, do what you can to do interesting things that others might find impressive.

In general, though, the reputation of your current institution is only one thing among many that will be used in the selection process. I doubt that very many places sort candidates first by the prestige of the applicants undergraduate university.


How should academics handle communication with the media? I'm not famous enough of a scientist to be frequently solicited by the media* (plus my field has little political/social controversy around it), but I had a few encounters with local newspapers and one with a public national television. The results were not entirely bad, but the general sentiment given was significantly different than what I would have wanted it to be.

It seems like I'm not alone, I just got back from a conference in my field where more senior scientists discussed their relationship with the general media. It came out that more often than they would like, the relationship was bad.

Problems stated, among others†:

Misquotation, or words taken out of their context significantly changing their meaning (this is the most frequent).
A general difficulty for the media to understand, and convey, uncertainty ('we think, it might be so..' or 'we are rather confident that ...' becomes 'it is so')
Difficulty to apprehend results, applications, consequences that may or may not appear 10-20 years down the line.
Exaggeration of the conclusions

etc.

These are not without consequences, at the personal level, as it can give the impression that you don't know what you are talking about.

My first thought was to ignore the media attention and advocate that scientists should do the communication themselves to bypass the regular media (having a blog, entertaining a profile on social media, etc.), but it is extremely time consuming and would distract from the actual research work. I think there must be something to do, on our side, to help with that.

I understand that it is due to how media works, and I don't believe it will change by a lot. But the question is then: are there any strategies that would help reducing this effect, at least to protect oneself against the consequences?

*newspapers, television, magazines, etc. i.e. not scientific journals.

†anyone who has items to add to this list is welcome to do so.

I've had one paper I wrote garner significant media attention, so while I'm not a practiced hand at it, some things I learned along the way:

Be able to convey the idea behind your paper simply. A brief, non-technically "What happened", and why this matters. Don't oversell, but if you provide good information, you have some more control over how it gets conveyed, instead of forcing a non-expert journalist to translate your work into words.
Keep it short. It's harder to misquote or provide out-of-context soundbites if you keep things short and to the point. Don't pontificate.
Make the caveats of your work clear, but don't over-hedge.
If it's clear they're trying to get you to say something in particular, decide if you're okay with saying it. If you are, just do it. If you aren't don't go anywhere near it. Don't dance around, or try to add qualifiers - just don't approach.
Be prepared for rage-inducing discussion of your work online after it hits the air. Learn to have a thick skin, or purposefully ignore it.
Remember that, in the grand scheme of things, even a fair amount of media attention is a flash in the pan, and the odd story that makes you wince is just that - a single story.

While I think you can help mitigate some of the problems around media coverage of your work with an active social media presence and a blog, it's only by engaging the audience. It's not going to let you "stand aside" from the media - no website or news paper is going to go "Oh, Dr. X has a blog. On second thought, lets not bother with the story..." If anything, an active social media presence will probably raise your profile among science communication types, and increase the odds of getting a bit of media attention.


Etiquette for notifying personal contact on faculty search committee about applying for a position My question has to do with the proper etiquette for notifying a personal contact on a faculty search committee that I am applying to.  The question is based on the perspective of U.S. institutions.

Background:

I am a doctoral student about to go on the job market.  Several months ago at a conference, a colleague from my master's program introduced me to his boss, for whom he has worked for around 5 years. The boss, it should be noted, used to work at my current institution.  While I am not sure of the circumstances of his departure, it seems he is still friends with some of the professors in my department. Through our conversation, I found out that their department was going to hire several new faculty members sometime in early summer.  I went on their university's HR website about 3 weeks ago and saw the posting.  I reached out to my colleague to reintroduce me to his boss, so that I could ask the boss questions about the faculty search that he (the boss) may be able to answer, i.e. whether the position was "truly open" or if it was only posted as a formality (having been on the other side of the hiring table in my previous life, I knew that sometimes institutions already have an internal candidate, but they have to post the position as a legal requirement, particularly if it is a public institution).  The boss replied to my e-mail and told me that: 1.) the position was truly open, and more importantly, 2.) he is the chair of the search committee.  He also asked me whether I had already submitted my application (I have not).  I am in the process of replying to his e-mail, and would like advice on how I can maximize my connection without sounding desperate or annoying.

Questions:

Is it appropriate for me to tell him that I am putting my packet together and that I will let him know when I submit the application?
Following (1), is it appropriate for me to ask him to be on the lookout for my application when/after I submit it?
Is it appropriate for me to ask follow-up questions about the person they are looking for, for example whether there are specific courses they're trying to develop within their department, whether there are research areas they're specifically looking for, etc. so then I can "tailor" my cover letter/teaching statement/research statement to what they need?
Should I be taking advantage of the fact that the search committee chair is still friendly with several people on my dissertation committee by having them contact him?
The expected start date is sometime in late fall of this year, but the posting shows a closing date sometime in the summer next year.  Can I ask my contact when he expects to start reviewing the applications?

Is it appropriate for me to tell him that I am putting my packet together and that I will let him know when I submit the application?

You most definitely want to respond ASAP and let him know that you are in the process of applying. It is not necessary to follow up further and tell him when you have applied, but nor would a quick email saying something like "Just to let you know, I submitted my application on the HR system today" be out of place.

  Following (1), is it appropriate for me to ask him to be on the lookout for my application when/after I submit it?

I would not use this terminology. Your communication with him is implying that he should keep a look out for your application. No reason to be blunt.

  Is it appropriate for me to ask follow-up questions about the person they are looking for, for example whether there are specific courses they're trying to develop within their department, whether there are research areas they're specifically looking for, etc. so then I can "tailor" my cover letter/teaching statement/research statement to what they need?

One can always ask a search chair this, but as they are the search chair and do not personally know you, you should expect a non-informative answer. This is a much better question for your personal contact/friend. In your case since the search chair used to work at your current department, someone in your department (possibly your advisor) who knows the chair personally, could also reach out to the chair.

  Should I be taking advantage of the fact that the search committee chair is still friendly with several people on my dissertation committee by having them contact him?

YES! YES! YES! I really cannot say YES enough. As awful as it sounds, this is how you get a job. You want to do this in a coordinated manner. You do not necessarily want every member of your department calling up the chair. You need to sit down with your advisor and discuss this search (but also all the searches you are applying for) and figure out your application strategy.

  The expected start date is sometime in late fall of this year, but the posting shows a closing date sometime in the summer next year. Can I ask my contact when he expects to start reviewing the applications?

This falls into one of job postings that is confusing for applicants. Presumably, they want someone to start ASAP, but do not want to lose the position if they do not get a good applicant. They also could have screwed up the deadlines. This is something you could ask the chair. If the posting suggests a person to contact about questions, you could also ask them.


Giving a talk on a different topic than what we discussed I'm a postdoc in mathematics. I had a conversation with a professor after he gave a talk at my university, and he seemed interested in my ideas. I sent him an email the next day to elaborate on our discussion, and he replied by inviting me to give a talk at his university. I accepted the invitation.

However, I don't feel confident about giving a talk on the subject of our conversation. I wrote something about it in my thesis which I sent to him in my email, but it was just some undeveloped ideas (not central to the thesis), and I am certainly not an expert in that area. Is it okay to give a talk on a different topic?

He didn't specify what he wanted me to talk about, but we didn't discuss anything else than that, and it seems like our only point in common. So, I fear it would be awkward to give a talk on my true expertise area. Or is it?

If you haven't come to an agreement on what you would discuss, then I think you are pretty free. But as a courtesy, if nothing else, send him a note about your topic. If he disagrees you might want to re-think it.

However, a talk about partially unformed ideas, if presented that way can be very valuable. It can give ideas about research the listeners might explore. If you do it right, it can give ideas about how to come up with such ideas and how to begin to tackle them. What insight do you have into the problems?

In the best case it can lead to collaborations on that topic and others that might emerge from the exploration.

In fact, a talk on "things worth exploring" is probably more interesting to a mathematician than one on "things done and finished."


Rejected Paper by the Associate Editor I am a very objective person and I don't mind constructive criticism.
I have submitted a research paper to an IEEE journal with high reputation.
The co-authors of this paper have broad experience in this field with hundreds of peer-reviewed publications. Hence, the paper is of good quality.
I provided the implementation along with full theoretical and experimental analysis of the proposed novel algorithm, so they can replicate the results and make sure that we are genuine.
The reviews were as follows:

Reviewer 1: Very positive feedback, highly appreciated the work, its novelty and quality.
Reviewer 2: Wasn't very clear for them about the contribution of this work with respect to this journal. With some very few minor feedback.
Reviewer 3: Same as Reviewer 2.

The Associate Editor decision was: Two of the reviewers think the contributions of the proposed method are not clear ---> Reject!
This is not the first time I submit a paper and reflect upon the feedback. I already have accepted paper in high reputation IEEE journals.
The decision was as a shock to me!
I've seen worse reviews/feedback, yet the Associate Editor usually goes with a Minor or Major Revision.
I truly believe that we deserve another chance to make the contribution "clearer" as much as they want.
Is this normal? Should I appeal to the decision? Should I go to another journal since I didn't get a real feedback to improve the paper, and most likely the other two reviewers were too lazy or lack of required knowledge to evaluate the paper?
Your advice is very much appreciated.

Based on your description I suspect an appeal will not work. That's because you are not disputing the reasons that went into their decision, you are only disputing the decision. But they have already made the decision. Saying "your reviewers were right, but your decision was wrong" is not likely to change their minds.
To have a real chance at changing their minds, you need to argue that their reasons for rejection were wrong, e.g.:

Reviewer said X, but X is provably incorrect, because [reasons].
Reviewer said this topic isn't worth spending time on, but your journal published [these papers] on that very topic.
Reviewer said your manuscript doesn't explain Y, but it does, and here is the paragraph.

That's not to say you can't appeal - you can if you want to - it's just that it probably won't work.
I think, based on your description, the best course of action is to rewrite the paper such that it's clearer, then submit to another journal. See also this question about the same situation where the reviewers didn't understand the paper. You can also ask the two co-authors, they should be experienced enough to offer suggestions on what to do next.


Taking courses beyond requirements in a Ph.D. program As I'm starting to look to put together my plan of study, a question popped into my mind: are there, generally speaking, rules against taking additional courses beyond what is required for a Ph.D., or is it simply frowned up by most advisers (in the interest of creating more time for research endeavors)? I ask because I've found several graduate certificates offered at my university that seem relevant to my interests (in teaching), and I'd like to take an additional 2 or 3 courses to fulfill their requirements.  I've heard from other grad students in my lab, however, that there is frequently push back from our adviser on such matters.

As an adviser, I encourage my graduate students to take classes they find interesting and/or that broaden their knowledge and therefore are useful to later finding jobs. Ultimately, my goal in this is to help my students become well rounded and broadly educated graduates who will be successful in life. The only caveat I place on this is that they need to make sure they have enough time to do the research that will ultimately lead to their thesis and their defense.

I don't know whether I'm typical in this, but would imagine that most advisers will agree to let their students take other classes if a student asks and gives a reasonable justification. I think most will even agree to this if the student is paid from a grant.


How to treat a paper accepted at a conference and included in proceedings if I could not attend the conference? Recently I had submitted a paper to a conference. It got accepted for presentation. But I could not attend the conference. However, I had registered for it and paid my participation fee. My paper has also been included in the conference proceeding.

My question is how will I treat this paper:

Can I include it as a conference paper in my CV?
Can I submit it to another conference?
Can I submit it to a journal for publication?

I understand that part of this question is highlighted in previous questions e.g. Am I allowed to submit to a journal, a paper that was accepted to a conference but not presented yet?, but I need a specific and straight forward answer.

If it's published in the conference proceedings, it's published.

You can list it as a conference publication in your CV.
You can't publish it again in conference proceedings.
Regarding publishing it (or an extended version) in a journal, see Under what circumstances can one republish a conference paper/presentation? especially this answer.


Can non-PhDs or non-Masters be on an accredited college's faculty? Do U.S. college accreditation agencies forbid teachers with only a bachelor's degree to be on the faculty of an accredited U.S. college?

It depends on what you mean.  If you are asking a theoretical question about whether there are rules that forbid it, then the answer is that it is theoretically possible, at least at some universities.  For example, Andrew Gleason was a tenured professor of mathematics at Harvard from 1953 through his retirement in 1992, without ever having attended graduate school.  (Technically, Harvard awarded him an honorary master's degree when he became a faculty member, but he had no master's degree when he was hired and never received a Ph.D.)  The rules vary between universities, but I do not believe Harvard's have changed since Gleason was there.  For another example, if you invent the World Wide Web, you can become a professor with no master's degree.

On the other hand, it is impossible in practice.  Unless you have received some sort of major academic recognition (a big prize, universities specifically soliciting an application from you despite knowing you have no master's degree, etc.), it's not even worth thinking about, since the chances of being hired are almost indistinguishable from zero.  If you are aiming for an academic career, choosing not to go to graduate school means giving up on that career.

By the way, I'm assuming here that you are asking about fields in which there are very few famous practitioners without advanced degrees.  I can imagine that in certain fields (perhaps art, business, or politics), there might be more people who would be attractive to universities despite having only a bachelor's degree.  But even in those cases, it would require truly impressive achievements.


How do I start a new peer-reviewed open access journal? I'm an academic and would like to start a scholarly journal. My reasons are manyfold: primarily I want an open access journal, and think that my field needs an own journal.

How do I start a new open access journal?

You shouldn't do this alone if you want to have a respectable open access (OA) journal in your field. The first time after launching a journal is critical: You need a good editorial board and a sustained amount of good submissions until you achieve a good impact factor. This is pretty much impossible without the help of an organization or a professional publisher.

You are probably a member of some kind of scientific society which is active in your field. I suggest that you get some other members on board with this idea and lobby for the society starting an OA journal. There are quite a few OA journals that have been started like this. An example from my field are the EGU's open access journals, which are a huge success.


Risks in accepting a position if candidate considers themselves unqualified and believes they will fail Freddie was offered a post-doctoral position they did not apply for, by Sasha.  Sasha and Freddie know each other because they used to share an office.  The topic is quite different from what Freddie has known in the past.  Freddie is surprised and hesitates to accept.  Had the position been externally advertised, Freddie would not have applied for lack of self-assessed qualifications, but Sasha convinces Freddie to learn on the job.  Notwithstanding the impostor syndrome, Freddie accepts, being between jobs and enjoying the opportunity to broaden skills if successful.

The risks for Sasha are quite clear: perhaps too optimistic about Freddies skills, and if unsuccessful, that will be bad for the project.  But what are the risks for Freddie in this scenario?  In the scenario in which Freddie is unsuccessful, how damaging would that be to academic career chances?  Is the value of an unsuccessful postdoc positive, neutral, negative?

In a previous version of this question, Freddie was called Sue, and Sasha was called Sam.

The main question here is what kind of postdoc Sasha needs to appoint. Does Sasha have a specific project / task that they expect Freddie to handle? To that extend is this negotiatable?

If Sasha has a very specific task in mind that is largely un-negotiatable (e.g., because of hard commitments to a funding agency, or because there is a specific study that Sasha really wants to do), and Freddie foresees that they won't be able to actually do this, then they are only setting themselves up for failure when accepting the postdoc. The consequence will likely be a personal fallout with Sasha and a big setback to their own career. Nobody wins here, and Freddie should decline.
If Sasha is more flexible, and Freddie can do something that would be of significant value to Sasha's research programme, it is likely that things will be ok. The consequence in this case will likely be that the project gets adapted or shifted to another person, and things will work out alright. (or at least it has the same chance of working out alright than any other postdoc)

Given that Sasha knows Freddie personally, and has explicitly invited them to apply, I presume that the second case is more likely than the first - but a frank discussion between Sasha and Freddie is necessary. It is possible that Sasha is not aware that Freddie lacks these skills, or that they overestimate Freddie's ability to learn the required skills on the spot, but it is equally possible (really: more likely) that Sasha is fully aware that the project will go in a different direction with hiring Freddie, and they are ok with that.

Many academics I know (including myself) care more about the potential of a candidate to do good science in their overall field than whether they are the best fit for a specific project. In other words: I would typically rather hire a great person who is a bad fit for the specific project than a medium person who is a great fit. Ultimately, I care more about good papers being written in my team than what I care about the topic of any particular project. Freddie needs to find out if this is the case for Sasha as well.


In a literature review, should I focus on how much my work will contribute to the discipline? When I have previously published papers, I have written about how much my work contributes to the discipline and builds on the work of others. I am currently writing my literature review for my PhD upgrade and even though I am featuring a lot of work, I am not focusing that much on how my work builds on those of the cited authors. My research is multi-disciplinary, covering three fields.

In a literature review therefore, is my job just to review the literature? Or should I also mention how my work builds on the literature I have mentioned?

You would usually not just review "the literature" (How would you do that anyway as there are thousands of papers coming out everyday in most fields).

I like to see the literature review like building a pyramid: You start broad and then narrow down and come closer and closer to what you actually did. Your thesis/paper should then come as the last stone on the top of the pyramid. Along the lines of "This is what other people did, this is how it all builds up but in the end a very important part was missing (= your thesis!) and here it is! Then you start describing your actual work.

In other words you can see the literature review as something what helps to emphasise how important your work is. Literature review is not something that you have to do but something that you want to do because it makes your own work shine.


IEEE full article with small images or more than 8 pages I'm writing a full article (6-8 pages) using IEEE guidelines.

Currently got two versions: one where images are more readable, and another where 4 images to be read need a lot of zoom.

In the first case, the article has 10 pages in total (3 columns are references). In the second case, 8 pages in total (3 columns are references).

I know from fact that

  References most definitely count (for the page total). IEEE page limits are inclusive of
  any front and/or back matter. And it is a HARD limit—not even a single
  word should spill over onto an additional page.

I don't want to have the images like that where the reader needs to put on extra zoom but i also want to respect the total page limit.

Is there a way the images can be placed after references (or anywhere in a specific section) that makes them not count for the total page count?

If not, considering the images are very relevant and both the content and references were reduced as much as i could, what can I do in this situation?

In many, but not all IEEE publications, the hard limit implies that if the paper is larger than N pages, every (N+1)th page is charged with an overlength charge. See this page on IEEE Author Center, which also contains the fresh link to a PDF with current prices (overlength, open-access, color).

Usually, IEEE Transactions on XXX will allow publishing papers that are larger than standard size (up to a certain maximum), while the IEEE XXX Letters-type journals might have a hard limit with no possibility to publish a paper exceeding the standard length even for an extra fee.

I would certainly check the journal (not the general IEEE guideline) you are intending to submit on that matter since you want the images to be legible without a mandatory zoom. The fees vary, but, for example, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation (TAP) charges $200 per extra page (as of 2020). See this 2018 guideline for IEEE TAP which covers more details on how references count and fees are calculated.


Masters Thesis: Self-containment So I am currently writing my thesis in nanophysics (in particular, applications of nanomagnetism). My adviser and I had a few discussions about the inclusiveness (i.e., self-containment) of the material, quality of figures, etc. He does not seem to care about neither of these points, and just wants the thesis to be done so that 'I carry on with my research'...

I am now wondering:

Is it typical (or preferred) for the masters thesis to be rigor/self-contained, in terms of literature review? (I said masters only, because I assume it should typically be the case for a PhD dissertation - no?)

The best advice I heard about this is: Write the thesis in the way you would like to have had it at hand when you started your thesis. Imagine yourself in a situation that you are a master's student and want to learn about the very topic of your actual thesis. What detail do you need? What background should you give? What literature should you refer to?

I often hear students say that their advisors do not really care about these issues, and indeed it's somehow true. As an advisor, you care much more about the content. This does not mean that the presentation does not matter, but it is not that much about what background you give, but how. Do you treat simple things at length but brush over more difficult things without proper reference? Do you provide proofs for standard facts but use advanced concepts without any argument?


PhD application: Writing summary of accomplishments [I am too much afraid to ask this question becuase I think most of you will say that I am too stupid to understand meaning of "Summary of Accomplishments".]

So, I am applying for a PhD position which is asking for "Summary of Accomplishments" letter. What things should be included in it?

Is it about my accomplishments other than my research work or research work itself is an accomplishment? I was teacher assistant in many courses, it is an accomplishment? Should it be written in a list form or in a paragraph form?

In short, what does "accomplishments" mean when PhD hiring committee ask for it?

I am asking this question here becuase I could not find any appropriate answer from Google.

Accomplishments that most potential employees, guides, student application reviewers, etc are looking for are positions, rewards, recognitions, etc that indicate achievements and are demonstrative of work culture, personal capability of setting and achieving goals, intellectual level, skill development, attitude and knowledge, specialization, tenacity, continuity, etc.

The rough rule of thumb is that 'anything won in a competition is an accomplishment'.

Accomplishment is also attainment of certain position or degree or diploma or certification gained through some labour, study, test or recognition.

Hope this helps.


Am I supposed to understand my training dataset for a machine learning project? TL;DR: I am expected to work on a dataset with missing/wrong information about measurement units. Is this a common practice?

Longer version:

I am studying a Masters's program composed mostly of machine learning. This semester I need to complete a 12 credit Project Module. Project Module means that there are no lectures, just a problem formulation, consultations with a teacher, and then a final report, source code and presentation are submitted.

The problem is to identify rocks by melting them with a laser and measuring the spectrum of the resulting plasma.

The training data I have is a bunch of measured spectra (example visualization). Each file comprises of comma separated tuples (wevelength, intensity).

My teacher didn't have the time to figure out what is being measured when we say "intensity" and sent me the "example" above to figure for myself. Well, I figured it's radiance, based on information of the same source as the example I was sent(here)

Now, radiance is measured in watt divided by solid angle and surface area. This is strictly non-negative. The example graph also cuts the ordinate at 0.

Yet when I look at the provided dataset, I can identify regions such as
this one:

 188.5999999999995,15.175680381419365
 188.6999999999995,0.872615069518224
 188.7999999999995,-8.345751621890303
 188.8999999999995,-10.279252960079765
 188.9999999999995,-4.22895372957017
 189.09999999999948,3.978827692507486
 189.19999999999948,16.603400130260713
 189.29999999999947,-12.791825667786197
 189.39999999999947,-4.859145351410255
 189.49999999999946,4.452390240582065
 189.59999999999945,-14.106010857508583
 189.69999999999945,7.039306431256487
 189.79999999999944,-7.3039003395809505

Negative line intensities with values far from 0.

And here is my question. Both my teacher and a couple of more knowledgeable colleagues agree that there is nothing wrong with this:

  The data you have is real world data collected with a hand held. Your model should be able to deal with the data as it is. You can apply preprocessing steps if you want to avoid negative data values.

To me it is absurd to even consider a dataset without first sanity checking it. Just as unacceptable I would call working with a preprocessed dataset without knowing how was it preprocessed (maybe I am seeing centered values, but no one told me the mean; maybe I am seeing a logarithmic scale).

Is it customary for a task to be presented this way?

From the point of pure exercise in machine learning, you do not care whether the data is reliable and whether it was collected or taken from the ceiling. Your task is just to design a recognition algorithm that classifies the objects into groups based on the numbers associated with them. If you can do it, you pass, if not, you fail.

From the perspective of practical recognition of rocks, your algorithm (if it works) will be useful only if you trained it on accurate data or data with not too much noise and if you know what the numbers mean, so if you later are given the information in different units or on an altogether different scale (say, logarithmic instead of linear), you'll know how to convert before feeding them into the machine. If your algorithm is intended for real use, the people who requested the work should be most interested in getting things right, so you should be able to ask them as many relevant questions as you want. If it is just a practice problem, just forget about "rocks", "radiance", etc. View all that as an abstract classification problem about objects and numbers without any meaning whatsoever.

From what you are saying, it looks like you are in the first case scenario. I agree that the exercise is about as meaningful as the exercise in computing the area of the triangle with sides 6,7,8 and the altitude of length 5 drawn to the side of length 7. My daughter really had that as a problem on one of her exams and her teacher replied to my objections that at that stage of learning he just wanted to make sure that kids knew which side to multiply by the height. He wasn't a bad math. teacher overall, by the way, just a bit reckless about the details that weren't directly related to the current topic. Apparently, your professors have a similar attitude.