Is dyslexia regarded as a severe disability for academic applications? For the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP) application they ask:

Other serious disability related to a physical, mental, or emotional
condition is included in my disability
(Please specify. Cannot exceed 255 characters.)

Here I listed dyslexia and the academic accommodations I receive. Is this appropriate? What do they mean by "Severe Disability".
My case is particularly harsh. In my Statement of Purpose I briefly talk about my history of overcoming this as well as how learned to capitalize on my other strengths to compensate for this deficiency. This is particularly important to me, but might not be something that should be mentioned.
This could apply to other academic applications. Is this something that should be mentioned on a PhD application, or is it best to avoid this topic?

Dyslexia is widely recognized as a disability.
Deciding if dyslexia is "severe" is a matter of opinion.  Only one person has a well-informed opinion about the severity of your dyslexia: you.  If you think it is severe, no reasonable person will question it.
Your strategy of mentioning your disability in the context of how you were successful overcoming it is a good strategy.


Serious error in published journal paper by a faculty member Consider the following scenario:
Paper A used a model developed in Paper B.
This model developed in Paper B was corrected over the years in an erratum before Paper A was published.
This makes the outcome of Paper A invalid.
Paper A is published by a faculty member in the department you study as a research student.

Questions:
1) Do I contact this professor with this problem?
2) Do I go ahead and submit paper based on the corrected model in Paper B, which calls for a slightly different methodology hence different results, and stating that Paper A published earlier by the professor is wrong?
3) If 1) is the case, how do you ensure the professor would retract the paper or even include you as a coauthor in an erratum?

Initially the question read in a way that the answer was obviously "this is how science works, no need to make a big deal, just do your project."  It was then clarified that the errata to paper B was published before paper A.  Which makes things a bit more complicated.  Here are some thoughts on the matter.

It's all about the timing

Possibly the timing of the review process and publication for A as well as those for the errata to B made it essentially impossible for A to be aware of the errata and to take it into account. This should probably be your default assumption going forward until you have solid evidence to the contrary.  In this case, the answer is "This is how science (and peer review) works, no need to make a big deal; ideas and methods get updated and discarded for newer ones all the time".

At some impossible to define threshold, though, when the errata for B appears sufficiently long before A, then we have a clearer problem: A should have known about the erratum, and failure to be aware of it constitutes a deficit and failure in the research for paper A.  Unless you have compelling and clear evidence that this was actually done intentionally by A's researchers (e.g. "We don't have the funding to fix it, so we'll pretend it doesn't exist and hope the reviewers don't notice", or "The erratum to B undercuts our research program and beliefs, so we will ignore it in order to minimize the damage to ourselves"), you should still not make a big deal of this.  You should point it out (in the prior case, as well), but do so dispassionately and "scientifically".  Don't denigrate or insult the researchers, simply point out the flaw, cite the erratum and possibly other relevant works that make this flaw clear, and then put it behind you and write the rest of your paper as independently of it as you can.

The worst case scenario

If you have compelling evidence that the failure to account for the erratum to B is because of unethical research practices, or fits into a long running pattern of such omissions/mistakes, then you've got a potentially serious problem.  Consult with your advisor, but avoid getting emotional and personal about it.  They might have more information and perspective that you are lacking that might paint a less negative picture. If your advisor echoes your concerns, then they may know what steps to take next and may take them for you (assuming they have tenure, they have a lot more job security than you do).  Your university should have an ombudsman or other person or office that is specifically concerned with the monitoring and enforcing of ethical research, and this is who you would go to if you feel you still need to take action.  From there you could conceivably elevate things to the deans, but this is a very severe action with no guarantees the dean(s) will side with you, and even if there are legal protections for you in this situation you may still find your career negatively influenced.  You may wish to consult with a legal professional before going to the deans (possibly even before going to an ombudsman).


How will the academic boycot of Israel (BDS) influence my career if I get a PhD in Israel? I'm considering doing a PhD in the social sciences at an Israeli university. My research will not be conflict-focused, and I'm not sure yet whether it will have a local component. I would likely do research that appeals to more left-wing academics (economically and socially), perhaps those who would be inclined to adopt a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) stance.

My question is: If I chose to obtain a PhD in Israel, will the boycott movement significantly affect my academic career? If so, how?

I've asked a few local scholars and have received mixed responses.

If there is going to be a problem, then it will occur when searching collaborating institutions outside Israel. I know there has been talk about stopping such collaborations. However, how much that has been implemented is another question. In my field (quantitative sociology) that has not been the case. The argument being that you are not going to help solve a conflict by closing down channels of communication. This is not the place to discuss the merits of that argument, but you can imagine that such an argument is popular in academia. So I suspect that it should be possible to find a collaborating institution if you needed one.

I don't think you have to worry about the value of your PhD. That should be recognised outside Israel without problems.


How exactly do graduate students collaborate on a research project? My question can be elaborated as follows: When graduate students work together on a research project, are they usually expected to work on the same exact things, at the same exact time, or would it be more reasonable to have a division of labor and divide the work load?

It's really like any other collaboration. Presumably the (student) researchers are working together because they have a common interest in a problem and possibly have some complementary expertise that's useful for solving the problem. So they'll interact and as the situation merits it will divide up tasks (or work on some aspects together). There really isn't a single rule for this.


Recovering your energy after back-to-back teaching This past fall I taught three lecture courses back-to-back-to-back on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings. Although I enjoyed it, and felt I did a good job of it, I felt physically exhausted afterwards and usually did not manage to accomplish much those afternoons.

What strategies (yoga? meditation? long walks?) have others used to quickly recover their energy for research or other duties in such situations?

Don't forget to eat and rehydrate. If possible, get out of your building to do so; that adds a change of pace, which also helps. Give yourself permission not to do anything intellectual while you fuel up.

When I have a schedule like that, I intentionally save relatively mindless chores for afterwards. Work gets done so I don't feel like a slacker, but I don't have to break my brain either.


Can I include Abandoned Patent in CV? I recently came to know that one of the patent we filed in my previous organization has been abandoned. I am currently preparing my resume for PhD applications. I am confused whether to specify the abandoned patent in resume/CV considering the effort involved in coming up with the patent.

I thought of specifying like this in resume

"Patent Name", "Inventors:....", "Application No....","Status-Abandoned"

I'm assuming you mean abandoned in the sense defined by the USPTO. A patent (application) is abandoned if the application is never completed for some reason and cannot move forward to registration. In that sense an abandoned patent is not a patent, so it would seem to be a mistake to include it as anything other than incomplete and abandoned work.

Perhaps you can find a way to include the work in another way that is more positive. Did it result in any publications, for example?


How to weigh these pros and cons of applying to PhD programs? I know people have posted LOTS of questions about whether they should apply to PhD programs, but I haven't seen some of the issues I'm currently facing addressed.

I'm currently a master's student in computer science at a top 15 university and am faced with the current pros and cons:

Pros

I strongly prefer research to software engineering. Apparently this is the only valid reason to get a CS PhD (other than wanting to become a professor, which I don't), and this reason is certainly true for me. I've worked on 3 research projects, all of which I have found vastly more interesting than the software engineering internships I've had. I'm especially excited about finding solutions to unstructured problems, which apparently is the core of doing research.

Cons

According to what I've read, it's likely that even if I get a PhD, I'll end up in software engineering anyway. That's a lot of time and energy spent on something that will end up having little effect on my career. Ideally, I'd like to get an industry research position somewhere like Google, but from what I can tell, only a select number of superstars get those types of positions. I spent my 20s chasing a similarly uber-competitve pipe-dream, and I'd rather not waste my time on another one.
I'm 34 years old. This fact has two repercussions:

Continuing to get paid very little for 5-7 more years seems flat-out irresponsible at this stage of my life. I wiped out my savings and took on loads of debt to quit my job and go back to school. I'm afraid that if I don't to make as much money as possible as soon as possible, I'll end up having to resort to eating cat food when I retire.
If and when I do graduate with a PhD, and if I'm unable to secure a research position and go the programming route, I'll be a new entrant to an industry that is notoriously ageist in my 40s rather than my 30s.

PhD programs are, infamously, very stressful, and I'm not sure I want to put myself through that. I've had chronic depression for my entire adult life (albeit managed and medicated), and I honestly wonder if I could handle the anxiety that PhD programs apparently bring. The PhD application process alone seems enormously intimidating and demoralizing to me.
I frankly just don't think I'm a competitive candidate. My grades are excellent, but I'm not currently at even a top-10 school and I have no publications or good connections to professors at other schools. I also just had a sort of falling out with my current advisor, who's famous in his field, and I'm probably not going to get an LOR from him. I've heard that publications don't really matter in PhD admissions, but I'm looking to apply to top-five schools, where, based on bios I've read and students I've met, they do matter.

Given all these considerations, does it seem obvious that I shouldn't apply to PhD programs? Research seems very alluring and fulfilling to me, but these various drawbacks make it seem like it may not be worth it.

My advice is do a serious job search now of salaries and do a rough "expected value" calculation of how much more money you would make with a PhD compared to without one. Perhaps even ask any contacts you have about this. Then you can see if that amount is worth it to spend four years doing a PhD and the possible better job you might get with one, if it would indeed be better. Money is actually pretty important, so it's a good idea you have an actual figure in mind, even if it is a rough estimate.

My next recommendation is to expand your school applications if you do go for a PhD. If it's enjoyment of research that you're after, the top schools won't necessarily get you a better experience. You'll do better at a less stressful school based on your mental makeup. I did not personally find a PhD very stressful and I think applying might actually be the most difficult part.

I'd also like to say that it's not really necessary to be extremely competitive to get a great career. Most people who will compete with you at all levels of education and career will just go on to do something so different from you that they won't even matter one year down the road.


Do I have to pay back an Australian IPRS Scholarship, if I decide to quit my PhD? I am currently in an application process for a PhD position in Australia and my advisors said that I might be eligible for an IPRS Scholarship.
Obviously this is a great opportunity, but at the same time also a major life changing decision to leave my home country for a three year PhD program abroad.
Before I make my final decision, I of course want to think of all possible risks involved.

So here is my question: Do you know if I have to pay back the funds recieved by the IPRS Scholarship or and University / Project money if I decide to quit my PhD?
Does anyone of you have any experiences regarding this issue?
Thanks!

I would say no.  When you are awarded an IPRS, you will get the conditions that you need to adhere to.  At my university, there is no clause that says you have to pay back anything if you quit.

If I were you, apply first, and if you are successful, look at the conditions carefully.


Does this statement seem arrogant? How do I put this humbly? This is somewhere in my conclusion. I do not want to expand further; just state it without sounding boastful.

  My undergraduate result shows that I am diligent, intelligent and
  focused.

Does something like the following make me seem unsure?

  I like to believe I am diligent, intelligent and
  focused.

The only time I would ever make this statement is if I actually won the Most Diligent, Intelligent and Focused Undergraduate Student Award.

You didn't include the rest of your statement, but it's hard for me to believe that an undergraduate outcome has the capacity to demonstrate these three qualities. Course marks or a cGPA are hardly an indicator of diligence or focus, and certainly not a marker of intelligence the way I would define it.

I find that the best statements don't so much state the personal characteristics of the applicant in so direct a way (a la the conclusions of a lab experiment) but relate how these personal characteristics are demonstrated in real life. The reader is not so much TOLD that you are diligent, intelligent and focused as much as he or she UNDERSTANDS that you are these things.

If you really, truly wanted to include this statement, I wouldn't position it in the end. I would start somewhere at the beginning:

  My peers have remarked that my most endearing qualities are my diligence, focus and intelligence. During field experiments in my final year, we spent 17 weeks in Borneo tracking a potential new species of shrew. Our equipment broke down by the second week and we were suffering from malarial fever by the third week. I jury-rigged a camera trap made from vines and the bottom of a coke bottle and stayed in a single position for 14 weeks. My perseverance paid off when I captured short (2-second), grainy footage of the animal. By then, my entire team had long since abandoned me. I thought they were weak.


Is there a rule or style guide on use of gender-specific pronouns in academic papers? Some authors use "her" whenever they employ a pronoun referring to a noun whose gender is immaterial to the discussion.

Is there any rule (university or journal or conference-specific) which dictates this? Is it good practice to stick to the same pronoun throughout a paper? Or is it better to get rid of the issue by using the gender-neutral 'one'?

The reason for using "her" more frequently nowadays is to correct an ongoing imbalance: in general, for a long time, "his" has been used, even where a more neutral pronoun ("one") should have been used instead.

Grammatically, however, any of the recipes you suggest would be appropriate: it is only the matter of the particular taste of the author. I would recommend, though, that when using both "he" and "she," that you use one consistently throughout a particular usage. Don't write "she/her" in one sentence, and then "he/his" in the one after. A few paragraphs later won't be a problem, though.

The reason "one" is not nearly as popular is that it is somewhat awkward-sounding; too many "one" and "one's" in the same sentence makes it feel too stiff and impersonal. (It's a bit of a catch-22, I know, but that's the way it is!)

One other option that you did not mention, though, may be the simplest route of all: simply use collective plural pronouns: use "they," "their," and "theirs." It gives you the benefit of including everybody, without having to contort your writing to do so.

(I would also comment that some books go out of their way to be gender-neutral, particularly through the use of "gender-neutral" names: Chris, Sam, Pat, Jean, and so on.)


How do graduate admissions committees view published undergraduate research papers? When an undergraduate student choses to publish a research paper(as well as submit it to conferences) out of doing research with a professor, the research paper may be viewed differently for admissions into academia as well as employment fields(like Computer Science).

How do both views differ & is it more valued in academia than for employment?

For any job, relevant experience tends to be one of the most important factors.

Having a published paper on your CV will typically be more important in academia.  Jobs in academia are likely to involve contributing to academic papers, while (most) industry jobs do not.

A paper is still a nice accomplishment to have on your CV.  But for an industry job such as a software developer, the question will be "Can you code?"  It is possible that a computer science graduate has a whole heap of academic accomplishments, yet has no idea how to write software (I have encountered such candidates).

One important point is: tailor your CV to emphasize the right things for the field.

For example, if you did a computer science project that involved writing some software to do something novel, and then published on it, you would highlight different things on your CV depending on the type of job you were going for.

For academia, you would probably emphasize the novel methods and academic output.
For industry, you may want to highlight the software development skills you employed.


How to find if a paper is in top 10% most cited articles in a journal? I saw in some applications that some researchers state that their papers are in top 10% most cited articles, but they never state how they calculated this. I have tried Web of Knowledge and there are some metrics there, but the don't really match the text from those applications. For instance, I found this kind of formulation in one of the applications:

For the articles published Engineering category in 2015, the average
number of citations is only 1.22. This article is therefore one of the
top 10.00% most cited articles published in Engineering in 2015.

I saw that it was calculated using Google Scholar, but I don't know how they do it. Can anyone please help me to understand how can you see if you paper is in top xxx% most cited articles like in the text above? Is there a software for that? Or is there any relation with the h-index that can give that for a certain year?

Go to Web of Knowledge and search by publication name. Then sort by citation count and find the 10% cutoff (e.g. if there have been 10,000 papers published in that journal, then the article with the 1000th highest citation count is the 10% cutoff). Then find the paper you're interested in, and see if it's above or below that 10% cutoff.


Are there introductory graduate courses for non-American PhD programs in mathematics? For instance, on the course page for the DPhil in Mathematics at Oxford (http://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/graduate/courses/dphil-mathematics), they mention the requirement of taking "100 hours of broadening courses before confirmation of status" in the third year of the program. Are these "broadening courses" essentially the same as introductory graduate courses in the US? They involve "submission of written work," so they do not seem like colloquia or seminars.

From Oxford's webpage, Broadening Training,

  Courses should be designed to broaden your knowledge and understanding of the Mathematical Sciences as a whole. They should, by definition, not be directly related to the topic of your dissertation ..

And it goes on to list where these courses can come from. I took a look at some of the offerings, and as a US graduate, to me they essentially amount to any approved graduate-level course. Whether you can call them introductory is a bit subjective (course looks cool, ends up nightmare, etc.), but they also confirm that part of these 100 hours of broadening does include seminars and colloquia.


Applying for postdocs / lectureships - sorting bad advice from good (UK, mathematics) Long story short: I got my PhD a few years ago, and am currently in a temporary job. Anticipating future job applications, I found myself an experienced, senior local mentor. My time in this job is now almost at an end, and I've been submitting dozens of job applications, including to jobs far "below" the one I'm in now. These applications have so far all ended in rejection without interview. So I quietly reached out to some other experienced members of the faculty for their advice.

What I'm experiencing now is a case of too many mentors spoiling the broth. I have been told variously that, in order to get a job, my main, most urgent priority should be:

writing higher-quality papers to publish in top journals
polishing and publishing my older preprints, even if they're not so high-quality
speaking at conferences/seminars on the wider international stage
organising conferences / similar community admin
applying for more grants

etc. etc. I've also been given a list as long as my arm of things that are not my most urgent priority, but are still important. They're all great pieces of advice individually, but I'm finding the lack of coherent prioritisation overwhelming given the few months I have remaining, and I'm struggling to imagine how I could achieve some of these things even if I had a year or more left.

How should I be prioritising my time in the remaining few months? (For the purpose of this question, my goal is to end up not being forced out of UK academia without another job lined up.)
How should I prioritise my time in my next temporary job, if I manage to find one? (For this question, my goal is to end up with a permanent research/teaching contract in the UK within the next few years.)

Edited to add extra background information on request:

I'm in pure mathematics.
I've written several papers that have been published in good-to-very-good, well-known journals, though nothing nearing e.g. Inventiones. The preprints that I haven't yet submitted are likely to be similar. Of course, I'm working on more and better, but I am worried that I'll be forced out of academia long before any of it is finalised, much less published.
I have spoken at conferences and seminars internationally, a couple of times. I'm on the lookout for more opportunities.
I have never organised a conference or done any big admin work like that: my living situation is far too precarious to allow it, because of the lack of stable job.
The amount of smaller admin work (e.g. peer review, session chair) I've done is very limited. I'm on the lookout for opportunities, but not finding anything.
I've applied for a couple of small awards, and I'm in the process of applying for my first grant. Most of them I'm not eligible for, because they don't replace your salary, and need to be co-signed by an employer willing to pay your salary (which I don't have).
I'm aware that postdocs and fixed-term lectureships are different jobs. I include them because their job descriptions are almost identical and because I am applying for both. If you can only answer on one, or have to answer separately for each, please do.

My advice would be:

write more applications

Academic job hunt is a gamble. Boosting your CV does improve your chances, but it is still a gamble. There is no security in this game and no guaranteed strategies. Places which seem to be a 100% match can reject you without an interview, and places where you barely meet the role specification can shortlist you. There are often more criteria than are written in the job specification and there are often several competing agendas each Department wants to fulfil.

A few months is not enough to publish your  best piece (review process may take years). Speaking at conferences may help, but realistically even if a professor will love your work and would like to hire you, they may not be able to do it immediately, unless they have funds to spare (very rare and unlikely situation in the UK). Organising a conference takes more than a year.

tl;dr:  polish your CV and application pack, submit more job applications and (if you have time) prepare a Fellowship application, e.g. to EPSRC


Should I mention a discovery was made by mistake? How is this practice viewed? How common is it to mention that a discovery was made by accident and if it is acceptable to say that in a paper?
We often hear historical accounts on how discoveries were made by accident, however, I never saw it mentioned in a paper. I wonder if here would be a good place to ask for examples.
I am asking that because I recently made a discovery and the specific conditions I used were simply by mistake. These conditions were not used before and it was not my intent to use them, I just used the buffer of a different experiment.
Usually, there is an explanation of why a specific condition was chosen, but if there is no reason beforehand, is it better to come up with an explanation or to state it was by trial?

The paper is not the place to give a step by step account of everything that happened. You should have a research log, or lab log, or some other form of documentation that does that, but that is separate from the paper. The paper is there to present your finding in a clear and concise way. Based on the paper you should be able to replicate the results, but, depending on the kind of research you do, is not necessarily the same as a complete list of every step taken. I think of the paper as the summary for the research log and code.
I can imagine accidents where it is worthwhile to mention that in the paper, others where it can be entertaining and other accidents where it is not appropriate in the sense that it wastes the readers time. It depends on the accident and the style of paper you are writing, where the latter in a large part depends on the journal you intend to sent it to.


How to manage imposter syndrome during the job hunt? There are lots of questions on here about dealing with Imposter Syndrome throughout the whole Ph.D. experience.  I have struggled with Imposter Syndrome throughout my whole Ph.D., but was able to manage it through a supportive adviser who thinks the world of my work. However, this is changing now.  I am on the job hunt (graduating this spring with a Ph.D. in applied mathematics - my research is sort of straddling the line between applied math and computer science, although my masters and bachelors are both in pure math) and I am focused on teaching-oriented schools, and have a diverse teaching background (with overwhelmingly positive teaching evaluations).

I have applied to many jobs.  I have gotten a decent number of first round interviews (phone, skype/zoom, conference interviews at the Joint Math Meetings) but only one on campus interview so far.  And still waiting to hear back from them (probably not the top candidate judging by the time).  The job most interested in me right now is a job I was qualified for with just my masters - and I only have unofficial word on that, hearing things through the grapevine.  There has also been countless rejections of the form-letter variety.

Sorry for the rambling.  Long story short, I struggled with Imposter Syndrome through the Ph.D., was built up by a supportive adviser and finally was feeling like I actually did belong in academia, and now the complete lack of job prospects is just making me feel like it was all a mistake somehow.  Somehow I slipped through this far, but nobody will actually want me on faculty.

Those of you who have been here before - how did you personally deal with feeling not good enough after all this work?  The way I'm feeling is interfering with me finishing typing my dissertation, because I'm feeling like there is no point.  How can I snap out of this enhanced imposter syndrome?

Actually user Bob Brown has the germ of the answer in his comment. Having imposter syndrome doesn't mean that you are an imposter. It is a mental condition, nothing more. There are many such conditions that can serve as handicaps at your stage of career. Extreme introversion is another. Even, oddly, is breaking your leg so that travel becomes impossible for a while.

How do you deal with these things? The answer is "Every day, little by little".

Imposter syndrome affects how you feel, but it doesn't have any necessary effect on what you do. You can become the success you'd like to be if you just act as if you don't have these feelings. "Fake it till you make it" is actually good advice for such things.

You need to send out letters and get letters of recommendation and make your case for your success in a job whether you feel confident about it or not. So, just do that. If you also feel like it is just a waste of time because you aren't worthy then it will only become a self-fulfilling prophesy if you let the feeling affect your actions.

But if all you need, right now, is to feel better about yourself, then I'd suggest going back to that advisor and asking for her/his most honest assessment of your skills/position/prospects/whatever. Just a little dopamine hit to keep you smiling while you write those dam' letters.

My issue, actually, was the extreme introversion thing. It held me back until I got some advice that said "ignore it". Act like an extrovert. It was hard and took a long time, but few people other than my spouse think of me as introverted anymore.

In your case, just ask yourself, how would I act if I weren't an imposter? Then do that.

(every day, little by little)


In writing, do I need to define an abbreviation when it is already an industry standard term? When writing academic and scientific literature, are there any good guidelines to when you can omit defining an industry standard abbreviation? Are there any guidelines to where you can draw the line? When looking the this up I found a few sources like this blogpost that suggested using dictionaries - if it is in the dictionary as a word, you don't need to explain it.

However, in my field (electrical engineering) there are many industry standard abbreviations that are not in any dictionaries. Examples would be terms like opamp (operational amplifier), ADC (analog-to-digital converter), CPU (central processing unit), MOSFET (Metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor). Applying their rule would mean I have to define every term, but this would seem somewhat excessive to me.

How do I deal with industry standard terms that are still abbreviations? The safe bet would be to always define them in their first use, but are there any general rules to use when dealing with these?

Let us assume that your publisher / journal / conference / style manual has no restrictive guideline regarding abbreviations (otherwise, follow that guideline obviously in first place).

You do have to define every abbreviation. (As an example, I was confused yesterday by finding out that CRT is not only a cathode ray tube, but also the Chinese Remainder Theorem). Consider, e.g., the huge list at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADC . But you can do it in a clever, space-conserving way by

providing a list in an appendix,
defining them in footnotes on their first usage,
defining all of them in small size in a "preliminaries section" or in endnotes,
giving a reference to a standard Web site with the abbreviations you need,
giving a reference to your own Web page with the abbreviations you need,
citing some electrical-engineering dictionary which defines them unambiguously the way you need,
…

Of course, pay attention that your paper reads well in first place; there may be no general advice on which of the above list items applies best to your paper.


Adding pictures to mathematical academic papers I was wondering if there is this "universal" program that generates a picture of a graph (you make), then exports it to SVG form. The SVG is because I want to export my whole project to PDF, so I need everything to be scalable vectors.
I was really curious how do people add different style of graphs, from regular "circles connected with lines/arrows" to graphs of automata like so (Apologies, I cannot make this picture view from the front as I don't have enough reputation):
Picture of Automata for example
My question is basically if there are some good (free) softwares to create graphs (any time of graph), so that it would look nice in a PDF, and not pixel-y.
Or do they make these on photoshop alone?
I was really trying hard to find some, the closest thing I found is XMIND which costs money for SVG, and on top of that, I did not see how to make this automata style.
(The automata is just an example of a "bizarre" graph/image, but I really mean all styles)
Thank you very much!

In my experience, these kinds of pictures are usually created using the LaTeX package TiKZ. An example collection of what can be done with TiKZ and how is available here: https://texample.net/tikz/examples/


Hiring a professor to review doctoral thesis Where can I find a professor to review my doctoral thesis? My current professor has a turnaround of 5 to 6 weeks before getting back to me with suggested revisions. I was hoping to hire someone to give me quicker feedback and reduce the time my professor needs to review my doc.

Do you know the old saying that you can have something done 1) cheap, 2) fast, and 3) good - but you can only pick two of three? That applies here.
There are not many professors available for hire for something like this. If you can even find one, I would suspect that they are not very good. Good researchers are generally busy people, who would not want to commit to proof-reading some strangers' thesis. Unless, of course, you are willing to pay a large amount of money. I am not at professor level myself, but I am qualified to read a thesis and provide comments. If you wrote and asked me, I would probably say no, because of the obvious ethical problems. But if I entertain the thought for a moment, I would ask my standard rate for external consultations which, depending on who is asking, is 2-300 €/hour. If you are willing to pay something like this, then it is a matter of sending someone you know to be good an email and asking. Expect many people to say no before someone accepts.


English requirement for Teaching Assistantship for Ph.D students I am applying to Ph.D programs of universities of America as an international student.

I currently have an 8.0 IELTS with 7.0 Speaking, and a TOEFL with lower points: Reading, Listening and Writing:20, Speaking:26

Usually programs require a high speaking score (equal to or over 26) if I want to become a TA, right? Clearly my IELTS speaking is not high enough, but TOEFL speaking is.  But the overall scores have the opposite order.

So can I submit the two certificates and become a TA (assuming I am admitted, of course)?

As you might expect, the specific requirements to be eligible for a teaching assistantship vary from one university to the next, and from one department to the next.  The only people who can answer your question are staff at each of the departments you're applying to.  Ask them!!

To give one example: My public US R1 university has a strict requirement of a 24 or better on the speaking portion of the TOEFL, or an 8 or better on the speaking portion of the IELTS, in order to be a teaching assistant.  Minimum TOEFL/IELTS requirements for admission without a teaching assistantship are somewhat lower; however, many PhD programs (like mine) have a TA requirement, and so the requirements for TAships are also de facto requirements for admission into those programs.  Some graduate programs have higher TOEFL/IELTS requirements than the campus-wide minimum, and some graduate programs also assess English proficiency independently through interviews, writing samples, and the like.

Of course, meeting a department's English-proficiency requirements for a teaching assistantship does not guarantee that that department will offer you a teaching assistantship.  It just means that you're eligible.


When should I cite, if using code from Stack Overflow? I already found a question handling the case if you got some information from Stack Exchange for my thesis. Unfortunately I did not find anything about the case that I get a solution (not necessarily from stackexchange) for a specific problem.

For example, if I have a problem with a specific part in my code, or if I have to design a circuit, and I run into a problem: What is the threshold of information, i.e. when should I cite the answer in my thesis? Should I always cite Stack Overflow (or the other web page), even if its just for two lines? Where is the threshold?

And how should I do this in my code? Should I rather make a comment block around the specific part of the code, redirecting to SO, or should I simply cite it in my thesis?

The important distinction to make here is between:

Intellectual contributions to the actual research/science.
Technical help.

Contributions of the first kind are – roughly speaking – what warrants authorship or, if the contribution is already published, a citation. With other words: If the contribution would warrant authorship if unpublished, it has to be cited. As already stated, this is somewhat simplified and distinguishing between when to cite and when to include as an author can sometimes be tricky, but it should give you a rough idea, as to what you have to cite. Also note that there are other reasons for citing, such as context embedding, which do not apply here, however.

Two lines of code (to take this example) almost always fall under contributions of the second kind: They help you with the tools you need to use for your research but not with the actual subject of your research. It’s roughly comparable to the contribution of somebody fixing the microscope you need for some biological research. Of course, it might be a very helpful contribution that saved you months of work (in which case you should consider mentioning it in the acknowledgments), but it’s not a scientific contribution.

However, the decision may not always be that easy. Apart from the aformentioned authorship criterion (also note the authorship tag on this site for this), asking yourself the following questions might help to solve the question:

Is the kind of contribution to your work fundamentally different from:

designing the programming language you used,
designing or building your CPU,
designing or building your microscope?

If yes, consider citing.
Does the contribution affect the results of your research or is it necessary for others to reproduce your research? By results I here mean something like:

  The 666th digit of π is 6.
  The proposed algorithm outperforms the current standard method.

and not:

  I managed to compute the results before the deadline.
  Unfortunately, the results do not make any sense, probably due to some bug.

If yes, then you should consider citing. If, on the other hand, you have good reason to assume that somebody implementing your solution in a totally different programming language or calculating everything with pen and paper would arrive at the same results, then you should not cite.

Contributions of the second kind are what, amongst others, you can put in your acknowledgements, where in a thesis it’s usually up to you, who and how many people you mention.


Can I apply for a faculty position after 14 years of postdcoc? I did my pHD in 2007. After that I worked on several univeristies as post doc and postdoctoral associates. I mentored students, did TA, wrote proposals, and worked with industrial collaboration projects.
What is my possibility to become a tenure faculty ?

You can certainly apply. There is nothing to prevent that. But, like any candidate you have to meet the qualifications and present a positive case.
Depending on your field, you may be expected to have a pretty full CV, with papers and such and also good letters of recommendation (in those places where they are valued). You might also be asked to explain why you spent so long as a post doc. That may be easy to do, depending on your research and its outcomes.
But only a hiring committee will be able to say whether you can be offered a tenure-track position.
And, as you make applications, it is better to cast a wide net and not focus on only a very narrow subset of universities. Match any application to the needs of that institution as best you can discover.


Should expository papers (e.g., in American Math Monthly) be listed in CV under Publications? Should expository papers (e.g., in American Math Monthly) be listed in CV as if they are regular publications? These are usually not totally original research papers. For example, this is the description of articles to be submitted to American Math Monthly:

The Monthly's readers expect a high standard of exposition; they expect articles to inform, stimulate, challenge, enlighten, and even entertain. Monthly articles are meant to be read, enjoyed, and discussed, rather than just archived. Articles may be expositions of old or new results, historical or biographical essays, speculations or definitive treatments, broad developments, or explorations of a single application. Novelty and generality are far less important than clarity of exposition and broad appeal. Appropriate figures, diagrams, and photographs are encouraged.
Notes are short, sharply focused, and possibly informal. They are often gems that provide a new proof of an old theorem, a novel presentation of a familiar theme, or a lively discussion of a single issue.

I think that more than half of the articles and notes published in the Monthly contain original research.  ("Totally original" does not seem like a useful standard, as many well-written seminal papers contain substantial portions which are not original research.  I am currently translating Serre's 1972 paper on torsion points and am struck by the extent to which he was willing to be expository.)

I work at a large research university, I have two Monthly publications (and article and a note; the former appears in the December 2014 issue) and I happily -- indeed proudly -- list them alongside my other publications.  There is definitely original research in both of these publications.  (I apologize for the excessive horn-tooting, but it seems perhaps relevant to mention that Google Scholar finds a citation for each of these publications in a research paper written by people I have never met.)  It is not the same species of research that I would publish in the Journal of Number Theory or Crelle, but since they occur alongside publications in these journals, I think their existence reflects positively on my research profile.

If you clicked on my webpage, you may have seen that I do separately list expository documents.  These documents do not contain new results (though in some cases they contain proofs that I at least have not found in the literature).  But I think it is not a coincidence that none of these documents have been published, although three out of the four have been submitted.  I don't seem to have a good handle on the genre of "truly expository journal aritcles"; in fact, I find that it is as much work or more to get these published and I do think that the value to me would be smaller.  There are also surprisingly few avenues for the publication of mathematical exposition, so because I am less interested in the certification or credit that the formal publication process brings, I have for a while been content to "self-publish" these results on my own webpage and/or the arxiv.

One default way is to list as research publications those which are archived and reviewed by MathSciNet.  Alas I am not entirely clear on how these choices are made.  It seems that in recent years, most Monthly publications get archived and many get reviewed.  For the other MAA journals -- Math Magazine and the College Math Journal -- it seems to be rarer to have reviews.  For instance my recent Monthly publication references a 2012 note of Kantrowitz and Schramm, but MathSciNet has no record of this publication.  I just looked back at the last few years of CMJ, and I am a bit confused: I don't know why they don't list certain short articles (I think they should...) and how they choose to review the articles that they do.

Upon further thought, here are two rules of thumb I like a little better:

"Rule 1: Do not mislead".  If your Nature publication is actually a letter to the editor correcting someone's birth and death dates [this is a totally hypothetical example; I have no idea whether this journal would ever publish such a letter] and you don't list this explanatory detail on your CV, I worry that you are trying to misrepresent yourself.
"Rule 2: Subject to Rule 1, make the publication list an accurate reflection of your own views."  Thus, notwithstanding what I wrote above, I might perhaps submit this tiny note for publication in something like the CMJ someday.  Unlike most other stuff I've written, it is wholly and sincerely aimed at actual intermediate-level undergraduate math majors, and I think that it might actually help some people if it were published.  But there is just no mathematical novelty here, and I think it would dilute my own record by listing it as a research publication.


Can I submit my manuscript to a second journal without receiving withdrawal confirmation from the first journal? it's a month from the submission of a manuscript of mine in a "World Scientific" journal, but its status is still "Editor Invited". I just sent the editor-in-chief a note to ask about the situation because the editor assignment process is unusually getting long. The editor-in-chief did not answer my inquiry, so I am about to withdraw the paper. Let's say (s)he doesn't confirm my withdrawal request. Will I be ethically authorized to submit my manuscript somewhere else considering that I will keep the withdrawal email (in case someone claims that I hadn't withdrawn it before new submission)?

This is actually a really interesting question as I don't think there's a black and white answer to this. Ethically, a "reasonable" attempt must be made to confirm withdrawal of the manuscript. People will draw the line at different points.

I would argue that one attempt at contact is not sufficient to be considered reasonable. If possible, I would contact the editor by phone as well as email. Check to see if there's a withdrawal protocol through your online account or if there are any additional contact details of committee members.

I would only feel comfortable submitting elsewhere if I had made multiple attempts to contact the journal over a period of 4-6 weeks. But that is just my opinion. I'm interested to see what others think...


How do I politely tell a student to take a shower? There's a student in my class who obviously has some serious body hygeine issues. To preface, this is a fairly packed class -- about 60 students in a small lecture room.  The class is about 2 hours long. The problem has been so bad that when the student comes up to ask a question the stench hits hard. The problem is so bad lately that in the past month, people will leave a seat distance away from this one person, even standing up for the entirety of the lecture just to avoid sitting next to this person when the only seats available are next to the person.

I don't know how to approach him and to ask that they take care of their body. Or will I be a prude if I do try to get him to shower? Maybe it's a unique body issue that he can't fix (unlikely), but I really want to solve this before exams come up, which are going to cause issues. No one has come up to talk to me privately about it but the problem is incredibly obvious.

What should I do?

Normally my advice would be identical to Buffy’s, to simply talk to the student. At least, I would have liked to think that we live in a world where that would be the correct, and obvious, answer to the question. However, the reality is that in today’s culture there is a great deal of sensitivity about certain topics, such that when a college instructor makes a comment to a student about those topics, the result may be unpredictable.* This is particularly true in matters relating to personal appearance and behavior, even more so when other factors like gender, race, mental health, disability status and perhaps other things get dragged into the discussion (which may end up happening whether or not you think it ought to), and even more so when the parties involved are of unknown temperament, sound like they may not be the most sensible people around, and cannot be counted on to react in a reasonable fashion even to the most benign and well-intentioned of approaches.

Considering all that, given your situation I should think that it would be a trivial matter to go to your department’s staff and/or faculty administrators such as the vice-chair or chair, and ask for suggestions how to proceed. Make it clear to them that the situation is untenable and that the student’s hygiene problem is impinging on your other students’ rights to benefit from a physically safe and healthy educational environment while attending your class, so that you feel that some action must be taken. And do not worry about being a busybody or wasting their time - this is indeed a tricky situation and it is perfectly reasonable even for a very experienced instructor to wonder how to respond and seek advice.

Finally, if your administrators suggest that you talk to the student — which is after all the obvious, and probably necessary, solution — well, then, at least you will be able to say that you followed the advice of officialdom rather than strangers on the internet, should your friendly suggestion to the student end up being ill-received.

*
Many discussions right here on academia.se, among other things, have opened my eyes to this reality - one memorable one involved an instructor wondering how to respond to a female student coming to class in a bikini top, if I remember correctly. I remember being rather taken aback by the diversity of opinions on what should be done in such a scenario, as well as by the judgmental tone of some of those opinions.


How reasonable is it to ask my referees to send their recommendation letters to me? I am applying for a junior faculty position (i.e. tenure track assistant professor level) at a research-intensive US university this fall. As a part of the application process, the university asked for CV, cover letter, employment application letter, a list of referees at the initial phase. Now they have contacted me again and asked to submit three reference letters, a teaching statement, and a research plan via email in order to complete my application.  Most interestingly for the reference letters, I have been given the options of having my references email them directly or I can forward them their letters. I can do whichever is more convenient to me. My concern is with the second option. If I ask my referees to send their letters to me, I can see what they are writing about me. Will they feel secured in such a way? Please advise how I should proceed in this regard.

You should ask your references to send the letters directly to the hiring committee.  Your references will be more candid in letters that you have not seen and this will increase the credibility of the letters in the eyes of committee members.


Advantages and Disadvantages of learning mathematics and physics subjects through lecture videos I have been contemplating studying some subjects by watching video lectures, more specifically Topology and Quantum Mechanics. I was wondering, if anyone has tried studying a subject on his own  by watching just lectures. Alternatively, I could work systematically through a book. What are the advantages and disadvantages of learning by watching lecture videos, compared to reading a book? I am more concerned more about courses in Maths and Physics.

For postgraduate research, neither watching video lectures nor just reading a book are going to help you enough.

You're going to have to actively engage with the subject matter, by solving problems, and keeping up with current research literature in journals.

Following on from the OP's comment: I do understand that your question is "which is better - books or videos". And the answer to your question is neither. It's a false opposition.

Neither are necessary, and neither are sufficient. You have to learn the core content of maths and physics by solving problems. And to do postgraduate research, you have to keep up with the current research literature in journals (including preprint archives where appropriate).


Should I go back for 2nd PhD in applied field this time? I finished my PhD in 2017 in a psychology field that is mostly academic (non-clinical), so it is basically impossible to find jobs outside of academia that don't require a huge move.

I have a current visiting position that will expire potentially next year (though previous VAPs at the school have been extended). My research productivity has declined while teaching- and I really enjoy teaching and have gotten good reviews, but there do not seem to be many positions that hire only on that basis. Additionally, I've grown a bit tired of the prescribed way research is incentivized and framed in my field.

To add to that, my girlfriend is attached to the current area with permanent work and family/friends are all connected to where we currently live. Jobs in this area pertaining to my work seem nearly impossible, but the location is ideal.

However, there are a lot of applied types of jobs in the area in psychology. Should I consider going back for a PhD in for example, counseling psychology so as to increase my work potential? To me it sounds crazy but the very real possibility of having no work or having to take crummy adjunct positions for the rest of my life is enough to make me consider it. I've considered applied masters degrees as well which would be enough to get a job, but not great ones for the cost (although maybe best for my circumstance?). I also should mention that I really find the applied aspect of this work appealing, and would love to be more involved with people through it so it's not as though my heart wouldn't be in it.

The job market is truly terrible as far as I can tell, and I feel that I'd have a much better chance if I got out of my current field which feels completely pigeonholed. However, spending another 5 years (assuming I get in) in school being broke again plus whatever supervised work comes after makes me tired just thinking of it.

The bottom line is, I want job security. Outside of tenure lines, which feel like a far flung possibility at this point, I don't know how to feel secure with my current degree. I know the real kicker is probably my location restriction, but I just don't think it would be worth it to give up my relationships at this point in my life when things finally seem to work out. If anyone knows of/has had any similar experience, I would greatly appreciate any advice.

Instead of looking to start a second PhD, is there any way you could find a post-doc in a more applied field? This would be a much shorter route to obtaining more clinical/applied experience. I do not know how licensure works in your specific locale (i.e. do you need to have a certain specialization in a psychology PhD to be licensed?), but if all you need is experience then a post-doc may be the better option. Post-docs usually are much shorter than a full PhD and also pay much better (relatively speaking).

  Jobs in this area pertaining to my work seem nearly impossible, but the location is ideal.

One of the worst things you can do early career is place artificial restraints on your job search. Yes, your girlfriend has connections to the current location. Does she want to live there the rest of her life, even if it means you are unemployed? I have had several early career people that I've mentored tell me that they cannot find any jobs, only to discover that they are exclusively looking in their hometown in Alabama with 1500 residents (or whatever). They tell me "Oh, but that's where my family lives!" That's great, if your family is willing to support you financially.

Any location where you are unemployed long term without any prospects is not "ideal."  Not to be harsh, but you may need to decide whether you would rather have your current girlfriend or a job. This is entirely not my business, but perhaps a girlfriend who refuses to move so that you can find a better opportunity is not a girlfriend you want long term. This is especially true if she is planning on looking to you for any form of financial support. I understand that there is a balance there; your career certainly does not take inherent precedence over hers. But depending on what your long terms plans are together, she and you may need to have a discussion about moving or breaking up.

As has been mentioned in the comments, it is also possible that you could find work in fields that are not directly related to clinical psychology. I work with some researchers in the engineering industry who do "human factor analysis." They help companies (mostly the defense industry) determine how to make their products safer from a human-error standpoint. Many of these researchers have PhDs in psychology. Developing the quantitative skills to do work like this would be much easier than getting a second PhD. Similar work can be found in fields like political science and legal science (i.e. as a trial scientist). These are often directly related to social psychology.


Is there any way to find changes between two revisions of a book? I want to find how much it differs between Pocket Medicine 6th edition and the previous 5th one in scale of percent of words or something similar.

I've revised the translation of the book for a publisher and now they want me to specify the number of pages that was beyond a mere revision; i.e. those I actually translated from scratch.

There are several out-of-box tools that you can use to check the differences between two or more documents. I typically use the built-in merge feature of Mendeley that gives you a confidence interval when merging two documents. From that you can extrapolate if the documents are pretty similar or extremely different.


Poster session without a poster The airline forced me to check my poster and now it's gone lost. The session I was supposed to participate in is today, so there's little chance of finding a printer in town in a few hours†; What do I do?

† In Germany, no businesses may operate on Sunday except with explicit exemptions, and a German printer would rather go out of business than work on a Sunday anyway. Also, this is a small town in the middle of nowhere; when I write "little chance" I really mean "no chance".

Unfortunately my answer comes too late for the OP specifically.

First, you should contact the session organizers to explain your situation. This is important because you do not want to be regarded as a no-show by the organizers. Depending on the conference, it may have a negative impact being able to present at the same conference in the future.

Second, you would want to avoid wasting your opportunity to present at a poster session. As others have suggested, try to print a full size or even a partial size poster, or even just your major figures. Ultimately the point is for attendees to see your research, results, affiliation and to network, and any kind of information is better than no information. As long as its enough for someone to come up and talk to you, I'm sure you can fill out the rest of the details by your memory.


Recommendation letter from a supervisor after falling out In the event of a falling out with a supervisor (Master's thesis or PhD) is there generally anything one can do about it if one wants to apply to a (different) PhD program, for which one would need a recommendation letter? I am mostly interested in the European academia.

I am certain this must have happened a lot in the history of academia and I am wondering what happens in such situations. Is it the end of one's academic career? Are the other options to leaving or (if possible) changing research groups within the university? I know that one can't force a person to write a positive letter, but is there anything that outsiders can do to effect such a situation or is all the power with the supervisor?

To begin with, most supervisors are reasonable, decent people.  So, the option of communication, depending on the nature of the falling out, is quite reasonable.  It is perfectly possible to finish a PhD with a substantially acrimonious relationship.  It might be best to study communication skills a bit first.

If that isn't practical, typically, the former supervisor has a lot of power.*  However, very few things are absolutes.  The purpose of a supervisor's letter is to gain insight from someone who has previously worked with you.  In the USA, in my experience, a certain amount of creativity is acceptable as long as you can fulfill that purpose.

For example, my PhD supervisor switched continents and became quite busy with startups without leaving a forwarding address...  So, I provided a letter of recommendation from another supervisor along with a note describing the circumstances for some fellowship applications.  No problems. Albeit, I worked in research in industry for several years.

*One thing many graduate students overlook is properly researching potential advisors.  The cost of a PhD, typically, significantly exceeds the price of a home.  And, typically, is much riskier.  Yet, somehow, students jump into PhD programs far more easily than they'd buy houses.  On the positive side, in departments I have been in, there have been a few supervisors with known personality issues and, within the department, accommodations were made for students leaving those groups.


Bad style to start text in subsection? Is it considered bad style if I have a section with multiple subsections and start my text only in the subsection (no text below the section heading)?

  1. Section

  1.1 First subsection

  This is where the text starts …

  1.2 Next subsection

  This is where the text goes on …

I asked my supervisor the exact same question while writing my master thesis. He said that it is a matter of style, he preferred putting an introductory text under each heading. I looked over some articles in my field as well, and they were pretty divided on it.

If you have a style guide from your university/publisher, or if you have examples available, I would say, follow those. Otherwise it's up to you.

I found it good practice, because those are the places where you write a short summary/introduction for that chapter, which could help you organize your thoughts.


Professor being mistaken for a grad student This question is the flip side of Mistook new faculty member to be a student, how big a faux pas is it?

I'm an associate professor, and apparently I look young for my age. When I meet new people at conferences, they often start the conversation with something like  "So, are you a grad student or a postdoc?"  It doesn't particularly bother me in itself, but when I politely say something like "Actually, I'm faculty", they get embarrassed and it kind of puts a damper on the conversation.  I think this sort of thing has probably spoiled a few potential networking opportunities for me.

Are there more tactful ways I can respond to this kind of mistake?
Are there things I could do to "look" more like a professor?  I already dress reasonably neatly (e.g. no T-shirts) and faculty in my field don't normally dress up much more than that.  Should I carry a briefcase instead of a backpack, or something like that?

(I happen to be cis male, work in mathematics, and live in the US, but it would be good to have more generally applicable answers if possible.)

I would take it as a compliment to be mistaken for being younger. And, even if you don't actually feel complimented, that's a good way to respond. For example, you could laugh and say "Thanks. I wish I was still a young and carefree student, but, unfortunately, I'm a professor."

If you make it appear like you take it as a compliment, people won't feel like they have offended you and it is less awkward. The other party may also intentionally be erring on the side of underestimating your age, because it's seen as less of a faux pas that way.

(I often get people commenting on my height. I always act as if I take it as a compliment and that seems to work well. However, in reality, I'm pretty bored of discussing my disinterest in basketball.)

At conferences, you always have the option of putting "Prof." on your nametag. There is a small risk that this looks pretentious relative to the norms of your community, so it's a tradeoff.

Finally, there is one sure-fire way to appear older.


How to deal with unruly, unengaged students who complain about me? I got a job 6 months ago as a university lecturer. I was assigned two subjects with the same students. Due to COVID-19, classes are online and lectures are recorded.
From the beginning, the majority of the class was ill-mannered. They would make noise by opening microphones, opening cameras, removing other students, muting my mic.  When I threatened to involve the chairman, they said "he is our buddy."
So I made some rules, threatening to mark students absent if this continued. The whole class then requested a meeting and asked me to discard these rules. I agreed. Since then, the students have largely stopped their shenanigans with the microphone and camera. But only a few are engaging with the material and answering or asking questions during lecture.
I try calling on them one by one, to ask if there is any confusion, and they always say they don't understand anything. This hurt my feelings. So I said them that tell me that will they be responsive in my class or I will talk to chairman. No one replied except one student, who said "as you wish."
I called chairman I was about to start my point but before that he told me: be soft with your class, they have issues with you, they have complained to me and sent me a recording. He said that he didn't watch the recording, but I should be careful.
I asked one student (the one who instigated the discussion about the rules) whether they still have an issue with me, and she said no. I said asked why she complained about me when issues were resolved among us. She denied making the complaint. But clearly someone has a grudge against me.
I am really hurt by these allegations. The situation is getting worse day by day.
Did I do something wrong? What should I do differently? Should I be worried about losing my job?

From the beginning, the majority of the class was ill-mannered. They would make noise by opening microphones, opening cameras, removing other students, muting my mic.

This seems like a technical problem; I really can't believe any modern software wouldn't have a way to disallow this behavior. I would start by investigating this.

When I threatened to involve the chairman, they said "he is our
buddy."

This seems like a bit of an illogical response on your part. Classroom control is your responsibility. What do you expect the chairman to do?

So I made some rules, threatening to mark students absent if this continued. The whole class then requested a meeting and asked me to discard these rules. I agreed.  Since then, the students have largely stopped their shenanigans with
the microphone and camera. But only a few are engaging with the
material and answering or asking questions during lecture.

In general, setting draconian rules and then repealing them entirely will make you seem erratic. In this case, it is true that students muting your microphone and expelling each other during lecture is a serious problem that you have to solve "at any cost." Still, it seems like there had to have been a better option. Do your colleagues have this problem? How have they dealt with it?

I try calling on them one by one, to ask if there is any confusion, and they always say they don't understand anything.

So, this is the crux of the matter: I suspect your lectures are completely incomprehensible. Reasons I suspect this:

Your students are outright telling you "I don't understand anything."
It would explain your students' antics with the microphone.
You had extreme difficulty in formulating your question here -- both language-agnostic skills (filtering the important information, organizing it, even breaking into paragraphs) and English-specific syntax.

Now I could be wrong, so I suggest you start by getting a colleague to sit in on your lecture and give you some honest feedback. If I am right, I can't tell you how to improve your teaching, but I think you need to take drastic action -- anything from getting better teaching mentorship to signing up for education classes could be worth trying.

This hurt my feelings. So I said them that tell me that will they be responsive in my class or I will talk to chairman. No one replied except one student, who said "as you wish."
I called chairman I was about to start my point but before that he told me: be soft with your class, they have issues with you, they have complained to me and sent me a recording. He said that he didn't watch the recording, but I should be careful.

Yeah, two issues here:

You can't force student engagement. Chastising them will only make matters worse. You could try making participation part of their grade; however, I would first make sure your lectures are good, otherwise students will be rightfully angry that you are forcing them to participate in incomprehensible lectures. You may be better off just working with the students who do engage and allowing the others to sit in silence (which is what the chairman suggested).
Threatening to go to the chairman clearly has no effect -- the students don't seem to care and the chairman does not seem to be on your side.

I asked one student (the one who instigated the discussion about the rules) whether they still have an issue with me, and she said no. I said asked why she complained about me when issues were resolved among us. She denied making the complaint. But clearly someone has a grudge against me.

Major mistake -- this will give the impression that you are angry with the students for going to the chairman. Further, due to the power imbalance, it is inappropriate to single out a student in the way that you did. While it would be nice if students resolved their complaints with you rather than going to the chairman, students do have the right to complain about you, and the optics of chastising students for doing so are horrible.

I am really hurt by these allegations. The situation is getting worse day by day.
Did I do something wrong? What should I do differently? Should I be worried about losing my job?

A good rule of thumb is that it's normal for a few students to be unhappy with you (maybe even more than a few, under certain circumstances), but a serious problem if the majority of the students are unhappy with you. Since the class seems to be pretty unanimously against you, I think you need to make some changes.
My recommendations:

Solve your technical problems with the online system.
Get a colleague to give you some honest feedback about the quality of your lectures. If they are bad, take drastic action to improve them (note, this could take years).
Stop trying to control the students' behavior. Focus your energies on giving good lectures and assessing their learning fairly.


How common is a must-pass-final requirement? For a course with a final exam, is it more common to: (a) require that the final exam be passed to pass the course, or (b) allow for a student to fail the final exam and still pass the course?

How could we estimate the relative proportion of the two policies? If someone argued that case (a) was "rare" in higher education, how could we respond?

Edit: Consider restricting to mathematics classes at American universities, with a comprehensive final exam, if that's clarifying.

If someone argued that case (a) was "rare" in higher education, respond by:

asking for the data they used to come to that conclusion
determine if sample size is large enough to make any reliable conclusions
determine what 'rare' means
measure if the number of pass/fail final exams is greater than or less than the rare threshold

If they don't have data, then respond by saying that their personal experiences probably do not represent a national average.


How generous should I be with citations? I am wondering if it is a bad thing to cite a paper in a scientific publication for a trivial or irrelevant reason.

The specific instance I have in mind is the usage of certain terminology. I basically want to make a point along the lines:

"We define a set to be flabby if it obeys conditions X, following the convention in [Smith]. We note that other authors (e.g. [Jones]) also require flabby sets to satisfy a condition Y".

Now, it is clear that if you use some definition (which is not very classical), it should be attributed, or at least a reference should be given to some reasonably good introduction to the topic. In this case, the reference the paper of Smith does the job just fine. But what about Jones? The only reason for citing him is that he happens to be using a different convention than I. On the other hand, I cannot convincingly make the point I want to make without some reference; and I'm concerned that I might be confusing the reader if I don't make this point. It could be that Jones gets an extra epsilon of recognision because of one more citation to his paper, which I personally don't mind at all. But it is maybe slightly weird that I cite a paper which I am not, strictly speaking, using.

I suppose this particular case is not really that important. What I am would really like to know - although that's perhaps too vague for SE - is whether it is generally OK to cite papers just because it is convenient for me, without worrying about whether I actually use the results of that paper in my work.

(If relevant, my field is pure mathematics.)

Even things that you aren't directly using may be quite relevant for establishing context.

The only thing that ever keeps me from being generous with citations is page limits.  Otherwise, any citation that fits well with the flow of the scientific narrative and helps place your work in the context of related work is good for everybody involved, and I see not reason not to err on the side of inclusion.


Does an acceptance of an abstract mean that I will definitely be presenting at the conference? I just had an abstract accepted by a UK conference and will be submitting the final paper in a few months. We were notified by email of the acceptance and directed to register for the conference. The information we were sent currently does not mention a presentation and the schedule is not yet posted.

Does this mean that I will definitely be presenting at the conference? Or are abstracts/papers sometimes accepted but not presented?

The practices vary significantly by field, but unless it is a very unusual case, having your abstract accepted means that you will be presented in some form or another.  It is not certain, however, whether you will be making an oral presentation.

In some meetings, having your abstract accepted means that you are definitely going to be getting up on stage and presenting.  In others, it means that you will definitely not be presenting, but will be given a chance to stand next to a poster in a distant corner of a giant room where nobody will realize that you are even there.  Most are somewhere in the middle, and you cannot know where it will fall on that spectrum without asking the organizers or looking at information from past conferences.

In all cases, however, it is reasonable to approach your advisor / department to ask about travel support.  Whether you can get full support depends on their policies and finances.  If you cannot, many conferences also have student travel grants or opportunities to work as a conference volunteer in return for having some of your costs compensated.


What part-time jobs are suitable for PhD students? I know PhD is unsparing in terms of available time, but at times there may be situations that demand some extra income, for example, family situations or some medical emergency.

In such cases, are there any specific jobs PhD students could take up? This could be at some place within a university (a library, say) or somewhere in the city (assume it is a large one like London or NY). The desiderata are minimal time consumption and a sum of useful money which could be used to manage the unexpected expense.

Two obvious answers are:

Marking (grading). Ask your supervisor if they have coursework that needs to be marked (for a price).
Tutoring. Put a note up in your departmental office offering to tutor undergraduates. If you're doing a more mathematical degree, you could tutor undergraduates from other disciplines. For example, helping out with some statistics coursework.


why do academics write peer reviews? I do not understand what good it does them. A professor said it gives opportunity to read papers he would not read on his own. I am sure there is more to it but I do not see what they gain by participating in peer review process. It takes time, it is not paid and not even publicly acknowledged. Why do they do it?

I think academics are paid to perform peer review, in the same sense that they are paid to do research.  I don't have a boss telling me what to research and paying me when it's complete; rather, my university expects me to perform research that is judged significant by my peers.  In the same way, my university expects me to perform peer review.  In my annual reports to the university, I report my research outputs and I report the journals for which I have performed peer review.
You may argue that my continued employment and promotion depends more heavily on my research than on peer reviewing, but the same could be said when comparing any of my service or teaching duties.
The bottom line is, academia is a gift economy, and if you want to be part of the community, you're expected to do peer review.


Converting a degree program to a non degree one Is it possible to convert a degree program into a non degree program?

For example if someone has started a degree program and is not able to complete it, or decided not to complete it, can he/she convert it into a non degree program?

I know different university may have different rules regarding this but does anyone has any experience or information abut this?

Non-degree programs are usually reserved for people who already have a bachelor's degree but want to pay a university to take some courses without planning to claim a degree at the end. Sometimes people do this out of sheer interest, but in other cases they might be seeking to bolster their transcript before seeking graduate admission in a subject very different from their bachelor's degree.

As such, simply stopping taking courses is a fine way to unofficially convert a degree into a non-degree program. If you don't finish, you don't get the degree. At that point, the only difference I can think of surrounds what happens when you have taken too many credit hours but still haven't graduated. Many universities have some thresholds in place after which incentives start to push students towards graduation. That might be more expensive tuition or hard caps on the number of hours they can take without graduating. Given all this, I don't think many universities would allow a student to convert their degree program into a non-degree program.


Is this plagiarism? Can I publish my work I happen to have worked on a Mathematical topic. The story is complicated.

It was not my original idea. My professor had already worked on it for a long time, intermittently. In fact, when we started out, I did not understand the concepts that well. Over a period of time, I picked up and managed to implement the algorithm myself; it proved to be even better than professor's implementation and speed was 10% faster.

We were to publish this paper, but it took a different turn. The professor has some different thought process, and wants to prove a substantial finding. He has linked it to a thought that it can be better further. We have a complete discord of thoughts on this. I do not deny what he is saying is true, but I think it should be the next phase. Our work till now produces best results, of course - under certain conditions.

I do not mind working with him further, and bringing it together to the research community. But I am going for a PhD. And I will not be physically available. I suggested an option of remote interaction, but the professor does not agree. He explained why meetings are important and why remote work cannot be carried out efficiently. After the discord, it is more of an ego issue, he did not directly indicate it. But I agree with most of his points on remote work being difficult.

But I have worked hard on the problem, sometimes 10 hours a day, for 5 complete months. And now I have to walk away without anything on my name. The nature of a professor is extremely dominating, and he will NOT mention my name in the paper once it comes to publishing after following his pathway. This is not my analysis, he clearly said this: "If you are not working on it any further, your name will not be included in the paper" He will probably find another student (MS level) and get it through.

Now my questions are:

Can I publish work till now, as it is also a major finding? I firmly believe I completely understand what is being proposed, under what scenarios finding is valid, simply put, I own the work, even though original idea is not mine. I indirectly talked about this with professor, he nullified that this is even possible, indicating I should not.
Will this be termed as plagiarism? I am ready to mention professor's name, but he does not even agree to idea of publishing it at this stage. So I have two options:

a. Mentioning his name as an author without his consent.

b. Mentioning him only in the acknowledgements, and also mentioning it was his idea and we worked together, but he does not agree this should be published without future additions.
Will this come back to me in a bad way, possibly unimaginable to me at this point of time. I am just starting out my research career and do not want it to be hampered because of my behavior/attitude.
Could you suggest any better way of resolving the situation? Talking to the professor is not really helping, yesterday we spent five hours discussing it. He is acting stubborn, uncooperative and because of that I have a feeling of wasting my six months. Of course, I learned lot in the process, my programming is much better now, my research methodology has improved. But unless I publish something, it remains only with me. I genuinely want to demonstrate my work, my abilities through a publication.

Pl suggest.

Edit_1_after_~20_months
I ended up not attempting to write a paper. At that time, I had a feeling that I did SO_MUCH work but have gained nothing, and wanted some output. I was wrong though, I learned how to approach a problem, how to carry out research iteratively, my programming improved a lot. The professor is still in touch. I have moved to different country and working on my PhD. Not having that work on my name does not matter a bit, but learnings do make a positive difference. I thank people who put out their thinking and suggestion. It was a vile effort from a bu**hurt person and that thinking does not make sense now.

There are a number of other questions on this site relating to these issues, although I'm not going to search for them now.

There are different issues going on here:

Firstly, you want to publish the bit of research you have done so far, but the PI thinks it should instead be turned into something more substantial before publishing. In this he is almost certainly right. It is not considered good practice to slice work into small pieces to get more papers.

You are considering publishing work with someone else against their wishes. Don't. Especially if you want to stay within the research community.

I take it you are concerned about having material for your PhD. Unless you are somewhere where publishing is a requirement for graduating, this is actually irrelevant. A PhD thesis should contain what you have done, and the normal progression of research is considered when assessing it.

You want to work remotely. I am confused as to who your PhD supervisor is. If he is your supervisor then you should expect to see him in person. If you are doing a PhD elsewhere, then how do you expect to have time to work on this project while also working full-time on your PhD topic?

Note also that writing a faster algorithm does not in itself really constitute new research in maths. Is there a particular theoretical change that made it faster? Or is it just that you coded a bit better? Does it actually make a difference in practical computational time, such that it allowed you to test some new examples that gave you the key insight for a theorem (or at least conjecture, or counter-example)?

The professor has said your name won't go on the final paper if you do no further work. It's possible that the professor is being unreasonable, and you can look up other questions along those lines. But the more likely situation is that your name won't go on the paper because what you have done doesn't count for authorship. Generally in mathematics the authors are only those who have contributed to what appears in the paper. It sounds unlikely that that would be true of the work you have done.

An unconventional solution, but one that would perhaps be more to your liking, might be to agree to release your write-up of your algorithm alongside the final paper, either as an appendix or as a separate paper. It probably won't do that much for you career-wise, but it might make you feel better and preserve your relationship with the professor. Also, by the time that happens you may be in a better position to admit that he's right. I know for myself it's hard to admit that your work isn't really that valuable, because it matters a lot to you. Over time you will become a little less emotionally involved.

Also, remember that this is someone you will want a reference from, if you are to stay in academia.


Is it normal to have a hard time comprehending academic papers? I am starting my PhD in statistics program next year, and I have some concerns.
In my institution, there is a mandatory course that every PhD student has to take in lieu of taking one qualifying examination.
The course requires students to read five academic papers and write a report, which will be graded by faculty members.

I was browsing through the reading list for this course, and I often find myself pondering over one twenty-page paper for days and weeks because I want to make sure that I understand all the  math, concepts, and other details of the paper.
I am supposed to make a report for one paper/month, and I am now quite worried about what I am expected to do as a PhD student because it feels like it takes me forever to comprehend a single paper.
I feel discouraged because I have done very well in my bachelor’s and master’s programs in statistics, but I am having such a hard time comprehending these academic papers.

Is it normal for beginning PhD students to have a hard time comprehending academic papers?

Yes, yes it is. But it gets easier. What most people don't realize when starting out reading academic papers, is that not every paper is an island (to paraphrase...). Terminology and 'lingo' is something you learn over time, and suddenly you realize that you no longer have to look up every second concept you stumble upon in a paper - it simply references stuff that you already know.

This is of course also the reason that forcing new students to read papers, and even write a report about them to make sure that the papers have been properly digested, is a very good idea. The fact that members of faculty even take time out to grade these reports, tells me that you are probably in capable hands.


Emailing professor about unexpected questions on exam I'm taking a class where the professor has only provided power point slides, which are not even based off of the textbooks listed in the syllabus.

For our final exam, he just provided a generic list of topics. The final turned out to be a different format from our only other exam and some topics required calculations we had never given practice on.

Would it be appropriate to email the professor and voice these concerns? I want to but I'm afraid it might affect how he grades my exam.

I'm taking a class where the professor has only provided power point slides, which are not even based off of the textbooks listed in the syllabus.

Power-points slides are just a medium; there is wide variation in the quality of power-point slides, so this does not really tell us much about the quality of the material you were given.  Your concern here also depends on whether the syllabus sets the textbook as the primary material, or if this was just intended as a supplement.  Ideally the course slides and textbook should be of high quality, and should "mesh" well.  If you found that the material provided by the lecturer was not useful to you, that is something you should feel free to raise.  I would recommend being more specific about your concerns here.

  For our final exam, he just provided a generic list of topics. The final turned out to be a different format from our only other exam and some topics required calculations we had never given practice on.

Academics have wide discretion in writing exams, including how to structure/format these exams, and how much detailed pre-exam guidance is given as to its contents.  It is not necessarily wrong for a professor to give you a final exam that is of a different format to past exams.  Material on the exam should be within the scope of what was taught in the course, but it might involve some new wrinkle on material, and might sometimes include questions or calculations that are in-scope, but sufficiently different from past questions that you have not had previous direct practice.  There is certainly no requirement that questions should involve repetition of calculations done in class.  Having said this, if you have concerns about the format/content of the exam, you should feel free to raise this and give your views on it.  Academics are human, and we sometimes write exams that miss the mark a bit, so it is useful to have student feedback to know what students found jarring.

  Would it be appropriate to email the professor and voice these concerns?  I want to but I'm afraid it might affect how he grades my exam.

It is perfectly acceptable to give a (professional and polite) email raising concerns about an exam.  Most universities have systems in place to solicit formal anonymous course evaluations at the end of the session, and they usually also have "course reps" that can deliver anonymous feedback directly to the lecturer during the session.  You can also give feedback directly to your professor by email during the session if you wish.  Your professor should be sufficiently professional to grade all the exams fairly regardless of any concerns you raise.  No-one here can guarantee that your professor is not a vengeful and unprofessional person, but the odds are against it.  Just make sure your email is polite and reasonable (maybe have a friend read it before you send) and make sure you are clear about the things that are of concern to you.


another master's degree or just single courses? My case is the following, I have already got a MSc in Computer Science, but my field of specialization was Theoretical Computer Science. Actually I am really interested in the field of Machine Learning, but unfortunately I did not follow any course about that topic in my previous master's degree.

At first sight, I was thinking to follow a PhD that has some relation to Machine Learning; so in that case I should really follow some Machine Learning courses by my own. I have just put this thought for a while, mainly because I have not been so lucky in my last PhD applications.

In any case, I was wondering if I should follow another Master's degree in Machine Learning; and maybe because I have already got my other MSc, the time for completing this new MSc would be only one year instead of the two years that is the common duration of these studies.

Also I was thinking that maybe I could take some single courses, for example some online courses, even though I am not really a fan of MOOC courses.

What it would be the best course of action?

Follow another MSc degree?
Follow some online courses in this topic? if that is so, which university offers them that the certification is recognized?

Updated info:

About my goals are the following:

Need of learn machine learning topics for academic purposes: teaching undergraduates and independent research
Some good PhD positions in which I am interested require that knowledge

Any advice would be great.

Thanks

Given both of those stated goals, I would not pursue additional coursework to learn the material. Your current masters degree is likely good enough for either teaching or getting into a machine learning PhD program, and no degree is necessary for independent research. I would recommend that you use other resources to learn the material.

EDIT: Given that the question in the above link was deleted, I'm reproducing it here:

  There are many ways to learn new topics. Taking a university-level
  course is only one option. Other alternatives are:

  read textbooks
  online video tutorials (Khan academy, youtube)
  online pre-recorded lectures (e.g., iTunes U, but many, many others exist)
  talking to peers
  reading publications (for specialized topics)

  Taking a non-required university course is usually not the most
  optimal approach, for a number of reasons:

  You will spend a lot of time learning material not relevant to your problem, simply because it's part of the syllabus and the teacher
  found it interesting
  The requirement to pass will require you to spend likely (disproportionately too much) time doing homework, studying for tests,
  etc.
  It is very expensive

  This isn't to say that self-study doesn't require homework, or that
  learning topics not directly related to your research is a bad thing.
  I'm simply suggesting that by pursuing more self-directed learning
  opportunities you will be able to make better use of your time.


Encourage student to participate without him helping too much I am teaching two students (X and Y) to program in python.  X is a little bit quicker than the Y in grasping the concepts.  He likes to help Y figure out what to do with his code, why it isn't working etc.  He is very well meaning, but I would like Y to do the work himself. Y is definitely capable of doing it on his own and he will gain a lot more that way.  On the other hand it is good to have some interaction between them since discussing issues makes things a lot clearer and more enjoyable.  They are both 13 years old.  Cheating is not an issue since it is at camp and is not graded.

How do I discourage X from helping Y without making him feel like he did something wrong, and without discouraging him from participating in the future?

You can have some tasks where they each do the same thing (as you've been doing), but also some tasks where they need to do different things.  For example, have them write different functions that are both necessary in a larger program.  If you choose the tasks carefully, X will be too busy with his own work to meddle with Y's.


How to find a list of all articles published by a particular journal? My colleagues and I are looking into ways to get a list of all articles published for the history of a given journal.  Primarily, we are looking to for a list that includes title, authors, year, volume, and issue number, but more/less information is good too.  Our primary function is to just use as a resource for various reviews that we might conduct.

I've had some success with Web of Science citation reports, but for some journals, the citation reports are incomplete or do not cover far enough back in the journal's history (the journal that I'm currently having difficulty with is published by Taylor and Francis).

Are there other resources available to generating these lists?

Most university libraries subscribe to many databases. Web of Science is only one. Scopus is another. And there are a huge number of databases that are more discipline specific. In pretty much all these databases you can search the source or publication name field for a particular journal. And they will enable you to export detailed bibliographic data.

Some may place limit on the number of records you can readily export.

But the basic advice is that if one database does not give you what you want, try another. My default is Scopus, but there are many others.