Is it worth going to college when you have no real passion for the subject you will study? I'm in my last year of high school and about to move on to the next stage, undergraduate programs. The problem is that I don't care about any of my subjects enough to continue them at a higher level. I don't have any of that love for my potential subjects that good students seem to have, which gives them so much motivation.

On the other hand, there's no better time than after secondary education to get a degree. Should I suck it up, continue, and get a degree and better job prospects sooner? Or wait a year and spend more time to try to find something I would really like to study?

Quick note: The universities of the country I'm in don't do a liberal arts style (US style) education. We pick our subject before we go, then study solely that subject for 3 or so years.

Decision-making is a science, so I'll try my best to stick to the science instead of trying to push you into academia because, well, judging by the name of this place, I'm probably a bit biased. The extent of my expertise in the science of decision making is that I once read a book about the subject. Disclaimers out of the way, this is a short procedure for making a decision:

Make sure you know what problem you are trying to solve. Why
do you want to go to university? A good job, living the uni student life, etc.
Specify what exactly you want to achieve. Do you want a
better salary, a job in an office, a job outdoors, learning to be
independent, living with young adults your age, etc.
Think of alternative ways you can achieve your objectives.
Have an open mind here.
Think of the consequences for each of your options. What
happens to you 5 and 10 years down the road? how certain are you of
those consequences and how can you reduce that uncertainty?
Make a table listing your options alongside all the pros and cons you can come up with during a week or so. Consider the respective weights of each pro. Do the pros and cons of option 1 cancel out, or do the pros outweigh the cons? Also try to put things into perspective. "Is 30k of student debt worth the pros of getting a degree?" becomes "are the pros of getting a degree worth X amount of dollars per month for X ammount of years?" or "are the pros of getting a degree worth living in a smaller house?". Be creative, but also be realistic.
Sixth and perhaps the most important step for your question, make
sure you identify the uncertainties affecting your decision. For
example, how sure are you that you won't eventually grow to like
your subject of study? Try to assign percentages to this. Can you
bear the consequences of not liking the subject? How much debt, and
what will that mean in your day-to-day life? Try finding new data to
fill these uncertainties.

Other general advice:

Don't avoid the decision because it's complex. Avoidance often gives you the worse possible outcome.
Don't be afraid to change your mind in the face of new evidence. If after your first few months you learn or you get a gut feeling this isn't the subject for you, go through this process again.
Keep in mind the heuristics that may be at play, such as the anchoring trap, the status quo trap, the cherry-picking trap, the
overconfidence trap, etc.
Take your time. You would not buy a house after only a few hours of thought. Making choices when you are young is like steering a ship
when you've just left the harbor. The older you get and the farther
that boat has gone off-course, the harder it is to correct it, but
not impossible! But it pays to spend a few weeks, months or even a
year charting your route and getting your heading right. And if you
are completely lost, then you need data, and to get data you often need to
try new stuff, like joining the military to see if you like it.

There are many books about decision making. My comment is based on Smart Choices, by Hammond, Keeney, and Raiffa (2002) and Benjamin Franklin's letter on decision-making sent to J. Priestley in 1772. I also recommend Meg Jay's The Defining Decade. This is a much lighter read than the first book I mentioned, but it will make the consequences of your decisions clear, maybe even painfully so.

Godspeed.


Submitting course work report as research paper? In one of the coursework at my university, I submitted a very detailed project report done for the course. It later turned out that the work contributed some value to the field as well. Is it right to submit the report reformatted as a research paper ? Do we need to provide any special mentions to the coursework or any other related disclosure ?

In one of the coursework at my university, I submitted a very detailed project report done for the course. It later turned out that the work contributed some value to the field as well. Is it right to submit the report reformatted as a research paper ?

So long as the results are novel and you meet the other necessary prerequisites for publication (acknowledge main contributors as authors, acknowledge secondary contributors in acknowledgements, reference and discuss related work, meet level of technicality/significance required, etc.), I don't see any problem of submitting course-work for publication, and if as you say the work has had some impact in the field, I think it should be encouraged!

  Do we need to provide any special mentions to the coursework or any other related disclosure ?

You should ask your professor or other senior staff member for advice, but I don't believe any special mentions would be required other than what's mentioned above. You could mention it as a footnote or as an acknowledgement if so desired. Also, if your work was (even indirectly) funded through a specific research grant, they may require acknowledgement as a condition of the grant. Again, talk to a staff member involved.


Exclusion of my name as co author As part of my thesis, i gave archaeological bones for isotopic analysis. While in the first version the woman in charge of the analysis included my name in the article as co author, in the final version, which has already been published, the director of the excavation excluded my name and put his name instead of it. The journal in which it has been published  is very important for my curriculum. What can i do? Should I try to contact the journal having as a proof my thesis or ask the co aurhors why I have bern excluded and ask the journal for a correction? One year has already passed, but I decided to do what is right for me.

We don't know the specific situation of the paper or your thesis, but as a general rule, you should be an author if (i) you participated in the intellectual development of the research in question, and (ii) you participated in the work that needed to be done.

So, if the paper is about determining the isotopic structure and age analysis of a bone that you collected and for which you had previously done archaeological analyses (i.e., the paper and your study look at different things), then you probably do not deserve to be an author because you only provided a bone, but did not participate in the research as reported on in the paper.

On the other hand, if the paper does not only do some isotope analysis, but also describes the archaeological setting as an important part of the paper (i.e., your work; rather than just quote your previous work to provide a setting for the paper), then you should be an author on the paper.

In the end, we cannot tell you whether or not you should have been an author because we don't know what exactly the paper contains, and how that relates to your work.


I feel I've done enough for a PhD but my supervisor disagrees I have been working on a PhD for over 6 years, and in that time have published 5 (conference) papers, each of which I intend to convert to journal articles after my PhD. My supervisor has been insisting that I do some experiments which have turned out to be considerably more challenging than either of us expected. Our funding has run out, so I recently asked my supervisor if it would be okay to scrap the experiments and defend what I have done so far at the end of the year. Based on the volume and quality of my work, I think any objective person would feel that I have done more than enough for a PhD. (Indeed, I've had a professor who clearly has read my work ask me out of the blue at a conference why I haven't graduated yet, as he thinks I've done way more than is typical for a PhD.)
My supervisor's reaction was particularly bad: He accused me of reneging on a promise, suggested that I've been conning him for years, etc. I agree completely with him that the experiments would be nice to have, but I disagree that they are essential, and I particularly disagree that they are worth going into debt over. I think we could get a good paper detailing what we've done so far and what the challenges have been. Unfortunately that option was unacceptable to him too.
Question: Any attempt to discuss this further with my supervisor goes nowhere. What are my options at this point? I told him that in the absence of funding I will be dropping out at the end of the semester. He said that is a waste, which I agree with, but ultimately I don't want to continue what I'm now viewing as abuse.

Update, one month later. Taking the advice I received here and elsewhere, I decided to complete one additional set of experiments and then speak with my supervisor again. These experiments' results did not solve all our problems, though they did clarify some things. We then had a discussion about what he expects me to do to graduate, and again, he made clear that he doesn't care about what I did previously and only wants the new experiments and some computer simulations of the experiments. I tried to justify what I did previously as necessary to do the new experiments correctly, but he wasn't convinced.
Some suggested that my situation would be different if I had journal publications. So, I asked if submitting my previous work to journals soon would make a difference. Surprisingly, he said yes, it would. So, we agreed that I would submit my previous work to journals before the end of the semester, and write up a chapter in my dissertation on the completed experiments. I will switch to a part-time position at the end of the year, move to a cheaper location, get a job, and return late in the spring semester to defend. In that time I should have reviews for some of the journal articles, which is sufficient for my supervisor.
Update, 6 months later. After a delay due to COVID, I successfully defended this summer, and am working a full-time (non-research) job.
I submitted two papers to a journal late last year, both of which were accepted well in advance of my defense. My supervisor seemed skeptical of the papers' acceptance before they appeared online. I suspect that they believed both would be soundly rejected, but the reviews were fine. The most substantial points were fixed by rewriting parts of the papers to improve clarity. My dissertation was quickly finished. As it turned out, we agreed to reduce the chapter on the experiments to an appendix.
My defense was fine overall. At this point, I believe the problems with my supervisor stem mostly from differences in research philosophy. I added a brief description of my philosophy to my dissertation; I think this helped my supervisor understand my choices better.

This is a really hard problem that is hard to give advice for. If the advice is bad, you will suffer, not the person giving the advice. You know the personalities better than we do. But, as an outsider, it seems like you are being abused. You are giving, but getting little in return at this point.

Fighting with an advisor is seldom a wise choice. But quitting after five years with good productivity seems equally terrible, maybe worse.

For your consideration only, let me suggest a possibility. Work with the graduate advisor on a plan to get you out the door properly. Tell them that you are feeling abused and defeated unjustly and you need to graduate. It is at least partly the responsibility of the institution to assure that you have a clear path. Take their advice to stay an extra semester, but put them on notice that you need funding, either from them or from a proper job elsewhere. Other professors in the department might also be able to apply some pressure if they are approached properly. They can prevail with your advisor even when you can't. Advisors need the support of their peers, generally, and need to be seen as fair in dealing with students. But don't try any of this if your reading of the personalities suggests it would be counterproductive. But you have a right to insist on a fair path and a right to insist that your advisor and the graduate director do their jobs properly.

If you trust that outside professor enough to ask for a letter applying some pressure on the graduate director, it might be useful (or not, depending, again, on personalities). Most especially if they would consider hiring you.


Is it advisable to try and avoid attending a PhD program from a U.S. public university? I read this Sunday's New York Times, which had a big article on the funding crisis of public universities - the Times went into detail about the school system, CUNY, but stated that similar problems are occurring at many other public universities across the country (United States.)

The Times writes of the horror stories such as overcrowded classes, lack of lab equipment to teach science classes, chronically leaky ceilings, bathrooms with no toilet paper, faculty who haven't gotten raises in six years now, and other stuff.  At CUNY, the Times writes that the morale is extremely low, and, in the fall semester, the faculty have vowed to walk out, if the contract disputes are not resolved.

Meanwhile, the administrative leadership at these public universities have gotten significant raises and big bonuses for their work.

So, my question is:  should I be worried as a math PhD applicant, who might possibly apply to some public universities, e.g., CUNY Graduate Center?  (CUNY is a "Top 50" math department, according to the U.S. News and World Report.)

Should I avoid applying to public universities to do a math PhD and instead try to attend a privately funded school?

Are the STEM fields perhaps better protected from this funding crisis, and that it is the humanities fields that are the most adversely affected?  (The example of lack of lab equipment probably shows that STEM subject areas are not doing any better...)

Thanks,

Should I avoid applying to public universities to do a math PhD and instead try to attend a privately funded school?

No, it doesn't make sense to decide anything at this level of granularity.  You are thinking about some of the right issues, but oversimplifying the situation too much when you boil it down to public vs. private universities.

Public vs. private is literally one bit of information, and your graduate school decisions should be based on far more information than that (if you change your mind based on this one bit, then you are either overreacting or suffering from a tremendous lack of information).

Before deciding where to apply, you should talk with people you know (faculty, other students) and look into different options online.  Once you have offers, you should investigate the programs that have admitted you much more thoroughly, including visiting in person as well as gathering whatever other information you can.

Facilities, faculty and student morale, and grad student funding are all factors that you should consider, but you should evaluate them based on the specifics of each program, rather than by jumping to conclusions based on whether it's a public university.  (Keep in mind that both public universities differ dramatically from each other, as do private universities.)  These factors may also be outweighed by others: Stanford is much better off financially than Berkeley is, but your mathematical interests could be a better fit for Berkeley.


How to not feel offended by comments/edits during manuscript drafting as first author I work as a consultant in industry where I often get to publish scientific articles on "advanced" methods with pharma. Unfortunately, there is a often a fair amount of politics in the background that serves to (mostly) diminish the quality of the manuscript. For example, authors will simply change the wording or grammar for no apparent reason and move themselves up the author list, or insert/delete assertions without a sufficient understanding of the analysis or the results. There are also many more internal review cycles and numbers of reviewers before the draft is ever submitted to a journal, leading to a lot more frustration and indignation on my part going through the edits and comments and seeing how my precious manuscript has fallen, causing me a fair amount of anguish.
I just wanted to ask how to not feel offended or indignant as first author at comments that you have to incorporate (because they're from people above my pay grade) but would rather not.

I often get the same feeling as you when receiving comments from coauthors. I find the key to not letting it get to you is to view it as constructive criticism and discuss the matter with that individual. Even incorrect criticism is constructive, as it tells you if your work is inadvertently challenging a common misconception. In any case, the solution is to have a level-headed discussion about it.
I came to this way of thinking when I realised I was doing the same thing as your coauthors to my students. It caused them an understandable degree of frustration. But, I was making those changes to the manuscript because I believed they would make the manuscript better. Sometimes I was right, other times I was wrong - but by discussing the changes we ended with a paper that really was better.
My point is that your coauthors are probably trying to do what's best for the paper. Sometimes those efforts might be misguided, but the point is that the intentions are good. I would thank them for their interest and their time, and then ask them to justify their changes to you.


What can we do about being dissatisfied, morally and practically, by the business-like tactics shown by Universities (in the US and elsewhere)? I asked this question: Are universities run more and more like businesses? What are the consequences?
A couple days ago. The title was edited by someone and I believe the conversation got a bit derailed. I think the title was edited because my original title implied that universities are run like businesses which might be seen as unfair to people but I am just guessing here.
Anyway, although the responses on my original question were very interesting and I appreciate them, as a young academic myself who will go into the job market in the next 2 years (hopefully) what I am really asking is: Given that you believe the following:

Universities are run like businesses and put profit above quality
Tenure-track positions are declining while "abusive" positions like post-docs and adjuncts are increasing.
Meanwhile super highly paid administrators are getting paid more and more.

What can we, as academics, do to fight this trend or get out of it? Do any of you feel guilty for supporting what I feel like is straight up corruption? Or am I being dramatic?
I never complained about the low pay I received as a graduate student because I felt very grateful to be paid at all to learn high-level mathematics. I didn't mind teaching and I love my research. However, I always believed I would do a post-doc or two and become a tenure-track professor if I worked hard enough and published good papers. However, after witnessing what our post-docs go through and seeing some numbers about how pay is distributed within the university, I can't help but thinking that these are not the kind of organizations I want to be a part of even if I do become one of the few successful ones who gets a decent job. So rather than gripe about it, what are some things that can be done? Or is there basically nothing that we can do? I mean, whatever happens, universities are useless without their professors right? Don't we have some kind of power?

Before this question gets closed for not being an answerable question, let me try to give some personal life advice, which might sound frivolous but is serious:
Start your own monastery.
Sure most professors care about the quality of their universities, but they also want time and energy to do their research, or they want to have some perks in their life, or they have families they need to support.  They also realize that, even if they did take over the university, most of the problems would still remain; they still wouldn't have the funding to provide the small classes and individual support and research opportunities their students need, at least if they wanted to pay themselves above minimum wage.
Forget about industry; it's an order of magnitude worse in industry, where there is no way of making enough money to survive, never mind make a profit, without lying to everyone else left and right.


How often do the arxiv moderators reclassify submissions? I submitted my first paper on arxiv and my submission is currently "on hold." I'm guessing this happened because of the category I chose. In the second to last page where I chose my category, there was an automated category that was chosen for me from an arxiv machine. I chose to dismiss this recommendation and keep the one I manually put in. My question is how long will the "on hold" status take and how often does arxiv reclassify submissions? Have any of you experienced something similar to this?

As @user2768 points out, we can't know exactly why your article is on hold.
However, there could be several reasons: proper classification, pending moderator approval, presentation issues, copyrighted PDF, etc., to editorial concerns. Sometimes due to oversized submission. You may want to look at arXiv submission status. You can try reaching to arXiv moderators if you need to enquire about this.
As you are asking about experience with long on-hold status: Yes, I have experienced once this status for over 45 days. Note that, I didn't bother asking them either. They automatically posted it in subsequent announcement. But this was more than 2 years ago.


What happens to preprints after the information contained in them gets published in a peer-reviewed journal? My question is whether preprints continue to exist after the information contained in them gets published in a journal. It would be confusing to have two sources for the same information (the preprint and the official publication), so I am assuming that preprints are taken down by the authors after their work gets published in a Journal. My question also is concerned with their citations. If preprints and peer-reviewed articles exist,  I don't know if tools such as Google Scholar are adding the total number of the citations received by both papers (I believe they should, as they are practically the same publication, only with different levels of revisions).

In general, preprints continue to remain available even after publication. In fact, on most preprint servers, such as arXiv, it is impossible to completely remove a preprint once submitted, and any updates are stored as new versions. The preprint itself is a form of publication, where you can disseminate results, get feedback, and get a time stamp for your work without waiting for a lengthy peer review process.
Preprints may be cited and used to derive other works before they are published, so it is important to preserve past versions for the references to be coherent, particularly since a paper may be updated several times before publication in a peer-reviewed venue. The preprint version may be more likely to receive corrections and updates after publication, since that is easier than updating the journal version. It may also contain extra supplementary material missing from the published version due to length constraints, and so it is not necessary that the two versions are identical.
Regarding citations, services such as Google Scholar are usually able to interpret several versions of the same paper as a single entry. However, issues with this do exist, and have so far not been satisfactorily resolved.


Should I keep my name on a paper in which I have no important contribution? Prof. X added me as a coauthor on a paper , although my contribution was minor. I told him so, he insisted and said it was necessary for me (I can't give details). Later my relation with Prof X seriously soured. I asked that he remove my name from the paper: I already have an OK publication record (about 100 citations) and I didn't want to pollute it with an undeserved paper, especially in view of the souring of my relation with Prof X.
I had an essential contribution in all my previous papers. Prof X said it was impossible to remove my name since it was already submitted. I reluctantly accepted. The paper was rejected. Prof X wants to resubmit it to a less prestigious journal. I definitely don't want my name on it. Prof X insists to keep my name, saying that re-submitting the paper without my name might harm his reputation in the community. I can't claim to be white as snow : It's clear that I should never have accepted to have my name on this paper in the first place. I don't want to antagonize him further, but what should I do now ? Is it true that resubmitting without my name can harm his reputation ? Isn't there some way around this ? (My field is Math/Physics/Engineering. I can't give more details).

Standards (and customs) for coäuthorship depend heavily on your field, but if you contributed to the work reported in the paper, you might first want to consider actually accepting coäuthorship:

Unless you think the work is actually crap, there is no downside (having a few not-so-great papers doesn't actually hurt, even if it doesn't help your career).
If you worked with prof. X, it might be nice to have something (a paper) to show for it.
The relationship may have soured, but are you ready to burn that bridge? If he insists on coäuthorship, a flat refusal will annoy him, probably because it would hurt him for some strategic reason.

Now, on the other hand, it's entirely your choice to make. Nobody can force you: if it comes to that, just flatly state that you do not wish to be a coäuthor on the paper. After that was made clear, and in writing, there is little chance prof. X will submit it with your name behind your back: that would be a very severe breach of ethics, and grounds for immediate retraction of the paper when you find out.

Finally, on the question of whether resubmitting without your name can actually hurt him… yeah, it could be an annoyance. There are a few people (editor and referees for the first paper) who would have knowledge that the same paper was submitted twice with different author lists, which definitely gives a bad impression of the senior author.


How to submit code (visual studio projects, C#, OpenCL) with my IEEE paper submission I am trying to submit a paper to IEEE (transactions on signal processing). Along with my paper I have written some code (Visual studio projects, C#, OpenCL and accompanying dlls and exes).

The software is about 25MB in size (once compressed to zip). While I can submit the code text files with my submission very easily, the full working solution is not easy to submit with my paper. The IEEE submission system does not appear to like zip files. I would like to submit my code to the journal in a form that is easy for them to run so easily see how I produced my results.

What options do I have for doing this?

In future I would like to put the code on github as well but I am not sure what stage in the process is best for this.

I ended up using code ocean

I can run my program in a docker container so others can see my results and reproduce them. It also allows me to choose between sharing publicly and with specific people.


How to write an email to a potential PhD advisor that I have worked with in the past I am just finishing up an MSc degree in Canada and am looking to begin sending inquiry emails to potential supervisors regarding available PhD positions (also in Canada). However, I am unsure how to approach one specific scenario:

I am looking to email a potential supervisor who I have worked with in the past although not very closely as he has never been a direct supervisor and is at a different university. However, he still knows most of the pertinent information that I would typically include in an inquiry email (e.g. current school/program, research topic, GPA, etc.). He also knows that I am aware of his current research and his recent publications as my research is closely related and we have completed fieldwork together that is related to both of our topics.

I am unsure of how formal to be or what to include in my email given that we do have somewhat of a pre-existing relationship. Typically I would try to speak in person with anyone that I already know but given that he is at a different university that wouldn't be possible without advance planning.

Any guidance on what to include in an email asking about potential PhD openings and hopefully arranging a meeting to discuss any opportunities in person would be much appreciated!

In my opinion, what works best is a personal email (you probably know best how personal is appropriate with that concrete person), with a formal application attached. He might want to discuss your application with some colleagues who do not know you, or with HR. Thus, having the pertinent information will be an advantage.

In the personal email you might want to mention that you enjoyed the common work you did previously, and that you would like to continue / build up on that, now that you finished the MSc.

Say very directly, that you would prefer his research group over others. And then add something like: in case he has any open PhD positions in the near future, your formal application and CV are attached.


Grad Application: Research Experience without Letter of Recommendation I am in the process of applying for graduate school, and I have some past research experience during summer. I am not planning to get a letter of recommendation from the supervisor whom I worked with during that term. (I had been recommended to join their group by another professor, and I joined bluntly without any interest on the subject, and further I had no background education on the topic. As a result, I believe that I did not leave a good impression.)

My question is, would it be bad to include this experience in my CV without a LOR from that specific supervisor?

It was mentioned in here by StrongBad that it is not a good sign, if so should I remove that experience from my CV?

First, note that it is only a red flag if you are omitting the most recent or only research experience.  You are generally only required to get a few letters of recommendation. If you need N recommendations, and have a sufficient set of strong and recent recommenders, then there is simply no reason to get additional weak recommendations beyond your N strongest.

Omitting from your CV, however, is probably a bad idea, because it can be considered dishonest.  In my experience, a full CV should include both your triumphs and your sins, and hiding your sins will only increase your trouble when they come out at a later time.

If you don't have other more recent research experience, but you didn't completely burn your bridges, you might approach this by having a very blunt conversation with your former advisor.  Lay out your concerns like you have here and ask what the professor would suggest is the best path forward.  They may be willing to write you a very neutral letter, e.g.:

  X was a member of my group for a brief time.  It was not a good fit, but I believe they have the potential to do well elsewhere.

Then you can lean on the strength of your other letters be essentially evaluated as having not done research.

If you've really angered the professor, though, and have no other research experience, then it may be the case that the only good way to address this is to get some more research experience.


Is it acceptable to email an author to ask for a copy of his book that is currently out of print? (Apologies if this isn't the place to ask, as I'm not a college student or independent researcher).
I am a secondary school student in Ireland currently working on a large project for a history class and the topic I have chosen is relatively obscure. The most thorough of the few books written on the matter seems to be currently out of print. I found a used copy for sale a while ago at an exorbitant cost, but I'm unable to find even that now.
Would it be okay for me to email the author to ask if he could direct me towards somewhere where I could find a copy of the book, or send me a pdf? I would be willing to pay, although I doubt I could afford the full price of the book originally which was upwards of $100.

A question like this is almost always acceptable to ask. I cannot imagine that somebody will take offense at this, and I expect most academics appreciate high-school students looking for help and a reliable source, and I expect most will try to help if they have the time. However, time is big limitation for most academics, so do not be put-off if the author doesn't respond, or possibly bluntly mentions they cannot help. This will not be personal.
Make sure to keep your email polite, but especially, make it to the point. They will not really care about your life story, but introduce yourself as a high-school student, introduce your topic/research and mention that you want to use their book, but are not able to find it and don't have the funds to buy it, and ask if there is any chance that they can help you by the means you proposed, but do not outright ask if they can send you a copy for free. Thank them for any time they invest.


How to cite a reference which disappeared? During my PhD, I wrote a couple papers referencing and using a set of notes available online, which constitute(d) the draft of a textbook (and laid down techniques and lemmata I used). [1]

Now, I am in the process of writing my thesis, and noticed that this online resource (originally title Asymptopia) had disappeared from the website of the author, which now states:

  A few years ago I decided I might actually finish if I split the Asymptopia manuscript into two parts. Currently I am working on the empirical process bit, which has acquired the temporary working title MiniEmpirical. Some chapters have reached a reasonably complete form. Those chapters are in the Mini subdirectory.

In particular, the material I want to reference is gone.

Of course, this is entirely up to the author, and I have nothing to argue against this. But that does put me in a bit of a pickle, as I don’t know of any equivalent resource to cite (the exposition of the techniques was both very clear, and adapted to what I am using). I personally have a PDF copy of this resource which I saved before it disappeared, but—of course—it is not up to me to make it available.

What is the correct way to handle this? Cite the previous draft as if it were still there, possibly with a relevant link to a cached version? Something else?

[1] Bibtex entry:

@misc{Pollard:2003,
    author = {Pollard, David},
    title = {Asymptopia},
    howpublished = {\url{http://www.stat.yale.edu/~pollard/Books/Asymptopia}},
    note = {Manuscript},
    year = 2003
}

I personally think this is not your responsibility to control the sources availability over time. If the official provider's URL is added, it's usually enough. There are numerous means to retrieve the metadata; the easiest one, as mentioned by @JeffE, is WbM, also there is Google cache.

BibLaTex supports a urldate = {YYYY-MM-DD} field, which adds "visited on MM/DD/YYYY" info to the reference in bibliography, assuring the reader which date can be used to restore access if the link is dead.

More technical aspects regarding handling external data sources with BibLaTeX are discussed on TeX.SE: URL of cited web site in bibliography


How to abbreviate the name of a university when there is no official abbreviation? Given that I must address a university by abbreviation, say call the University of X simply X, for some given X, and that there is no official abbreviation for the name of this university, what is a safe strategy to call this university?

Do not do this.  Especially since there are often many smaller universities that you do not know about that partially or entirely share the same name.  For example, does "Rochester" refer to University of Rochester or Rochester Institute of Technology? Does "University of Massachusetts" refer to the well-known research campus in Amherst, or the very distinct and semi-separate institutions in Lowell, Boston, Worcester, or Dartmouth?
If you are forced to, ask Wikipedia, which will generally have an accepted shortened version in its article (e.g., "UMass Amherst").  If there is no Wikipedia article, then it's definitely not notable enough to abbreviate.


Why does the application portal ask 'To what other programs/universities are you applying?' while applying in US universities? I am applying for higher studies in US universities. Every time I fill up the online form, there is a section where they asked which other universities or programs I am applying too? Why do they ask these questions? Do they check where I am applying?
What if I wrote a university name but later drop the idea to apply?

The questions referenced by GoodDeeds covers most of your question - the why. For the rest:
In the US it would probably be impossible (illegal) for one university to query another about a student's application, so, no, they don't check.
And there will be no consequences if you list a school and then change your mind.
Don't feel any special obligation to answer such a question. I actually doubt that they use such a question to determine whether to accept you or not. It could be counterproductive for everyone.


Aiming for graduate school in applied math with weak math grades I am close to finishing a degree in a combined program in computer science and physics, and I am thinking of applying to graduate school in environmental modelling, ideally with a strong mathematical and computational focus.

My overall GPA seems to be respectable, 3.72 (if I'm doing the conversion correctly). However, I have done much better in computer science courses (3.96) and worse in math (3.51) and physics (3.58).

The problem is that many of the grad programs I'm interested in are in math departments, and I fear that the low math GPA will exclude me from top programs. I should note that part of the reason for the math marks is that I took mostly honours courses, but I worry that admissions committees will not be able to tell (the course names don't always indicate this). I have, however, taken several courses in mathematical methods (both under computer science and math departments) and done very well, and am also taking a math-heavy graduate course in machine learning.

I have extended my degree by a semester to do a math minor, but unfortunately most of my marks for this will not be out by the time I apply for grad programs. I plan to study quite a bit for the GRE Math Subject Exam.

I have research experience in mathematical biology as well as currently working on an undergraduate thesis in environmental modelling. I will hopefully have one or two publications related to this research by the time I apply for schools.

How can I tailor my applications to have a good chance of getting into applied math programs? Will they care about my strong computer science marks, or my marks in specific courses? Should I try instead for computer science programs and go from there?

Your situation might be better than you expect. I'm in a math Ph.D. program with many faculties doing applied math research. My overall undergraduate GPA and math GPA were both worse than yours for similar reasons(e.g. a C+ in honor real analysis). In addition I have other unfavorable factors in my applications.

In the end you'll have to decide what programs to apply, here I assume you want to get into math/applied math program and you are concerned about your grade.

One of the reasons people look at your grade is to make sure you can pass through the coursework/qualifying stage of the graduate program. That is, they don't want to admit many students that will eventually drop out by failing too many courses or qualifying exams. To convince them you can do well in that part, you should

Get high subject GRE grade.
If your low math grade is on early stage and you do better after that(e.g. I got C+ in my first real analysis and A in my second real analysis course) then in SOP mention you understand the importance of those core courses and you work hard to make up the deficiency early on.
Related to 2. but more important, for any program you apply, take a look at all their requirements to graduate, and think about how you convince professors you will be able to finish those requirements.


What makes for a "strong" LoR for graduate application? I searched this site and it seems that some individual cases were addressed, but is there any general guideline? For example, between a renowned professor who may barely fill up one page, and another professor freshly hired from a postgrad who liked my course project and has more good things to say about me, whose LoR will be evaluated more highly by the committee? What (reputation, length, relevance of area, writing skills, etc) matters more for an LoR?

Thanks!

That is highly dependent on the thoroughness of the committee doing the ranking, and other random facts (i.e., one might hate the guts of the renowned colleague, or have met and been well impressed by the fresh professor). In case of doubt, I'd go for someone who can really talk about you (worked together, took classes with them, ...) than some star who at most will say they've met you and you seem OK.


Will graduating a semester early hurt applications to grad schools? I am a math major who will be a senior next year and hope to graduate a semester early for financial reasons. During my semester off, I plan to continue my (mostly trivial) research in algebra and independently work through three graduate level texts. However, I am going to apply to grad schools for pure mathematics in the fall and worry this may ultimately hurt my graduate school applications.

Will this have a negative effect on my math grad school applications? How can I best communicate that I will not slack off in the spring semester, but will continue working?

Your application will be essentially complete by the end of fall term, but it should very pointedly mention what further work you will be doing in the spring term, whether or not you are paying tuition for the privilege of studying and thinking about mathematics.

There really needn't be a formal structure imposed on your work/study/research, and it needn't have any official label "research" versus "study". But do write what you plan to do, and do mention the guidance you hope/expect to have from more-experienced mathematicians (as opposed to just doing whatever strikes your fancy off in some closet). That is, do be sure to make the point that you will be engaged with actual contemporary mathematics, arguably more intensely, and at a more serious level, than the usual homework-exam model would encourage or allow.

If you can describe your plans for "spring term" in vivid and enthusiastic detail, you can make it sound far better than "taking classes". I'd not worry about hype-ing "research" too much, although, yes, it would be intellectually dishonest to not follow one's curiosity. But, of course, one's personal discoveries, however novel to oneself, may be old news to experienced professionals, so one should not presume.

Just tell your plans!


Do published university admission acceptance rates include applicants for all courses or just undergraduate? Does the acceptance rate of a university is only determined by how many students are applying for undergraduate? Or is it also determined by postgraduate or PhD students?
For example, Harvard has an acceptance rate of 5.2℅, does it also count the grad/phd students?

There is no enforced standard for acceptance rate - it means precisely whatever the institution decides it means (and is generally not audited or required to be made publicly available). It's largely used for marketing of admissions for an institution, so a cynic would point out that the numbers can be assumed to be less than rigorously straight-forward and should not be relied on to be meaningfully interpret-able.

However, generally acceptance rate is by category (undergraduate, Master's, PhD), and is usually defined as applications received compared to student's officially accepted. Some programs have less common relationships between Master's and PhD (such as offering an unfunded Master's to a PhD applicant, and it's unclear if they call that an acceptance or a rejection - but this varies by field).

Breakdowns in the numbers are sometimes available from some institutions, but you usually have to dig for them. I've seen institutions post acceptance rate of 5-10%, but then deep inspection shows some groups accepted at nearly a 50% rate. Some institutions post enough stats that you can break down by gender, reported race/ethnicity, domestic/foreign, and even give additional info on acceptance (the institution said yes), admittance (the student accepted the offer by the institution), and enrollment (the student actually showed up and started the program). Some provide almost none of this information, and even less institutions provide yearly updates.

Some programs will also give some incredibly limited stats about grades or test scores (average GPA of incoming students, etc - I don't think I've ever seen standard deviations provided).

Finally, as GEdgar pointed out in the comments, some institutions also break up the reporting by department/program (medical school separate from computer science, which is held apart from arts). Sometimes many areas are aggregated together, such as the entirety of the "graduate program" or across colleges, etc.

In the end, acceptance rate is purely a measure of applications in vs acceptances out. People use it to infer lots of other things, and that's a practice that is extremely questionable - but popular.


PhD advisor wrote a review of my PhD work without me, any grounds for complaint? My relationship with one thesis advisor was not good due to various issues including previous authorship problems, his rampant drug use and bullying behavior. Nonetheless I wrote six or seven papers with him during my PhD, all of which are now published. I was working in my home institute for six months after PhD completion but with one of my other advisors. Now I find out my advisor has published a high impact review paper which basically summarises all my first author papers from my PhD and little else. Of the 8 figures reproduced, six of them are from my first author papers. The remaining two are not data and are just wikipedia copies. The paper uses the same references I used in my PhD, it has a dozen ideas I came up with during my PhD, and basically tells the narrative I worked out for my thesis. Nonetheless, my suspicion is there is nothing I can do under these circumstances except kiss goodbye to any citations my papers were going to get as people will now refer to the review.

Any ideas?

If the images were properly cited, and your advisor got permission from the publisher (or other copyright holder) to publish copies, then there's likely little you can do. You likely assigned copyright to the publisher during the publication process. If there are proper citations, then there's probably no plagiarism.

You may not get the citations directly, but you will get traffic to your articles if the review article is decent. Many people prefer to cite the original rather than review articles. There's several examples of citations to non-original articles leading to inaccuracies since the review may get some facts wrong about the originals, thus there can be some wariness in some communities to cite review articles.


How much time to invest in reviewing a paper that is clearly below the bar? There have been some discussions here on how long to spend on reviewing a paper (e.g., here).

This question is a bit different in that I'm wondering what are your thoughts about reviewing a paper that is not going to be accepted.

I recently got a request to review a journal paper for a leading IEEE journal.
From reading the abstract, introduction, and related work, it is clear that the authors are not aware of the progress that was done in recent years. The paper cites, evaluates, and compares against, 15-20 years old approaches that are far behind the current state of the art.

The problem now is that solution is quite involved and would take some significant time to understand and give feedback on.
The only way for the work to be publishable is for the authors to compare against modern techniques and show merit, so the current submission cannot possibly be accepted.

  Would you still spend the time in reviewing the proposed algorithm?
  Would a review that reads "please compare your solution with XX and YY before consider it" be reasonable?

I have mentioned that this is a significant journal since I know that in some journals showing yet-another-solution for an important problem may be published if the solution is reasonable (e.g., if it is simpler than the state of the art but not as effective).

In my experience, it is perfectly valid to reject such a paper on the basis of an inadequate review of the literature and/or limited relevance compared to the state-of-the-art. However, you may (understandably) have some reservations about rejecting the paper outright. In this case, I suggest considering adding something to your review along the lines of:

  The authors do not clearly establish the relevance of their approach given the state of the art (e.g., Article1, Article2). Therefore, at this time, this reviewer recommends resubmission only after addressing (if not directly comparing against) the state of the art.

At the end of the day, your review is a recommendation for the editor. They can choose to take your suggestion or not. But it sounds to me that your assessment (that the paper as currently written is ignoring a large chunk of recent & relevant work) would be quite helpful to the editor.

Regarding how long you should spend on evaluating the actual method - I think you should at least do your due diligence to make sure you've understood the method and the overall novelty/impact of the paper. (It sounds to me that you may have done this already.) As part of the review, you should include a summary of what you've understood about the paper - this helps both the editor to grasp the significance of the work and also conveys to the authors that you've shown them the respect of honestly trying to understand their contribution, and yet you still feel that something is lacking.

A helpful guide here discusses "Rejection After the First Reading", among other things.


Should the desire to go back to one's country after graduation be written in the statement of purpose? I wish to apply to public universities in the US for a PhD in the near future and at this point I am drafting my statement of purpose.

Having been exposed to how research (majority of which is public and funded by the government) is done in my country (India) from an early age and having worked in some of these research organizations myself, I was considering including a desire to be an active part of the academic community (in what capacity, I don't think I can be sure at this point) in India and possibly working to contribute to it as one of my motivations for gaining a PhD.

Given that I wish to apply majorly to public research universities (majorly funded by the governments, as I understand it) in the US, will it be perceived as not being in the interests of the university to accept a student who is keen on returning to his country following his education? Does this kind of a thing matter during the admissions procedure? Should I be thinking along these lines? How is marginal patriotism this kind of a motivation perceived in a statement of purpose?

Depending on your wording (and to a lesser extent on your discipline), I do not think this is problematic at all. Most public universities in the US are not directly concerned with the monetary investment in their students.

Rather, they are concerned with attracting motivated, high-quality graduate students along with an undergraduate student body that contains (and serves) many students from the state but also includes students from diverse backgrounds and with different life experiences.

You do not say in your question whether you are pursuing a graduate or undergraduate degree, but I think in either case it's fine. Having a plan to return to your home country is totally understandable, and speaks to both your motivation and long-term planning.

Furthermore, admissions committees understand that while you have this plan now, that things can happen over the course of years and that you plans you outline in your statement of purpose may change.

As multiple comments and answers indicate, this should not be the main focus of your statement of purpose and does not need to be belabored.

I agree with the comment that "patriotism" is not quite the right word for your preferences, and I think using that word (or some others) would seem strange or inappropriate in your statement, but in general, expressing a desire to eventually apply the skills you will be learning in your home country should not be a problem.


BSc: double thesis or thesis with multiple topics? I have been working on two research projects at different departments during my BSc. One of them yielded a conference paper and the other one was initially decided to be my final thesis topic. The latter one is also going well and we are planning to make a journal publication on it. I have to write my final thesis next semester and I am wondering whether I should make two separate theses for two research topics or involve them inside a single thesis.

I appreciate your opinion!

If you can make one good story about the combination of the two, that's what could make your thesis outstanding. But it's also going to be a lot more work, and if it doesn't work out, you just wasted a lot of time.

If you're not convinced you can and really want to pull this, go and ditch one of the two subjects. It's a lot less hassle for both you and your prof, you'll get a good grade, and that's it.

As was mentioned in the comments, it's already published, so there is no need to publish it again, and in a thesis, which so few people will read ever again.


How should I fill the "First name" and "Last name" in an application if I have two given names and two last names? How should I fill this information if I have more than one given name and more than one last name?
For example, if my name is Juan Eduardo González Rodríguez. I have 2 given names: "Juan" and "Eduardo", and I have 2 last names (The first one of my father and the second one of my mother because that how it is done in Mexico): "González" and "Rodríguez".
Should I only write:

First name: Juan
Last name: González

or should it be

First name: Juan Eduardo
Last name: González Rodríguez (or González-Rodríguez)

I am in your exact same situation: Spanish name with 2+2. I have lived abroad for 6 years now, most of it in Ireland.

There is no way out of misunderstandings, I'm afraid, and your second last name will often be assumed to be your only family name.

Here is a recipe that has worked out for me so far:

For a non legally-critical situation, e.g. your name on a paper or a name tag at a conference, use your first last name only or hyphen both last names. You can then initialize your second (or even first) given names. People from English-speaking countries often have a middle name, so that's not a problem.
For legal and official stuff, use your full name as per your identity document so it cannot be used against you. If they get it flipped over it's their fault.


How to deal with two students who potentially colluded when one is unavailable? We have two students in my department who handed in identical essays. As per our policy we scheduled independent meetings with both students to determine what happened. Going into these meetings our primary objective is to figure out which of the following 5 possibilities occurred:

The students worked jointly and wrote one essay
One student wrote the essay and knowingly allowed the other student to copy the essay
One student wrote the essay and the other student copied their essay without the first student's knowledge
The students worked independently and managed to write word for word identical essays (this seems unlikely)
The students independently copied the same source

One student is on medical leave and was therefore unable to attend the meeting. The student who attended the meeting showed us drafts of previous essays which have convinced us that neither (4) nor (5) occurred. Further, when we exclude the other student's essay, TurnItIn doesn't find anything of concern. We also are confident that the student who attended the meeting did not copy the essay from the other student. This leaves us with possibilities (1), (2), and (3).

Our policy states that both students would be punished for academic misconducted if either (1) or (2) occurred and only the other student would be punished if (3) occurred. It seems without talking to the other student we cannot really come to a fair conclusion. Without a decision the student who attended the meeting will have neither passed or failed the class and therefore is not eligible to retake the class nor take any class which has the class in question as a prerequisite. It is unlikely the student on medical leave will be back in time to make a timely decision. How should we proceed?

Not letting this student move forward at this point would be punishment. If there is a chance that you will find the student innocent of any wrongdoing, it seems like the injustice of punishing them for something they did not do is  worse than letting them get away with something they did.

Make it clear to the student that they will pass the class given the lack of evidence against them but that you will continue to evaluate the situation. Make sure they know that if you conclude later that they have colluded, you will update their grade to a failing one and force them to retake the class.

The only real negative consequence of this is that the student might be able to take classes that require this class as a prerequisite before they are forced to go back and take the original class again. That's not ideal, but it doesn't really seem so bad.


Where can I get a cheap, virtual, high-performance server suitable for academic use? I am working on a machine learning project for which I need proper computational power. Assuming that my local university can't provide a server to run the code, I am looking for an online website which sells virtual servers for limited time — as in a month or less.

I heard that some companies provide free servers for students if they prove their status as students — but I failed to find anything with a search on Google. Is there anywhere which provides virtual high performance servers suitable for academic use?

One of the reasons I ask this question on Academia Stack Exchange is that most of the VPSs you can find on the net are more focused on the quality of bandwidth and connectivity, but I am just focused on CPU and Memory setting (I just need to run a Matlab or Octave program).

P.S.: This question is related to the subject matter at Server Fault and Super User, but those sites are almost completely focused on servers suitable for web-based applications. Also, they don't know about the opportunities provided for students for free or at low cost.

In most countries, there exist high performance computers that researchers can apply for access to.  For example, in Sweden there is the National Supercomputer Centre, and other countries have similar projects.  When you get access, you get a limited number of core-hours (for example, if you have 5000 core hours, you can run 50 cores for 100 hours or 500 cores for 10 hours) to be used over a specific period of time (for example, one year).

To apply for access, you may have to go through someone who is employed at a university, if you aren't.  If you are a student, you hopefully have a supervisor who can apply for your project.  Or they might have special services for students!


Due to last name, I am never first author I am a PhD student in computer science and have enjoyed my time very much so far. I just finished my 4th year and I plan to graduate in a year. During my degree, I worked on a few papers that became well cited. Throughout my PhD, I consistently worked with another student, let's call him Mike A. My name is Lilly M. and my advisor is Timothy Z. (all names are made up). On all of my papers, Mike A. and I are listed as “these authors contributed equally”. However, my advisor is adamant that he publishes in alphabetical order (this is becoming less common, as far as I can tell), so all papers are Mike, Me, our advisor. I have noticed that this has more and more of an effect, as fellow researchers tend to know Mike or my advisor but rarely know me, even though I contributed half of the work.

I have spoken to my advisor about this and he assures me that (a) he does not think it is a big deal and (b) he does not want to change it because he consistently publishes in alphabetical order. Most papers in his group are with him and a student, and in these cases it always means the student is first, and then him.

Is this something I should be concerned about? Do you have suggestions on how to approach this with him?

Note: The reason I ask is that in the last few weeks, Mike was asked by three separate institutions to come and give a talk about one of our papers. I was never asked. In this case, Mike told me and we worked it out. However, it suggests that there is a different perception of my work than I would like. I plan to graduate soon and apply for new positions. Are there things I should do this year that you would suggest?

In some fields, alphabetical listing is strongly preferred. Doing it differently would be seen as odd. Because of my actual family name I'm often "first". But I also frequently publish with more prominent people and no one ever thinks that I dominate the research in any way.

But the work in such fields tends to be highly collaborative (as I suspect it is in yours) where it is difficult to say who contributed "more".

But if a paper results from your doctoral research, it should say something about that in a note, perhaps the ack section. People will assume that you (and perhaps your advisor) did the driving.

I find the fighting over authorship position on some posts here to be very saddening. I understand that in some fields (lab science, say) that there are lots of things going on in a give lab with one person primarily responsible for some part of the research and should therefore get more "credit" for the papers even though others in the lab contributed something. But the fights make it seem like, to them, research is a zero-sum game.

Be happy that you work in a field that values collaboration and joint success. But if Mike doesn't ack you and suggest you as a co-speaker (or as the actual speaker) then there is a problem (his) that you can address with him. Be nice, of course, but be firm. "We built this together." Get your advisor on board. "Help me out here Z, I can use the exposure and experience." He knows that, of course. Don't let him forget.


How to deal with inactive students in undergraduate projects? I am in the field of computer science, and I have noticed a trend among a group of students when dealing with undergraduate programming projects. The situation is that there are some students that when faced with a programming project they seek for students who have that skill; so that in the long run they just do not program anything at all whilst the others do all the work.

I do not know if that could be categorized as a plagiarized work, because they are taking credits for something they have not done. The issue is that is becoming a big problem in our faculty, and it is not easy to track those students.

What would be the measures to be taken for avoiding that behavior?

Here's a view from the commercial side. I have been interviewing CS graduates since about 1983. Allowing CS students to be graded entirely on exam scores and group projects causes real problems for the students after graduation. The majority of MSCS graduates I have interviewed were unable to program AT ALL. They were passed through CS course work without ever being required to independently produce working code. Reality hits when they go to a technical interview at a selective employer and spend 45 minutes trying to solve the warm-up problem. I used to be frustrated with the candidates. Now I'm angry with the CS departments who sell worthless graduate degrees to unsuspecting students.

Shortly after I graduated from Carnegie-Mellon in 1979 they found that despite completing the introductory CS class required of all engineering students, most could not produce a simple working program. In response they instituted a practical final exam. Students were put in front of a terminal and given a couple of hours to write a working program to solve some simple problem, something that was probably ten or fifteen minutes work for a competent programmer. If the program didn't work, they didn't pass the course.

All CS programs should, as early as possible, ensure that students can independently produce working code before allowing them to advance. It's cruel to hand out degrees, leading students to believe that they are ready to work, when they are not and likely never will be.


How do I abbreviate the titles after my name? I just got my Ph.D and I'm trying to work out how to do the full series of abbreviations after my name.

My scholastic qualifications are:

Ph.D University of New South Wales, Philosophy
Masters of Science, Rochester Institute of Technology, Information Technology
Bachelors of Science, RIT, Information Technology

RIT Scholar (University Medal)
Highest Honors.

Given that I have both American and Australian degrees, what series of abbreviations is appropriate to put after my name?

This varies between countries.  My impression is that listing titles after the name is more common in the UK and Australia, and there may be fixed conventions as to the ordering, but I can't address that.  What I can deal with is the U.S., and my advice in that context is simple: don't do it.  In the U.S., if you list one title ("John Smith, Ph.D."), you'll look a little pompous and like you are overemphasizing your degree (leading to questions like "Gee, is that Ph.D. still his proudest achievement?" or "Does he worry people will think he didn't get a Ph.D.?"), and if you list more than one it will look ridiculous.  In particular, don't list titles after your name in academic job applications, CVs, signatures for letters of recommendation, etc. that are being sent to the U.S.  Of course, conventions in other countries may be different.


Authorship for design and data analysis I’m a Postdoc. Last year I was given some data from a former postdoc. My PI told me that the data had never been published and that they had many people trying to get results but nobody could. I worked on that projects night and day, designed the analysis plan, did tons of analysis, finally came up with a novel technique (which hasn’t been used in the literature before). I got pretty interesting results and last week when I showed my results to my PI and the former Postdoc, my PI said that the she (the former Postdoc) should take the lead of the project and be first author.
I’m a bit confused, I didn’t know they had that in mind. The former Postdoc didn’t get results with that data, is it ok she gets first authorship with my design and analysis? She said she could write the manuscript (but of course she’ll need help writing methods because she didn’t do that). I felt bad about this. I do understand that it’s her data from her previous project, but I wish they had told me before I did all the work. Am I wrong,  or should I be considered first author?

This sound like a classic case of clinician-statistician interaction. Both sides tend to under-appreciate the contribution of the other, and conflicts like this happen a lot. For the future, the lesson is to discuss authorship as early as possible when engaging on any projects.
For now, I'd add two things to consider:

Even assuming that the entire intellectual contribution so far has come from you, the other postdoc would not be entirely freeloading. The first author has a lot of responsibilities, such as deciding on the overall presentation, writing the manuscript, presenting the results in conferences, responding to reviews etc., and I personally think that is a significant intellectual effort. It may be unfair that you were passed over, but in the end the other person will still have to put in a lot of intellectual work, while you are free to move on to other projects.

Ask yourself if your analysis method is a sufficiently strong advance to stand as a publication on its own, i.e. could you write a methods paper using some simulated or publicly-available data. If so, pitch that to your PI, along the lines of "I believe I have found some more general methods to improve PET data analysis, and I would like to write that up with a technical focus, in an appropriate journal. By the way, this won't actually need [other postdoc]'s data". The PI will surely see the cause of this, but as long you're being honest and tactful, nobody should be offended, and whatever the outcome, this should help all parties understand each other's contribution better.


"Beyond the scope of this paper" phrase I am writing a scientific paper and I won't be able to go in the details of a certain topic.
I am considering to write something like: "The topic XXX is beyond the scope of this paper.".
I know that this is a common practice in research and it will not be a problem to write such a phrase.
However, since I think that it is a good idea to direct the reader towards useful literature about the XXX topic. For this reason, I was wondering how to write that in English. The alternatives I have in mind are:

A complete survey of the topic XXX is beyond the scope of this paper [1,2,3].
A complete survey of the topic XXX is beyond the scope of this paper and the reader is directed to [1,2,3] for further details.
A complete survey of the topic XXX is beyond the scope of this paper and the reader is referred to the literature for further details [1,2,3].

*where [1,2,3] are just examples of the referred literature

Unfortunately, I don't like any of them so far but I prefer 3. Could you help me with finding a solution?

Thanks.

A complete survey of the topic XXX is beyond the scope of this paper
  (see [1,2,3] for an overview).


Working relationship with master thesis professor First of all let me explain my situation a little bit.

I am writing my masters thesis in theoretical quantum field theory and have a very bad contact with my promoter. I see him once every few weeks and he doesn't have any concrete feedback. (40 written pages have been lying on his desk for months without any feedback on them) There is a PhD student that is helping me but our ideas are not in line and all he does is give negative feedback up to the point where I cannot value it anymore (it feels personal instead of professional)

This situation is becoming rather desperate since I was hoping for a PhD in physics but I have no recommendation letters from my promoter which ruins much of my chances...

I have talked to another professor at the faculty and they tell me that that they know him and that it doesn't really surprise him, but this does not help me. That same professor might be willing to get me started in a PhD but I am afraid that he'll ask my current promoter how I work, and whatever he says, it will not be representative of how hard I work.

Last but not least, the deadline for my thesis is in a couple of months and I am yet to get some feedback on a crucial, very unorthodox step that I made. I motivated the step and anybody asking me will see that I thought about it for a very long time but still, it might be wrong. Can I get a total fail for my thesis if this is the case? And how does this influence my further career ?

I felt really confident at first for a PhD; I am very motivated and work a lot, but this whole situation is really taking away my academical drive.

Any tips and advice ?

There are three ways to get your work reviewed by people other than your supervisor:

You've probably already done a related work survey. Look for other professors and PhD scholars who are doing or have done work that is very similar to yours. Contact these people by sending them emails and ask them to review your work. Don't send them a 40-page document. No body is going to review that. Send them a summary of your work with emphasis on the main idea. Then if they are interested, provide them with more details. If have done a really good work, someone might offer you a PhD opportunity.
Try to get your work published in some reputable journal, conference, or magazine. During the process of publication, your work will be reviewed. Of course, you need to do that before the deadline of your thesis submission. I do not study physics and so I cannot recommend any publication venue.
Ask your colleagues who are working in the same or similar field to review your work. You said there is one PhD student who reviewed your work. Remember to accept any constructive criticism and use it to your advantage. Try to find other people.

If some people expressed interest in your work, tell your supervisor and try to get him/her engaged in your project. Hopefully you'll get a recommendation letter from him/her at the end.


Linking to printed books on archive.org I am a postgrad PhD student. I occasionally participate in answering academic questions a Q & A site when I hit a block with getting on with my thesis.

I often cite a particular large and well-known academic source in my answers. I have my own copy of this book. It costs between £180 and £240 and is therefore beyond the reach of anyone who isn't a very serious enthusiast or a serious academic. It is a very important resource in my field of study.

Recently, I found that this resource is available online in pdf form at a not-for-profit website called Archive dot org. I have done some cursory research into that organisation. It has an entry on Wikipedia. I can't find any substantial criticism of it.

I am wondering whether it would be academically unethical of me to link directly to this resource in my answers, given the unknown copyright status of some of the content on archive.org. On a related note, I'm also worried whether it could get me into trouble academically to do so. Any insights would be appreciated!

I occasionally participate in answering academic questions in online forums when I hit a block with getting on with my thesis.

No worries, we all procrastinate (ehm... cough cough).

  I often cite a particular large and well-known academic source in my answers. I have my own copy of this book.

You really don't need to own a copy of a book to cite it: many, if not most, academics borrow the books needed for their work from the libraries. Moreover, its cost is irrelevant to your question.

  I am wondering whether it would be academically unethical of me to link directly to this resource in my answers, given the questionable copyright status of archive.org.

If the archived copy is legal (e.g., the publisher might have released the copyright because they no longer print it), it is certainly ethical to link it. However, I'd avoid referring to the copy if it's legality cannot be reasonably established. In addition, should the copy be removed due to copyright infringement, you would end up with a series of broken links.

It is worth noting that links to books are seldom seen on academic papers, unless a book is exclusively available online. Therefore, the issue is more related to whether or not posting the link online.


How to ask a potential postdoc supervisor to give me the postdoc interview results sooner than he planned 25 Mar 2018
I had a Skype interviewer with a potential postdoc supervisor, and he mentioned that those who passed the first Skype interview will be informed after he interviews all people, which is around 2 weeks prior to a second formal interview held at his institute.

I am in another country and will need 2-3 weeks to apply for a visa to go abroad for the second interview. If I am told the results after he finishes interviewing all people, I am very likely not able to obtain a visa in time for the scheduled second interview.

Could you please give me suggestions on how to write to him about this situation without being rude. Thank you very much!

----20 June 2018
Sevel months have passed! How time flies.
To follow up, I didn't ask him to give the results sooner than he planned.
And I didn't get the job either.

That was my first skype interview, so I didn't have much experience and failed it.
But now, I have received a great offer.

Rather than asking to know the results in advance, which may not even be possible (they probably tell you the results as soon as they have reached a decision, and they probably cannot reach a final decision without interviewing everyone), ask if it would be possible to delay the formal interview if you do get to that stage. From what you've told, this would mean one or two weeks of delay at most; that's nothing. Explain your situation with the visa and I'm sure anyone reasonable will understand.


What is the best way to find an external examiner for an MSc (e-government) I am an advisor trying to find an external examiner for my student for an MSc (area: e-government).

Currently the thesis is at the proposal stage (which also needs to be assessed by an external examiner). I'm a relatively young supervisor and therefore found it a bit difficult to find a suitable candidate. The person would have to have a Ph.D. and be proficient in English.  There is also some money involved (but the details can be only disclosed to those who are really interested).

My approach so far has been to check papers on e-government and try to contact the authors.  But maybe there is a dedicated forum where I could approach potential researchers in an easier way?

Although I haven't needed to recruit external examiners, I have served as one and have watched colleagues recruit them.  Typically, the advisor is working with students in an area related to the their own work, and thus can reach out into their normal professional network to others who work in a related area.  Thus, I doubt that a forum for making these types of connections exists---usually, you already have a bunch of colleagues who would be good candidates and who you already have some sort of relationship with.

It sounds like for your case, however, the student is doing something that pushes into a new area where you don't yet have a network.  Other people in your institution, however, probably do.  I would thus recommend starting by finding out who works in the area at your institution and approaching them: since you are both at the same institution, you are more likely to get a collegial response rather than a "who are you?" failure to respond.  Your same-institution colleague, then, can make introductions to good candidates for external reviewers.

If there's nobody working in the area at your institution, though, you'll need to fall back to what you are already doing.  I would recommend, however, that the best people to contact are not the luminaries in the field but others in a similar position to yourself: relatively young, and thus more likely to find it valuable for their CV to be an external reviewer.


Article published in a conference has several technical flaws in it. What should be done? This conference is organized on every 3 years. It is highly influential in the field of study. Screening and review committee are usually reputable that includes a strong set of researchers and professors.

The article in question is similar to my field of interest. I was happy to read it, but am very dissatisfied with discussion, analysis of data and moreover, there are several theoretical flaws in the paper.

What should I do in this case? How to submit a comment? Or, should I just ignore this?

When I was in graduate school my group found a major flaw in another group's work, and another group found a flaw in one of our papers. Beware that it's worth it to be sensitive about these issues- academia tends to be a small world, and you don't want to hurt people's egos or make enemies. Everyone makes mistakes, even in published and peer-reviewed papers. Bear in mind that once a peer-reviewed paper is published with a methodological flaw it becomes a failure of the entire community rather than a failure of that author.

I think the most productive way to handle this is to first contact the authors of the paper directly. If you feel as though you've found an error then you should be able to provide specific evidence or (for theoretical work) a counter-example to some proposed theorem. Approach them gently, and remember that you might be the one in error or that the error might be a simple like an unstated assumption. If the authors are responsible academics then you will have a dialogue with them that identifies the error or points out the flaw in your argument. If your claim is substantiated then it may be an opportunity to publish a joint correction or they might opt to retract their paper, depending on the severity of the problem. This is how good peer-reviewed science is supposed to work.

However, if the authors are unwilling to talk then and you feel like you need to push the issue then you'll have to escalate. Get in touch with the editor of the publication, but be sure you can substantiate your claims of an error in a way they'll understand and agree with. If they determine that you are correct then they may unilaterally retract the paper or provide the authors a chance to publish corrections. Depending on the severity and circumstances of the issue it may be appropriate for you to publish your own analysis of the topic.

Done correctly, finding a published flaw can be a great way to start a new relationship or collaboration with other people intensely interested in the same topics as you are. If you allow them to fix the problem with their published work in a way that allows them to save face they will be grateful. If you make a public debate out of the issue or go above their head to the publication editors too quickly you'll engender some bad feelings. If you make a public fuss about something and you end up being wrong then you'll look like a stupid jerk. Remember that academia is a small world and your reputation will follow you, so think about how you'll be perceived.

Above all else just remember that the purpose of the exercise is to correct the scientific record and you should be OK.

Edit: I wanted to echo John's comment to another (now deleted) post, which is that the probability that you are wrong or have misunderstood the paper is very high. Let the paper sit for a few days, and then read it again carefully. If you're still convinced there's an error then go to your adviser or a colleague and ask them to review your analysis. If everyone agrees that there is an error then it is time to humbly approach the authors.


Faculty TT verbal offer made, but no written offer (it's been about 10 business days) I went through 2 rounds of interviews with a public university in the United States, was given a verbal offer 10 business days ago. The professor who spoke with me said that I should get a written offer the following week (last week) but so far - silence. I reached out to my contact person last week and they said the Provost (who needs to sign off on the tenure track line) was out last week. I waited to check in again with my contact person yesterday and they said that they will check, but still silence.
This is my only offer so far, but I do have interviews lined up beginning and mid-January and February with other schools. This public university is my 1st choice and the verbal offer was excellent.
Is this a bad sign? What is the customary timeframe to expect a written offer following a verbal offer? 2 weeks? Can the university change its mind? What is the best action on my part?

A “verbal offer” is not an offer. in the US, any self-respecting institution would at the very least document their desire to extend you an offer in an email sent in very close proximity (same day, or next day) to the “verbal offer”. The actual offer including a precise salary anount and other hiring package information might take a couple of weeks after that, and official, final approval (typically by a university provost or other high-ranking official) might even take a few months, although that part is usually considered a rubber stamp that’s certain enough to happen that people will move across the country and even buy a house before it happens. But do not let anyone mislead you into thinking you have any sort of offer until something is, at the very least, documented in writing.
It is encouraging that someone says they want to hire you. I hope all will end well and that this is nothing more than an example of a mildly incompetent bureaucracy. But yes, they can change their mind (I have seen it happen), and yes, it is a red flag of sorts, or at least a yellow one. I advise you not to assume anything and to proceed with all other interviews as scheduled until your offer is extended in writing, with precise salary information. Good luck!


How should I write thank you letters to members on my thesis comittee? I have just completed a graduate degree and want to thank the members of my thesis committee for their support. I have just sent a thank you email to my supervisor and advisors but, I am not sure what I should write for the other members. My questions are as follows:

Are there any sample templates I can follow? Yes, I will customize for each person, but I find that if I have a good baseline my writing is improved.
What are good things that I should be thankful for? I feel that good thank you letters provide some specific examples on what people did to help you. However, the only thing these people did was examine me. Some did not provide a lot of comments. Being on a examination committee is more work for over worked professors, but I am having trouble coming up with good points.

Notes

All of the professors on the committee are from Canadian universities.
If you have any questions feel free to ask.

Instead of a letter, thank them in the 'Acknowledgements' section of your thesis

You can thank your supervisors for guiding you in the course of writing the thesis.

You can thank your examiners for giving helpful feedback that led to improvements in your work (you can do this even if the examiners are anonymous -- it is not unusual for published academic work to thank anonymous peer reviewers for helpful suggestions).

If a specific comment/lead/idea was particularly useful, you can mention it. If one or more supervisors or examiners helped you on the road to publication, mention it.

An example might read like this (feel free to adapt nomenclature to local context and customise with more detail):

  I would like to thank my supervisors, Dr Josephine Bloggs and Dr A.N. Other, both of the Department of Futile Studies, for their support and guidance over several years. I am particularly grateful for their detailed advice and encouragement on how to adapt Chapter 4 of this thesis for publication in The Journal of the Royal Society for the Furtherance of Futile Studies. I would like to thank my examiners, Prof. Isaac Newton and Prof. Immanuel Kant for engaging with my thesis diligently and enthusiastically, providing valuable suggestions: in particular, they helped me clarify my theory on 'The Noumenality of Lincolnshire apples during the plague'. Finally, I would like to thank the lay convenor for my thesis committee, Mr Charles Dickens, senior secretary of the Department of Circumlocution, for his exemplary efficiency in conducting the examination of the thesis.


Accessing research databases with company computer? Are there any legal (or other) limitations in accessing research databases from a computer at my workplace?

As a part-time student I have full access to resources provided by my university and was wondering whether I should stop using company's laptop for research purposes.

I'm based in UK, if that matters.

You should check with your library policies, but use of academic library (and other) resources for work outside an academic educational/research context is very likely against policy and may violate the licenses by which the university has obtained access to material (i.e., the library has obtained a license for the students and staff of the university to access the material for noncommercial purposes related to academic research and education; they likely have not obtained a license for those students and staff to access the material for commercial purposes outside the university).

Using your company's laptop might be a bit of a grey area since you are transferring materials to the property owned by the company; if you are using the company laptop for academic purposes, you might be in violation of company policies but it has nothing to do with the library access. Whether simply accessing library materials from a commercial source if you are not using those resources to do non-licensed work (i.e., to use the access for commercial purposes) seems like a question only a lawyer could answer, and you won't get legal advice here.


Can you jettison a project to work on another in the wake of a big discovery? Let's say Alice is a PhD student who's well into the research phase of a PhD. She's got a nice exciting project she enjoys, a helpful supervisor, she's making good progress. And then there's a big discovery. She's excited about the new discovery, she wants to work on it, and her current project suddenly doesn't seem so interesting anymore. Real life example: suppose Alice is a Chemistry PhD student from the late 1980s working in condensed matter, and the big discovery is cold fusion.

Can Alice ditch her project to work on the new discovery? What if the new discovery is in an area that is not her supervisor's specialization? I'm also curious whether Alice can make this switch if she's a professor (as opposed to PhD student).

My guess would be that it's hard for Alice to do this as a PhD student even if there's another supervisor available, because she would have to start over again and therefore take longer to graduate (running into funding issues). It'd also be an administrative hassle especially if she has to change departments (Chemistry to Physics in example above - the fields are related, but not that related). If Alice is a professor then she would presumably be stuck, because she's got to work on her grants. She could apply for new grants related to the big discovery, but it would be a while before she can work on it. Am I correct?

Can Alice ditch her project to work on the new discovery?

Alice has many responsibilities in her life, including satisfying her sponsor and producing her thesis. Whether she should ditch her project depends on those responsibilities. IMO, she perhaps doesn't have enough time to fulfil her obligations and ditch her project (PhDs are short), so she might need to delay working on the new discovery. There's perhaps an exception if Alice is in the early stages of her PhD.

  What if the new discovery is in an area that is not her supervisor's
  specialization?

That's not particularly relevant: Many students work under the supervision of advisors that aren't specialists in their research areas.

  if she's a professor (as opposed to PhD student).

Then, she isn't bound to the time constraints of a PhD, but still has other responsibilities.

  I'm also curious whether Alice can make this decision

Yes, she can. Who else would make it? Pressure may be applied by others, but, ultimately, the decision is Alice's. (That said, she may get sued for her decision, e.g., if she ditches her project without delivering upon contractual obligations, but that's perhaps unlikely in academia, even less-so for student-Alice, as opposed to professor-Alice.)

  I'm also curious whether Alice can [feasibly] make this switch if she's a professor (as opposed to PhD student).

If Alice truly wants to switch, then Alice can make it happen. There may be many barriers: personal, institutional, contractual (including funding obligations), ... But, they can be overcome. That said, should she switch? That's up to Alice. She perhaps has a relatively easy position right now, switching will be a massive upheaval.


Contacting advisor after long hiatus I am enrolled in a master in CS, and finished all course work. Professors were happy with my work and I managed a 3.7 GPA -good for my university-
 without too much effort.
When it came to the thesis I had a lot of trouble, every problem was exciting right until the point when I settled on it, then it became uninteresting and bland.
I eventually started working on a particular problem and had some preliminary results, not very promising, but something.

Then lots of things started to happen, with the end result that during the past six months later I changed jobs, sold my house, moved to a foreign country, married, but made no progress and had no contact with my advisor.

Now the question: I want to get back in touch and finish the degree as all-but-thesis is not a status I want to remain in. I would also like to change my advisor since my current one is not very engaged nor gives much time or attention to the advised students. Most of the students under my advisor finished six to 10 months after other students, despite no particular trend in the complexity of the thesis.

Is there any recommendations you can give as to how to word the first communication? I was planning on being simply honest and get to the point fast, but I have no clue if this is a good approach.

Thanks. If something is unclear please ask away, english is not my first language.

I've been in a similar situation, and these are the things I took into consideration:

is it feasible to work on your thesis from abroad? Labwork would make that a lot harder, whereas computer simulations can also be done on a beach in Hawai.
do you have enough progress to finish the thesis rather independently? If so, I would try to write everything up and get it over with.
How easy is it to change advisors? I know it is possible at my institution, but not easy to get done due to the paperwork and the different boards involved. Plus, it often means a change in subject so you basically have to start all over again. Is it worth the effort?

My gut feeling tells me you best just put some elbow grease on, devote some time to your thesis and wrap it up. Take it from somebody who spent three years struggling to finish a thesis due to work: you want to get it over with so you can move on.

So what I would do, is:

write up a bit more, so you add some beef to your work.
roughly plan the rest of your work: when will the results be written out, when will the discussion be written out, still simulations to do? etc.
send an e-mail to your advisor explaining briefly that you had little time to work on the thesis due to personal reasons the past six months, but you want to finish the work in a timely manner. In a next paragraph, explain briefly where you're at now. Make sure to include briefly what you've done since you last contacted him. In a third paragraph, briefly give your planning and ask him whether he can agree on the feasibility of the planning.

You have to keep in mind:

supervisors often have more students. So big chance your supervisor doesn't remember the details of your thesis any more. That's why the brief summary is important.
supervisors like to see results. So if you show them effort, they often get more engaged in the discussion. A little initiative can go a long way, and showing initiative in your first contact mail is likely to get his attention.
a supervisors mailbox can get well over hundred emails in a day. They have little time, so keep it short. "Briefly" is the most important word in my answer ;-)

It might be possible that your mail get snowed under in your supervisor's mailbox. So if he didn't answer after a week, a gentle reminder mail -including the original information so he doesn't have to dive into his mailbox to find it - can do wonders.

Good luck with it!


Batch editing references I imported many pdf articles into Mendeley but saw that Mendeley did not capture all the fields correctly. So, I needed to change them manually. It would be a tedious job to do so with many documents. Fortunately, many of the documents share common journal names and years. So, I needed a way to edit them together.

Is there a reference manager where we can edit selected references in one go without having to do this for each reference individually?

I have tried Endnote. Mendeley, and JabRef so far but could not find such a way. I will be grateful if someone has any idea/experience in this direction.

Edit-1:
After solving the batch editing problem, I also had a problem with getting the syntax for the authors correct.

Mendeley does it actually. I did not try properly before.

Then I had a problem with getting the authors correct. What you need to do is put them as follows

Last Name, First Names
Last Name, First Names

and so on.

After Edit-1:Another useful thing in Mendeley is that, you just have to select the authors from the pdf and Mendeley will give suggestions on the syntax based on existing authors in the current database. See the following image.