How should I describe my country's volatile situation in a letter for a scholarship application? I'm writing a letter of motivation to apply for a master degree scholarship. However, my marks in final years of study weren't the highest possible due to the effect of the ongoing crisis in my country, Syria, on me.

In this question, I asked whether I should mention this in my letter, and the answer was that I should.

Now I want to know, what is the best way to mention this in my letter? Is one paragraph about it too much?

Something along the lines that you persisted and managed to graduate despite that the life as you know it was being destroyed in a war-torn county. The hardships of war, hunger, constant fear for safety (or whatever you feel like sharing) gave priority to the survival. As the result your grades in the final years suffered. You are eager to continue your education in the safety of whereever you are applying, and ready to give it your all without the distractions of the war.

The point you want to make is that you graduated during the whole crisis, which is truly impressive. Congratulations on that. It shows the character and persistence. Grades you can fix.


If a journal has optional costs, is it bad form not to pay them? I've noticed that some of the journals I submit to, most of which are top tier, have optional costs.  For instance, there is an optional page cost that I could pay even though my paper is not open access and is under the page limits.  This cost is revealed upon acceptance.

I've always said no to pay it, but I wonder why the costs exist in the first place and if it's bad form to say no?

EDIT: I just realized how arrogant it sounds to say "most of which are top tier" :-P I meant "most of which are reputable journals that would not appear on Beal's list.

I'm not sure which discipline you are referring to, but I have published my articles in social and health science journals. Most journals offer options at a cost (optional Open Access, color reprints, etc.). If you do not want or need these options, there is no reason to feel that it is wrong to decline them. I have never paid these extra costs. Journals that are not strictly open access make their money from subscriptions, not from the authors. The additional costs are mainly to cover optional features that would make your article more costly to publish than other articles without these features. So, no worries!


How to reduce amount of language proofreading of my revised paper? I'm a non-native author and I have a revised paper that has been edited for good English before the first review. Now I made major changes, but still a large part of my essay remained as before. What is the best way to get my revised paper edited for English and flow without having to get charged for the whole (relatively long) paper again? Was someone in a similar situation?

I am a native English speaker, this is based off my experiences proofreading papers for others in my lab who are not native speakers.

Changing even a small section of a paper can have repercussions throughout the rest of the paper in unexpected ways. Also, as important as it is that the English in the changed sections is correct it is also important that those changed sections flow appropriately with the rest of the paper.

To help with both of these issues it is best to have the entire paper proofread again. Even as a native-English speaker, I have others proofread my paper after revisions because of the above issues. It can be helpful to somehow mark the changed sections and request that the proofreader be aware that those areas were changed.


Postdoc interview follow-up: HR or PI and how should I approach the conversation? I had an interview about 4 days ago for a postdoc in Scandinavia. The interview went well, from what I could tell, and the committee seemed approving and pleased with my answers.  I am thinking of following-up tomorrow, requesting info on the timeframe for a decision. Should I contact the PI or HR rep who was there for the interview as well? Any suggestions on content?

I know they are choosing between 2 candidates so is 5 days too early? I already attached support letters so I'm unsure what happens now in the process. Every day that passes, I get discouraged because this is a project I'd really love to work on.

I would appreciate details regarding the post-interview etiquette and process and usual time-frame in Scandinavia. Thanks in advance!!

You could contact both, actually, but differently. It is probably early for them to make a decision (scheduling meetings, perhaps), but not to early to follow up with the PI to give thanks for consideration and ask a bit more about the position and the work if you have any remaining question. You can also, safely, express your enthusiasm.

But pressing them for an early decision is probably a mistake.

HR, on the other hand could be asked about the typical length of time for decisions. I assume they are not as invested in the decision as the PI.


How can I mentally prepare for grad school? I'm starting grad school in the Fall and what worries me isn't the material. I'm good at my subject, I know I will be fine. What worries me are the stresses. Grad school is stressful. Even the impending stress is stressful.

I am planning on studying more of my subject before entering which is the easy part, the hard part is learning to cope with the stress. Can you recommend a book, meditation practice, etc.?

PhD student here. I am especially prone to stress, and my PhD has been very stressful, and while I haven't been completely successful with coping, I know a thing or two about it.

First off, I assume that you have gone through some schooling prior to grad school, which is what got you here (BSc, Masters?). That was stressful too, no? I have heard from SOME PhD students that undergrad was actually worse in the long run, but that depends heavily on the person, the lab, and the supervisor.

What you can do to stave off stress depends on your program and your supervisor. The healthy recommendation is to limit your working time. Some people on this site will tell you that a 'normal' working week is fine. Others will tell you that 60 or 70 hour work weeks are standard. This thread may devolve into a debate between those two camps. Personally, what I do is I set my own hours according to when I work decently. If I don't need to be in the lab for an experimental reason, I'll allow myself to get enough sleep that I'm not falling over myself through the day. If that means I get in a little late, it also means I stay a little late, especially if I get into a groove when working.

Sometimes, if I don't have stuff going on in the lab, I stay at home and I work all day in my pajamas wrapped up in a blanket, analysing data or writing a report of what I've done. This is especially true if my previous week was spent in the lab (I work in cryogenics and when we use liquid helium we have to pack as many experiments into 100l of lelium as possible, which means being at work from 8am to 9pm sometimes). I let my supervisor know about this, and I answer emails, and I do actually work (usually). But that means I can take breaks when I want to, be in my comfort zone, and relax a bit more than usual. I'm an introvert and it helps me recharge. If you're an extrovert, maybe it's not a great idea. Again, you do you. That's the important thing.

I try to keep weekends for myself, but this won't always be possible. The point is to try to give yourself SOME fun time, even if you are bogged down with deadlines. The best way to avoid a stress-related breakdown is to have a life outside of work. That means friends, hobbies, and other things unrelated to what you do. Even if they are other PhD students, it's still better than nothing at all.

Sometimes at night, I have trouble sleeping because the problems of the day keep running through my head, or I'm worried about something going on tomorrow. I installed a program on my computer called f.lux which automatically limits the blue light coming from your screen after sunset. This reportedly stops the limitation of melatonin production if you are working into the night, and can help with sleep if you've been in front of a computer all day. It may actually work, or it may be placebo, but I've been sleeping better. Also, if you switch it off after you've gotten used to it, your screen looks like some kind of crazy holy entity. More generally, practice sleep hygiene. It really does help.

Another thing to watch out for is seasonal affective disorder, if you are anywhere remotely northerly. I live in a not-very-north place (France) and I managed to get a case of it pretty bad this year. Keeping a desk near a window helps, as does walking somewhere in the middle of the day (e.g. to a cafeteria for lunch). Going for a run mid-day (if you can) helps too. Don't be surprised if you get the winter blues, especially if you wake up before sunrise and leave for work during it, and if you go home well after sunset at night. It happens.

I'd recommend living alone so you can rest and recharge at the end of the day, but if you're extroverted, this may actually be worse for you.

Finally, maintain a healthy relationship with your supervisor. If you find yourself worrying about whether you are progressing properly, talk to them about it. Be sure to maintain your independence (that's the point of a PhD) but also go to them for guidance when you need it.

Be sure to keep good records of everything you do (lab book if experimental, and make PDFs of your results written up nicely) to avoid stress later when you have to write a thesis. I experienced it in my masters; not having good records, and forgetting what you did before. Write it all up. Not only is it weirdly relaxing to write up reports, but it will help you later.

If you're in the US, you will probably have courses and qualifying exams. We don't have that here so I can't really comment, but the usual advice applies; start work early, create a decent schedule for yourself, don't leave a deadline until the last minute. Work with your cohort; they are a great source of support as long as they are not overly competitive.

And finally, the first few months of your PhD, I have been told, no one really expects you to actually accomplish much (YMMV with institution, program, country, and so on). Learn your way around, learn how equipment works (make great notes for this part!), deal with administrative stuff. Don't pressure yourself into being a magical science genius who spits out papers like an academic wizard. I spent a week translating an instruction manual for a dilution fridge from French into English. I spent a month filling in forms. Go to meetings, go to journal clubs. Part of the point is networking and expanding the way you 'think', so don't think of journal club or seminars as being a waste of time. It's partially a way to unwind, and partially a way to get you to think like a scientist.

Go to conferences or meetings if you can. Meet people. Meet potential projects you can contribute to, and people you could collaborate with. And finally, talk to your supervisor and get ideas.

At the beginning of each week, make a list of everything you have to get done, personal and professional. Make separate lists for long term or short term tasks. When you finish one, take great pride in physically crossing it off the list. If you want, look into bullet journaling. Also, put EVERYTHING on a calendar which syncs with your email and across all your devices. I use Sunrise synced to my personal email, my iphone, my desktop and my work laptop.

I'll add more if I think of anything else. But try not to worry too much; you aren't even there yet! Right now, just get some rest, play some video games, go on a nice holiday. Celebrate your acceptance and look forward to the adventure you're about to have.


Manuscript Revision: Is it alright to include the response to reviewer comments as an attached file rather than typing in the text box provided? I have recently received a minor revision from a journal. In the manuscript upload portal, there are two places where we could include the response to reviewer comments. One is in the form of a text box and the other in the form of document upload. I am thinking of choosing to include the response file as an attachment as it includes figures and tables that would not be possible to include in the text box. So in the text box I plan to write:

  Response to the reviewer comments is included in an attached file (response_to_reviewer comments.doc). We kindly request that you open the document to view the responses.

Is this alright? The journal here is the International Journal of Medical Informatics.

Speaking as an editor, I don't care whether you put text in the box or upload a separate file as long as what you provide is clear.  Speaking as an author, I have done it both ways many times, and it has never made any difference.  Generally, if the response is relatively short, I'll put it in the box; if the response is long or uses significant formatting (as in your case), I'll attach a file instead and put "See attached comments" in the box.

In short: they wouldn't provide the upload option if they didn't want you to use it.


What should an undergrad CS student know to publish to a conference? I'm a junior looking for insights on intro to academia. My GPA is considered low (~3.2), but I believe I have a reasonable understanding and experience in the field I'd like to study and would like to try to submit a paper to a conference to aim for top-10 CS grad schools and see if I really have research interest and potential.

I'm not sure what I should expect and how to plan for the next 1~2 years. Grad school applications are usually due before the spring semester, so I have roughly ~1.5 years to prepare, right? I noticed that the first deadlines for a lot of conferences in the field are between April~June. Will I have enough time to write one? How long does it usually take to publish a first research paper?

I'm planning on asking professors if I can join a project when the semester starts (or ask for a review when I write one? I'm not sure what the options are). I wasn't planning on going to grad school until recently, so I'm not very familiar with this process, and I'd like to hear what you think.

How long does it usually take to publish a first research paper?

That question depends on a lot of factors. Here are a few of them:

What is the significance of your research?
How much of your research is unique, novel, and relevant?
Will other computer scientists be interested in your findings?
How well can you write? How well can you organize your paper?
Where do you intend to publish?

Some conferences and publications are more competitive than others. (Put another way, some have a lower acceptance rate than others.) Much of that depends on who sponsors the conference or publication.

First, you have to do the research (this is not trivial). Significant findings need to come from that research (this doesn't always happen). You have to write that in a way that will appeal to the community (the community can be rather fickle sometimes). Lastly, you have to find some venue where the work can be presented (it's not always easy to find a good match).

If a paper gets rejected, it could be because:

The research doesn't report anything new or significant
The research doesn't report anything of interest to the community
The paper is poorly written
The paper doesn't cite other related research, leading to a credibility problem
There simply wasn't room for your paper in the publication, or it wasn't a good match for that venue

Getting back to your original question, you might be able to publish in a year, if everything goes very smoothly. However, that's a huge "IF." Even established researchers can spend years getting ready for a publication, only to see it be rejected by a committee.

Publication can be a long and arduous process, with plenty of opportunities for obstacles, setbacks, and dead ends. It can be very hard to estimate a timetable, particularly for a first-timer going from start to finish.

Your best bet might be to see what's going on at your university, and see if you can get involved with an established, ohgoing research effort. Before you do that, it might be worth doing a self-evaluation first, so that you're prepared to tell a faculty member what you can offer the research team. For example, perhaps you're a crack programmer, and a research project at your institution needs some software written, in order to complete an experiment or simulation. That might be a more realistic way to get started as a researcher.


How can a student benefit most from an internship? I am planning to apply for an internship in near future. My background is electrical and I did 2 classification projects based on ConvNet previously.
The internship mentioned that they need a data analyst, with background on Machine learning and Artificial Intelligence.
The task involves investigating the emerging tools, frameworks, and methodologies to facilitate the envisioned analytics and machine learning processes.

What training and courses should I take before entering this internship?

A job posting will usually list the Requirements and the Preferences for the position. The former must be met. The latter are used to sort candidates who meet what is required. A job posting will not list COURSES. It will list requirements and preferences in terms of background, expertise, or skills.

As an undergraduate student, you are called upon if not expected to make the match between what is required (or preferred) and the course(s) you have taken or can take at your university as well as the job experience you may already have.

Take the specific example of machine learning. What course(s) at your university has/have a description that covers this topic? When this question is not clearly answered by a catalogue description, you can visit with the department chairman or with other students in the appropriate department, in this case perhaps computer science.

Once you identify the course(s) and their prerequisites, you will have the answer to part of your ending question. The training part comes from prior experience. Again by specific example, have you done any work (other than coursework) in machine learning? Have you gotten any training outside of your university in this topic?

As for the overall question ... How can a student benefit the most ... This question has a broader scope independent of the requirements and preferences of the internship.

You can benefit the most when you learn from the internship rather than just apply (or reapply) what you already know. You can learn new concepts and principles (expand your knowledge), you can learn how to apply them to new types of problems (improve your problem-solving methods), or you can learn new ways to apply them (learn new skills).

In summary, the purpose of a job posting is for the company to solicit for candidates who meet their needs and desires. Part of the process is the expectation that you will research on your own whether you meet the requirements and whether you stand out with regard to the preferences. No one person can provide a full answer to what you need for any one given job because your current situation and your current background and experience set are unique. But, from where you are now, the basis for the research you need to do is easy. Find the courses that contain the terms used in the job description. Track back on their prerequisites. How do you fit within that list?

The next step is a job interview. Should it get that far, the purpose of a job interview is for YOU to determine whether the demands of the job will meet your needs and desires. That is where you will have to prepare the answer to your overall question FIRST before you do the job interview.


Thanking multiple professors in an email thread I emailed one professor (with a few others CCed) to inform them that I will be following up with X commitment. Each professor on the thread replied (all) to state their well wishes and excitement. There has been no information or tasks requested from any of the members of this thread, so not any actual “need” to respond.

Should I send some sort of thank you email, and if so, how should it be done?

The general consensus on SE for thanking professors in an email is to just do it when in doubt, however I do not think my question is a duplicate (or is necessarily answered by other questions I’ve seen) because it involves replying on a thread with multiple parties.

Don't overthink this. If this is still one E-Mail thread and every professor answered everyone else, write an e-mail to all saying "Thank you all for (whatever)". One more e-mail won't hurt, especially if it's clear that this e-mail is the last one and they can get the thing out of their mind.

I wish you the very best and good luck!!!


What is more valuable: PhD degree or journal publication? Suppose, Mr 'X' has a MSc plus 3y PhD degree and only 2 journal publications.
On the other hand, Mr 'Y' has only an MSc degree and 6  journal publications, 3 text books written, and 3 professional books written.
A university/college calls for applications for a position of lecturer or assistant professor, and these two guys apply.
If all other factors are same, who is more likely to get a position?

You will have to specify which country/system/subject you are talking about.
In the UK a PhD is pretty much a 100% requirement in most subjects. The only exceptions to this are subject where you would be doing vocational training, such as business studies, management, nursing, perhaps even law(?) where an exceptional standing and experience in the field might make up for a lack of PhD. The other big exception is medical school, where you could have an MD rather than a PhD.


Writing Thesis: Copying from published papers I'm aware that some institutions offer something that is called 'Thesis by Publication' (sandwich thesis) but that's not available to me. I'm trying to work out what pitfalls there may be to simply copying from papers that I have previously published in order to form large sections of my thesis.

The papers that I've published were largely designed to solve major problems encountered within the larger frame of research, so altogether they should follow a single coherent line of thought.

Must one's own work be cited in a thesis? This would be standard when submitting a paper for publication, but there is a stipulation when publishing papers that that work has not been already published elsewhere, and the same sort of thing does not really crop up with a thesis, does it?

Are there any other potentially pitfalls in this course of action?

A general answer for this problem can not be given here with 100%. Here some hints:

The problem you might be running in is called self plagiarism and
   different institutions allow/forbid different approaches here.
If you are planning to write the thesis like this (which is absolutely your right) then:

It is essential for you to get the guidelines of your university before starting to write (and save them somewhere where you will still be able to find them even years later)
Check the policy of the journals that you have    published in - most    journals allow to re-use published material in    your
thesis but make    sure to also print out these guidelines and keep
them.

Checking with the university and the journals (and to have written proof of it!) might save you many troubles later. Because if someone later claims that you commited self plagiarism then you can always cite the official guidelines that were in place at the time when you wrote your thesis.

You should also check with your supervisor but just having his/her oral Ok might not be enough many years later.


can I publish (alone) papers which are a continuation of my PhD research (without my supervisior's name as a co-author)? During my PhD, my supervisor wasn't very helpful. Now I have finished my PhD but I still have plenty of ideas (improvements) about my PhD topic that I can transform to papers and be published.
these ideas are not included in my PhD thesis (just personal notes I took during my study), but their topic is very similar to the topic of my PhD (which was proposed by my supervisor!).
Now, my new papers (completely written by me) are based on my previous work (I would use theoretical frameworks, results, ...), can I publish them alone (me being the only author without my supervisor's name as a co-author)? should I involve my supervisor in my paper since my research is a continuation of my previous work with him?
I will give credit to our previous work together in the paper, I will acknowledge the financial support of my PhD university, but I believe that should be all.

The answer is "almost certainly yes". If the work is yours you don't need to include others as co-authors, no matter what happened in the past. But there is the issue of whether a new paper includes "intellectual contributions" of others, not just help in writing the paper. If the old advisor's intellectual contributions still appear in your new papers, especially if they are fundamental, then you owe at least an acknowledgement of that, but possibly more. I can't judge that of course.
And, if your old advisor is in a position to still advance your career and including him would be an advantage then there is, perhaps, some incentive to err, if necessary, on the side of including him. Future collaborations might be very valuable - or not.
But, at some point, every student leaves their advisor behind. The advisor should celebrate when that happens, actually.


US accreditation and online degrees In the past I have never worried too much about accreditation, because it was fairly easy to tell reputable schools apart from the mail order degrees.

Unfortunately, this line is getting blurred by the proliferation of online degrees that range from highly rigorous courses of study to buy-a-diploma programs. The tricky part is that many reputable colleges and universities seem to be running online programs which may be less academically stringent than their on-campus courses.

How exactly does the accreditation system work in the United States and what steps are accreditation authorities taking to verify that diplomas acquired online are genuine evidence of real knowledge and expertise?

Accreditation as a whole is a huge and complex topic. Universities are accredited at the university level. Specific departments and programs within an accredited university may or may not be accredited.

Also, different accrediting bodies have different standards and mean different things- one form of accreditation might simply mean "This department has a full set of course catalog descriptions and all the polices and procedures we expect an academic department to have" while another form of accreditation might mean "This department provides an outstanding education and future employers will value the degree".

My feeling is this:

Do a Lot of Looking

A two or four year degree program is a huge investment of time and thousands of dollars. Most people wouldn't buy a car on a whim, would they? The most important thing you can do is to look at enough different programs that you develop a feeling for which programs are serious and which are not.

Institutional Reputation and Word of Mouth

Some schools are known to be good schools. If a reputable 4-year university is offering an online program then they have a strong incentive to make sure their online program is also reputable, or else the university's reputation will suffer. Also, you might know (or find someone) who has gone to a particular school. Ask them what their experience is. They can tell you details like how engaged they felt and whether employers seemed to care about their degree.

Look up Rankings

Many of the organizations that performed traditional college rankings are now starting to rank online and distance learning programs. As above, these organizations have an incentive to provide high quality information or else their reputation will suffer. Reputable rankings organizations will provide their methodology, which is the process they use to determine the rankings.

College rankings are never perfect. That's why it's important to read the methodology that a ranker uses. Does the ranking reflect values that are important to you? Is the ranking based on student surveys, on empirical data like faculty to student ratio, or a combination of both?

I won't recommend a specific rankings set, especially for online programs because I have zero experience here. The US News and World Report is one organization well known for ranking brick and mortar institutions, and they are now branching out into online degree programs.

http://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/articles/us-news-ranks-best-online-programs

Contact the Programs You're Interested In

Reputable schools will usually provide you with data on student outcomes. Ask for alumni references. Ask for accrediting bodies and then follow up on those organizations and see who else they have accredited.

Statistics

Some financial metrics can indicate that a degree program might not be all that great. You can look up student loan default rates for a school, which might indicate that alumni are not able to well-paying jobs. You might also be able to find the ratio of federally-backed student loans to private non-federal loans. The amount of private lending in the student loan market has grown significantly in the last 20 years though, so I don't know how useful this would be.


What is the best way to "fire" my advisor? I have had it with my advisor's unethical behavior, demanding people to be removed from papers, removing my cosupervisor without telling me and insinuating that he has "appointed a new one".

What is the best way to break up with him? The PhD school already has a procedure in place, but do you advise I speak with him before I start this process?
Do I tell him the very truth for why I don't want him anymore or simply state some other reasons and stroke his ego anyway?

UPDATE: He wouldn't meet with me, so I didn't even have a chance to be hesitant about speaking with him. He suggested a third supervisor other than the one I had chosen, and I respectfully declined.

If you are having trouble with your advisor, I think you should talk to your department's director of graduate studies (or the equivalent). At most universities (at least all the ones I have been at), there is someone whose job it is to handle paperwork and the such. They are also there to act as a kind of ombudsman, helping students handle disagreements with advisors.

I've had this role before, and I view myself as squarely on the side of the student. I can fight advisors on their behalf. I've done all of the things you are asking for: navigating committee changes, telling an advisor they are no longer a students' advisor, etc.

I think it is important to document such behavior on the part of the advisor. Even if your breakup with the advisor goes poorly, an official record of such behavior might make the department think twice about allowing such a pattern to continue.


How to cite multiple sections of book using IEEE Citation Style I'm currently writing my bachelor thesis in computer science and use the IEEE Citation Style with LaTeX. There already exists a good BibTeX style file. However this question is not about the style rather the usage.

Let's keep this simple: I use a book for my thesis. There are two possibilities to add it to my bibliography. Either as @book or @inbook. If I use the first I cannot add a pages reference to it and would just cite it as [1] in my thesis. The later allows me to add pages to this entry. However, I only saw entry like pp. 100-200.

This is fine if I would use this book only for one reference, but I use the book all over. My question is: How do I cite this book / the sections of this book correctly. Should I add multiple @inbook entries for each page reference or should I add a @book entry and cite like [1, pp. 100-200]. Using the \cite[pp. 100-200]{bookID} allows me to do that. But is that allowed by IEEE?

If youe thesis is going to be published by an IEEE journal or conference, then you should look at that venue's site for instructions on such details. Otherwise, look to your institution's guidelines. If there are none, then you may do what you want. Personally, I would avoid cluttering my BibTeX files with multiple @inbook citations which only differ in the referenced page numbers and use the latter citation reference you suggest if it is supported by the IEEE style file.


Asking a Professor for a review of a university application research supplement As part of the application to a particular university, I can submit a research supplement which is a paper I have written which will be reviewed by the university's faculty. However, it must be accompanied by a letter from a 'research supervisor' regarding the work.

The paper I have written is based on a paper written by a professor from another university, and as I am currently in high school and none of the staff here can review it, I thought it would be great if I could get said professor to write such a letter.

Firstly, would it be appropriate to send such a request, and is it likely to be fulfilled?

Note: For the purposes of your answers, you may assume the paper is in fact correct, and a serious piece of research, which although it presents original results, is 'orthodox.' I am aware professors sometimes get sent crazy letters from people with wacky theories (I've even seen some crop up on the physics SE).

It is definitely not inappropriate. But professors are busy people, and you are likely to be put in the "crank" bin without a detailed reading. Be careful crafting your email, and ask some of the staff at your school to review it to minimise it.

If after a reasonable time you don't get a response, you could try to find a student's association at the university related to your research. They could probably be able to judge it, and take it to the professor in person with their "seal of approval", that is more likely to get his attention.


Are bibliographies/reference lists generally included in page/word counts? I regularly assign my undergraduate students papers with a range of expected page/word length (e.g. 10-12 pages or 2500-3000 words). Is there any sort of rule as to whether or not to count a works cited page(s0 (and its equivalent in the other citation styles) in determining if a paper meets this limit? I've discussed this with colleagues and heard varying answers.

Should not count.

A six-line main text can pack more convincing arguments compared to a one-line main text. That's why it's important to make sure all students have an equal share of area or real property to build upon.

A six-line citation does not necessarily bring any advantage compared to a one-line citation. For that reason, I don't see why we should penalize students who had identified some information with more authors or a longer title; that is not how we teach them to examine the credibility of a paper.

If you're concerned about them citing too many things or citing mindlessly, you may put a limit on the number of citations like some journals do. However, I wouldn't include them in the word count.


Is it a faux pas to not have your phd supervisor write a letter of recommendation as a post doc? Here is the current situation I face:

I am currently a postdoc but have begun to apply for jobs as a faculty member for the 2019 academic year. My issue is in securing letters of recommendation.

My PhD supervisor is currently going through chemotherapy and I do not want to worry them with a letter of recommendation on my account. My supervisor seems to be taking a small break from academia during treatment.

My question is, for search committees, if my letters of recommendation include my postdoctoral supervisor but not my phd supervisor, will that be considered a faux pas?

If a few of my assumptions here are met, you might try the following. I'm assuming that you are at a different institution now (though that matters less than) and it hasn't been so long ago that you finished the doctorate that you aren't still remembered at the old place.

Ask the Department Head at your degree granting institution to provide a letter that says that Dr. X is not currently capable of writing letters of recommendation due to medical issues that may or may not resolve positively. If the chair him/herself can attest to your good work, that can be added as well.

The Head may actually more comfortably correspond with your advisor to see if this, or some other, solution is possible.

The point is that the letter should come from someone official. It should give minimal details (privacy reasons), and should indicate that a letter may be forthcoming if possible.

There is one other thing the Head might also be able to do in a large department, depending on its organization. If there is a secretary who normally handles that professor's correspondence, he/she may be in regular contact and so a letter might actually be very possible. But again, if the request comes via an official request you can maintain your respectful distance while the advisor heals.


Doing a second doctorate to get back on a research track? I graduated with a Ph.D. in Physics (specialized in studying protein dynamics via laser light and coherent X-rays) from a U.S. university in May 2014. However, could not continue with research/post-doc due to a medical condition with my infant child. We had to move to a different state for  his medical treatment. Over there I did not have any contacts to secure even a post-doc position and ended up as a part-time community college instructor for more than two years.

Now my child is okay, and I want to continue my research, but when I submit my CV to research positions, no one seems to care about it. My Ph.D. supervisor has no funding, so no hope there. As a result, I was thinking of doing a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering specializing in biophotonics and/or optical radiology. Is this possible ? Will graduate schools in U.S. accept my application since I already have a Ph.D. in Physics ?

Hopefully, someone can shed some light on my concern.

Thank you in advance!

A second Ph.D. is generally a bad idea, as noted elsewhere in other answers.

Instead, there are several other paths that you can pursue to get back into research, depending on your goals.  The main ones that I would think of are: getting a postdoc, joining a lab as research staff, or joining an industrial lab.  All of these will lead you back into research in some form or other, thought probably not your same line of research that you were working on in your Ph.D.

You've got a gap on your CV, but not an unusually large one, so I don't think that needs to be a major barrier.  More concerning is the fact that you don't seem to have a professional network: the thing that you want from your old advisor is not for them to hire you, but for them to connect you with other different professors or industrial folks who might be interested in hiring you.  Going to conferences in your field is another good opportunity for networking, but it will be more effective if you can get help from your advisor or other professors who you have gotten to know during your doctoral program.


How is rude, unprofessional behavior by one student toward another student handled in graduate school? I just received a confirmation from my graduate program adviser that I successfully completed my two-year-long master's program. I had a negative experience in my second year because of a mandatory group project that I had to do in order to graduate.This group project was done under a certain level of guidance by a professor. The first semester of this group project was only one credit, while the second semester of this course was three credits. Much of the drama occurred in the last two days before the due date of the group's final paper, which was via email. I did not get along with two out of four former group members because those two bullied me and badmouthed me behind my back. It was evident to me that their actions were coordinated. Out of these two perpetrators, one was a female who was around my age (mid-20s), while the other one, the male, was 33 years old. I will only talk about the male here.

There were three different paper drafts that we had to submit in the second semester of this group project class. Both of these individuals referred to were procrastinators and felt like the rules of the group did not apply to them. However, they were the most domineering ones in the group and consistently used foul language in group settings. The 33-year-old male was the group editor, but he was an extreme procrastinator who would literally wait until the last moment to do things. He did not do much editing in the first two drafts, and right on the day before the due date of the third and final paper, he suggested to the group to make huge changes. He hardly communicated with me, so I wasn't even expecting any form of communication from him. Besides, I had another paper that was due at exactly the same day and time as this group project paper. By the time that he started communicating via email to the entire group to make significant changes, I was already much more focused on my other paper and I looked at his email much later. He had sent me an angry message asking if I "still wanted to be a part" of the project. Excuse me, I was involved in this project, but he chose to be actively involved at the very end. I replied to his email, politely asking why he could not make his suggestions much sooner, despite his angry tone in the email that he personally sent to me. What he did in his response was that he broke down every single sentence that I wrote, and commented on how I was 'wrong' or did "not know what I was talking about." In the process, he even dropped the F-bomb twice at me and called me "passive-aggressive" for "challenging him." He was clearly the aggressive one.
 He attacked me, saying that he was "not expecting me to make an effort." Despite his abusive words, I still made the changes that he demanded.

Just one day after the due date of this paper, I scheduled an appointment with the professor and the associate dean at my school. I explained the behavior of this male. Their response was that his behavior was very unprofessional. I needed to have this meeting because no one, especially in a higher education setting deserves to be treated the way I was treated. This male referred to was interested in further pursuing a PhD. Besides, he was formerly in the US military, which is very surprising to me, considering his character issues and him physically being very out of shape.

I was able to talk with the professor and the associate dean long before the conferral of degrees. However, I did not receive any updates after this meeting, which kind of made me angry. I don't know if the school took any measures or disciplinary action against this particular student. I don't know if the school actually took this issue seriously. Is it possible that no disciplinary action took place? Is it possible that students who exhibit such behavior get dismissed from the program for such unprofessional behavior?

For what it's worth working in higher education I can guarantee the professors have noted the unprofessional behavior from the student(s). In project settings it's fairly evident who is completing the work. Often universities or the specific schools within them do have conduct guidelines which if they were violated can result in removal from the program. Unfortunately, in the world you're likely to encounter these individuals as well and should learn how to address such issues as they may even be in a higher position in your organization.

It really depends on your institution on the specific outcome but be prepared as you will encounter this again and typically the actions they exhibit are systemic of lack of repercussion.


Which is the correct term, supervisor or coordinator? When someone is a postdoctoral researcher, is the person directly "above" him in the hierarchy called his supervisor, or his scientific coordinator?

I have seen the term "Line Manager" used in the context of post-doctoral researchers here in the UK.

I have also seen reference made in CVs to the principal investigator for the research project to which the author contributed, e.g. "I worked with Prof. X, Principal Investigator for Project Y". The term "Scientific Co-ordinator" seems to be most closely related to this.  Perhaps, therefore, the term "scientific co-ordinator" suits your purposes best.


"Thank you" notes after giving a seminar talk I am just finishing my PhD and I have now been on the job market and started to speak at many universities. I have realized it is a time commitment for a person to host a seminar speaker and am really grateful for the experiences that many of my hosts have given me at these universities. For this reason, I have made a policy of sending thank you notes to those that host me when I visit another university's seminar.  These notes that I write typically just say thank you for taking time to host me and funding my visit (if they funded it). It also thanks them for their input and questions about my work if they gave me a useful idea. One of my colleagues has told me this is odd, so I wanted to ask:

Is writing thank you notes to someone for inviting me to speak and hosting me at their university overkill? Is there any negative outcome that can happen from doing this?

I agree that sending a paper thank-you note is a little unusual.  There's nothing wrong with it, of course.  You may come across as slightly eccentric, but academia has plenty of people like that!

A thank-you email, on the other hand, is perfectly usual.


What is the difference between department and faculty? Some universities have independent departments, but some put departments under supervision of a faculty. For instance, a university has fifty independent departments, but another has 5 faculties containing departments. In the former, the Dean of Faculty is intermediate between the department chairs and the university administration.

I understand that most of these structures come from the university history, but how these structures affect the department performance, and why universities prefer different structures, instead of a standard one (which should be most efficient).

For example, what is the different of Department of Computer Science in one university, and Department of Computer Science in another university which is part of Faculty of Engineering?

The distinction between "faculty," "department," and "school" depends a lot on where you are. As Peter suggests in his answer, a faculty can be a collection of "departments." However, a faculty in Germany (for instance) consists of a number of "chairs," each of which is closer to a professorship in a department than an actual "department." Thus, the faculty is effectively halfway between the American "department" and "faculty" in its function, as it combines some of the hierarchy and responsibilities of each.

The reason for having multiple subdivisions is that there are often many university functions—including personnel and budget decisions, facilities management, teaching, and so on—that can vary widely across the entire university, but significantly less among certain departments that have a similar focus. For these departments, it makes sense to combine these duties in a central administration, rather than duplicate the effort across multiple departments.


Is it acceptable to reference equations in a thesis instead of writing them out? I am writing a technical report for my Bachelors degree in Computer science. When writing the background section I noticed that, for one specific topic, there will be a whole lot of equations. After describing some mathematical models and the flow of data between different nodes and such, would it normally in a thesis be OK to reference the equations to a book? The reason for even asking this is that if I were to give the equations in my own report, it would basically just be copying them straight out of the pages where the author of a specific book has collected them.

I am not asking about plagiarism. As I would reference to the book correctly, I assume that would not be a problem. But I am wondering if this would be considered OK, or is it "lazy", or something like that.

The models themselves are central to my work, but the instructions for the background part we've been given at my university are to provide basic knowledge. Therefore I think that the equations may be unnecessary to include.

Also, I am aware that I should speak to my supervisor about this, but he is on vacation and I am trying to work diligently. Of course I could just write the equations anyway, and maybe add a bit of explanation as well, and if it turns out to be redundant I can just remove it.

The suggestion to put them in an appendix is a good one. That allows you to change your mind later (after you speak with your advisor). In fact you can write the main text along the lines of "the underlying equations are discussed HERE," and near the end of your writing you change HERE to reference either your appendix, or the book. It also allows you to postpone putting time into this part of your thesis, until your advisor tells you whether he/she wants it.

One concern I have is consistent notation. If you just reference to another source, are you relying on readers to figure out the needed notation changes? If so, it's better that you include the equations, properly translated.


How did Academia create and/or solve the chicken-and-egg problem of having a PhD? I've seen several English translations for "PhD", but seems to me that it did not originate from England.  Who introduced the term, what did it originally stand for and where did it originate from?  I'm curious where anyone has traced out this history.

The title PhD as the name of an advanced degree was first awarded in Germany at the Humboldt University of Berlin in the 19th century. From there it spread to the US, Japan and elsewhere in Europe.

The chicken and egg problem was simple: you don't have to have a PhD to certify someone as an expert in some field of knowledge if you are already a world-leading authority in that field of knowledge. The faculty at the Humboldt University at that time were all already widely known experts, and so they were able to credential other as experts.


PhD in the wrong department? I studied physics for my undergraduate and master's and I've been offered a position in the computing department for my PhD in the UK. The topic is quantum information (hence, the overlap with computing does make sense) and there is no coursework. I'm very happy with the offer and my supervisor. The only problem is that I am a bit nervous about being in the "wrong" department, given my background.

I see myself as a physics student and I can't really picture calling myself a computer scientist. I'm much more comfortable talking about, say, condensed matter than algorithms and data structures. I'm more interested and would probably get more out of a physics department talk than a CS talk.

Should I request a change of department but with the same supervisor before I begin? Alternatively, could I just hang around more at the physics department instead and not care about the official affiliation? Or is this a non-issue that I'm needlessly worried about? In case it matters, my funding is from a university level scholarship, not a departmental one.

Related but different question: Problem of mentioning the department affiliated with PhD degrees

Investigate with your potential advisor, director of graduate studies, or chair (in this order, for ease of everybody's life) the possibility of getting a co-advisor from the physics department, provided there is someone with an expertise on the topic. You may even look beyond your institution, but that would require some serious argument.

One of the comments to the question mentioned the issue of "labels" of degree.
I don't see it being an issue for industry jobs. Many companies routinely hire physicists and computer scientists alike, and ask them to do similar jobs.
If you want to get a faculty position in a physics department, then perhaps you may have an issue if you have a CS degree, but you may be able to play the game by publishing in both CS and physics venue.


Skills gap for high-school to university transitions I can find a bunch of articles about the skills gap between university graduates and job requirements, but it seems that there are limited resources on the skills gaps that high school students have coming into university.  Does anyone have any good references that might illuminate any skills gaps?  I'd prefer a world-wide perspective, but that might be asking for the moon.  I'm in Canada, and specifically Ontario, working in STEM.

To be fair, I can definitely pin-point some things I've personally observed, but I'm looking more for data and studies that are more in-depth than my personal anecdotes will allow.

In the US, the ACT College Readiness Benchmarks reflect academic skills that students should have before entering college.  Sadly many high school graduates don't meet these standards and end up in remedial classes to make up for their lack of preparation.


Presenting twice at same conference I applied to a pretty broadly-themed conference in my research areas, and submited two very different contributed talk abstracts. I suspected one would be downgraded to a poster, or simply rejected. Instead, the organisers told me I could present both talks. Looking in the abstract book, I see that no one else will be giving two talks. Is giving two talks in poor taste?

Specific background: I am an early postdoc, and the conference is in Europe. Both research projects are new and have not been presented elsewhere, and are with completely separate sets of coauthors.

It's totally fine.  I commend your efficiency.

It would not be fine if you submitted two similar talks, or if you submitted a talk under someone else's name so that you could pretend to fill in for them.


Removing an author then adding him in a revised manuscript I submit a revision of a manuscript to a reputable journal and removing one author and changing the order of another author, then the editor sent it back to me to clarify the reasons for changes and ask for signatures from all authors even the removed.can I resubmit it without changes as first? as I am afraid to be rejected

Removing authors and changing the author order in a revision is suspicious. There can be perfectly valid reasons for that, but it could also indicate misconduct of the corresponding author. So, asking for explanation and for confirmation from all authors that this is indeed an agreed upon change is very reasonable behaviour of the editor.

If you can provide this, there shouldn't be a problem (provided the explanation makes sense).

If you react by reinstantiating the original author list, it will appear as if you got caught in the attempt to falsify the authorship. Whether or not this will lead to a rejection is something we cannot predict. Now if you indeed were caught trying to falsify the authorship, I neither can nor want to help you.


How do I give credit to some image I included in my paper? I recreated an image from a paper I liked (didn't use the same image to get out of the asking permission which could take a while). Now the reviewer asked us to give credit to the original paper. How do I do that? Is it okay to write that my image was 'inspired' from this other paper, as I didn't copy the image but used the image as a reference to create my own?

Its a drawing of blood vessels (with appropriate details related to our work).

First of all,

  permission which could take a while

Is not entirely correct. Most major publishers have an automated "permission request" system that in many cases automatically grants you permission to reuse a figure from a published paper. It takes about 5 minutes and usually you can find it in the journal's home page.

  Now the reviewer asked us to give credit to the original paper. How do I do that?

This isn't too hard. One way, for instance, would be to add to the figure caption: "Redrawn after Smith et al. (2005)". I think it also depends on what the figure is about. Is it a graph with data points that you used? Is it some schematic drawing? If you edit your question to better describe the figure we can give you a better answer.


UK university salary scales confusion -- advertised job pay seems very low, any ideas why? I've just seen a job advertised by a London university for a job similar to mine but as senior lecturer. I'm confused because the bottom end of the salary listed is lower than what I am currently on as just a lecturer, and I'm not in London so this is without any kind of London weighting.

The only way it could possibly be worth me applying is if they started me at the top end of the scale they suggest. But that's unlikely to happen, isn't it?

I thought the salary scales of UK universities were quite similar, but this suggests there are huge differences.

I don't quite understand why anyone would apply for this job that pays less than jobs outside London, which is a much more expensive place to live.

Thoughts?

In post-92 universities, Lecturer and Senior Lecturer together form the same salary range as a Lecturer in a traditional (pre-92) university. A Principal Lecturer in a post-92 university would have the same salary as a Senior Lecturer in a pre-92 university. Some universities in the UK also operate Assistant and Associate Professors, which further complicates matters.

A more meaningful description is the Grade:  Grade 7 for entry-level Lecturer, Grade 8 for more experienced, Grade 9 for Senior(pre-92)/Principal(post-92) and Grade 10 for Reader.


Can I have show two different approaches in single thesis, regarding the same topic? I am doing research on Security Patterns. In First 6 month i was working on Formalization of Security Patterns. I have extended a approach for formalization of Security Patterns. Subsequently, in the next 6 month i did research on Selection of Appropriate security patterns.
Normally, The structure of thesis

Introduction
Related Work
Proposed Work
Implementation
Result , Conclusion and Future.

I am confused in this.
I have different implementation and result respectively for Formalization and Selection techniques.
My Thesis Content will look like

Introduction
Related Work
Formalization(Proposed Work,Implementation and Result).
Selection(Proposed Work, Implementation and Result).
Conclusion.

Can i have two different result and implementation in a thesis. It is acceptable or not?
Thesis is for Master Degree.

It is totally normal and reasonable to do more than one type of work on a problem, and to report it in a structure like the one that you have sketched.  Just make sure that your explanation follows a coherent narrative (e.g., how does your work on selection follow from your work on formalization) and it will be fine.


In Moodle, how to submit student evaluation without assignments I'm trying to configure (the online Virtual Learning Environment) Moodle in such a way that a teacher can submit a daily evaluation for his/her students without having assignments. I'm building this Moodle for Kindergartens and would like to keep track of the progress of the students without the students actually submitting an assignment.

I can't seem to find a way to grade without an assignment.

Any thoughts?

You can grade assignments even if students have not submitted anything:

Can I grade work that’s been done offline outside of Moodle?
Yes. Just untick all submission types when setting up the assignment and just use it for grading.

The quickest way to do this is, unexpectedly, to use Quick Grading. When you enable this, you will have input forms directly in the grading table. Just enter the grade in front of each students and click on the button at the bottom of the page to save.
(If you want to get complicated you can use CSV imports and whatnot as explained in Solar Mike's answer using Offline marking, but honestly why make it complicated when you can make it simple...)

Another, maybe simpler possibility, is to simply add Grade items and then edit them directly into the Gradebook. For something so simple it probably doesn't make much sense using the full-blown Assignment activity, unless you want to add material each day like grade sheets, solution sets etc. So you first add Grade items as explained in the doc, and then edit them in the Grader report. It can be done very quickly.


Individual contribution to PhD thesis as a part of bigger project I have a question related to the personal contribution to PhD thesis (physics, materials science), when it was a small part of a big project and there were no real hypothesis or problem in your thesis "topic" except "we have these samples, go investigate them and find some results to report on"
(yes, it is not the right way to do projects, but it happens and a good lesson for the future, which projects you should avoid =/).

As an outcome, PhD thesis is based on results, half of which was obtained by collaborators (other students). It is rather common situation as far as I understood - one group prepares samples and performes characterization; then you, being from another group, get these samples and investigate them using different methods. But then you use results of the characterization (made not by you but it is a part of joint publication) in your thesis before discussing data you got by yourself, because it makes sense to show the characterization to have a complete story.

The question: is it acceptable to submit a PhD thesis written in this way, where you did about 50% of all discussed results, the rest is done by others and this rest is included in joined publications? Surely, in every chapter it is mentioned if you did the measurement or it was done by coauthor/collaborator.

Have a great day and thank you in advance!
Hope I could explain more or less clear, what I would like to know.

If it is acceptable to your institution, then it is acceptable. I think that in a lot of lab sciences people in a given lab collaborate with each other quite extensively to contribute to the overall goals. Doctoral theses arise in this environment just as you say. Some one (PI?) hacks off a piece of a larger problem and passes it to a student to develop and report on. If it has "acceptable" significance then the student has a thesis. Hopefully it also advances the larger goals of the organization.

But this is largely due to the fact that, to do anything at all in such fields, that collaboration is required, along with the PI who provides the lab through grants. It can be quite different in other fields, but they have their own standards and processes.

Of course, the student could see an opportunity for a smaller problem in the context of the larger one, just as the PI can. I don't mean to imply that it is always the PI that initiates it. Usually the student will check with the PI whether it is good to pursue the idea.


Are there any meta studies that look at cost-per-paper of funded projects? A senior professor once said to me,

  you expect one (top-ranked) journal paper for every $120,000 in funding.

I’ve always assumed it was an unverifiable figure but I’m interested to find out if work has been done.

Obviously this figure will differ for fields, funders, and your definition of top-ranked. My question is: Are there any meta studies that have looked at this funding versus quality issue?

Caveat: I’m aware that ‘quality’ of science is something that we all agree can’t be measured.  But people do measure it. And I’d like to know if those people have produced any work looking at quality per unit funding and the circumstances that improve the ratio.

I think any figures will be moot. Let's take a Nature paper that is signed by people from US, Chile, Sweden, France, Israel, India, and Japan. Whose's funding would it correspond to? All of them? That is a lot of people, so a lot of money, we'll get a terrible ratio. Only the main author? In big collaborations is difficult to pinpoint who that would be. It is easy for a particular manuscript, but not a good representation of the whole.

Let's assume you can trace it down to a specific group. Typically, they have multiple sources of funding, which one should get the cake? Say I publish the paper "On self frying potatoes", whose experiments were funded by the grant "Development of self frying potatoes", it seems obvious. But I could only do it because I attended a workshop on "Tuber theory" paid by my other grant "Theoretical agriculture". We could make the counting at a research group level. How much money they get, how many publications get out, regardless of the source and purpose. That would still have the problem of how to count collaboration papers.


How closely should my research proposal align with existing projects in the department? I am hoping to apply for a PhD in mathematics in Germany, where the most common method of pursuing a PhD is to put together a research proposal and then find a professor who will support you. This is vastly outside of my experience in the US and UK, so I am struggling to understand the norms and expectations.

So far, I have identified a university with a research group in my subfield of mathematics, and on their website, they have a list of about a dozen projects, each with 4-6 people and a smattering of papers on that topic. Most people are listed under more than one group, especially the professors.

Would I be expected to propose a topic that fits with one or more of these projects, or would I, as a prospective student, be expected to bring something more original to the table, creating a distinct project?

This is mostly a matter of funding, which you didn't even mention.
Many PhD students are funded through (project) grants, and they normally try to keep their PhD topics close to what they have to do for the project anyway. But even those on a "Ladesstelle" (position paid by the state) will normally be expected to work in areas in which results can later be used for applying for grants - and it is hard to know from the outside what that could be.
While you could keep your proposal close to one of the existing projects, you do not know if there is any funding for that project left. Normally, that is not the case except in very long-running projects.
Hence, the way to go is normally:

See if there are advertised open positions ("Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiter"). They normally list an expected area of research.

If step 0 did not yield any results, reach out to a professor from an area that intersects with your research interests. Write a highly personalized e-mail, listing your demonstratable expertise. Perhaps they have an upcoming project for which they need good researchers? Make sure to keep it professional.

See if step 1 helped you any further.

This answer is not about mathematics in particular. And it's also not for those coming with a scholarship, which is however a rare case in Germany.


Making conferences accessible for people with anxiety I'm looking for some information about how academic conferences can or already do accommodate the needs of people with anxiety. For example, do you know of any conferences which have special measures in place to encourage people who have anxiety to attend (e.g. related to travelling to a conference, attending conferences, presenting at conferences)?
Or perhaps, are there any ways that universities themselves make conference attendance more accessible for people with anxiety?

Since the interpretation of the question changed I'll add an answer for the new one, leaving the old one in place in case it helps an individual.

Some conferences have two simple features that might be adapted to your needs. The first is a "newcomers/first-timers session" early on the first day of the conference in which people will learn about what to expect in various kinds of sessions. This can, perhaps, be used to put people at ease with only minor changes.

The second thing is that many conferences also have student volunteers who help out with various things but are also allowed to attend any sessions without fee. Some student presenters are also volunteers, lowering the cost of attendance. But one of the uses of the volunteers is to be an assistant to any presenter who requests it, handling unforeseen issues so that the presenter can concentrate on what they want to say. This might be reassuring to some people that "bad things" are less likely to happen.

An additional advantage for the volunteer is that they, themselves, become more familiar and hopefully comfortable with what to expect at a professional conference  so that later they don't have first-timer anxiety themselves.


Response to referee after rejection I recently had a paper rejected: both referees pointed to a unique issue with our work. One referee's criticism was fair, hence I feel the rejection decision was fair.

The other referee however, seemed to appreciate the paper and know the area extremely well (and thus, I expect to have them as a referee for any future submission). Their entire objection was based on an incorrect assumption -- if their assumption were true, I too would have suggested rejection. However, our results clearly showed this assumption is not true. Thus, their entire basis for rejection could be 1) very easily refuted in a response letter/revision and 2) may lead to future rejections if the referee is not corrected. I am wondering:

Would it be appropriate to write a "response to reviewers" document to one referee to point out this issue? Is this at all common? I would not be appealing the rejection per se, but rather hoping that the referee better understood our work (with respectful tone and appreciation for the thought they put into their review). If not, should I simply move on?

I should also mention, any future submission would explicitly state that this assumption is incorrect, but I would rather address point this directly with the referee, if it can be done so respectfully.

This is a waste of your time, and, more importantly, a waste of the time of people who already selflessly gave away their time working to give you feedback that helps you improve your paper, and to help the peer-review system function.

The best thing you can do is not ask the editor and referees to spend any more time on your paper, unless you are contesting the rejection decision in good faith. And use their feedback to improve your paper so that other referees and readers don’t reach the same erroneous conclusion that this referee did.


Making myself an attractive candidate for a research lab (no prior lab experience) I graduated with a B.S. in mathematics but have always had an interest in chemistry. In particular, I enjoyed the labs. In fact, in the near future I plan to become involved in a Food Science program. It would be greatly advantageous to me to be able to do work in a research lab. Unfortunately, my actual lab experience is weak (Gen. Chem, physics. My Organic chem had no lab section).

I'd like some suggestions on how to improve one's usefulness in the lab without actually working in the lab.

A couple ideas I had:

Learn Statistical analysis / database software
Practice identifying spectroscopy (NMR, Mass, ...)
Reading about technique or experimental set-ups anyway.

Is there anything else? Is identifying spectra even useful, or is it all done by computer now? Are there (free) online resources for any of this?

More specifically, for my case:

I'd like to work in a food science lab. So the main focus would primarily lie in organic chemistry, biochemistry, and microbiology. Possibly in flavor chemistry or food analysis, but I don't yet have a more specific research area in mind.

I'd like some suggestions on how to improve one's usefulness in the lab without actually working in the lab.

This might not be possible, but I would love to be wrong.

Experience in the (chemistry) lab is about using your hands to perform specific and often complex tasks with dexterity and proficiency. Many of these tasks also have associated hazards, which through experience can be avoided or minimized.

I am afraid that if you are interested in pursuing a career in chemistry or another lab science, you will need to get some experience in the lab. The easiest way would be take a few courses. Given your interests, you should at minimum take and organic lab course and a microbiology lab course.

Let's take as an example a simple distillation, a common organic lab technique. No amount of reading about the technique prepares you for the many things that could go wrong. At least one of these has potentially disastrous consequences. If you take a course where you do several (as a good introductory organic chemistry lab should), you have the opportunity to learn how to do distillations in the presence of another person who will catch your mistakes. At the graduate/professional level, you are supposed to know what the common mistakes are and avoid them entirely.

Things that could negatively impact a simple distillation:

The joints are not sealed and the vaporized liquid escapes.
No means of encouraging nucleation during boiling is used and the liquid in the still pot bumps.
Your still pot has a star fracture and shatters when heated.
Your variable transformer blows a fuse, and you have no heat.
Your variable transformer is set too high and you superheat your liquid (and it bumps) and apparatus.
Your thermometer is not placed low enough into the neck of the 3-way adapter and you do not record accurate temperatures.
You forget to turn on the water in your condenser and you collect no distillate.
You (against someone's better judgement) try to distil something that thermally decomposes and the apparatus catches fire, explodes, or something otherwise disastrous occurs. At the very least you do not get the distillate you though you were getting.
You distil to dryness, and the apparatus superheats.
You distil an ether to dryness and the residual peroxides explode.
You start to take apart your apparatus before it has cooled (hot glass looks identical to cold glass and has a high heat capacity so it does not radiate a lot of heat) and give yourself second degree burns.
You fill your still pot more than halfway, which prevents there from being enough room to establish a good liquid-vapor equilibrium, causing the liquid to superheat and bump.
You get the idea.

I don't want to be a total downer. If you had told me that you were interested in theoretical or computational chemistry, I would have told you to read up on analytical and physical chemistry and apply to a program in theoretical and computational chemistry. You do very little wet-lab work in those subfields of chemistry. However, since food science involves a lot of wet-lab work, you need to have some preliminary hands-on experience.


What should I consider when making a complaint centrally to the university regarding the quality of a subject? Background

I recently was enrolled in a science course where I believed that the lecturer had a really poor understanding of the material at hand. I have had some bad lecturers before but this lecturer is one of the most difficult academics I have ever dealt with.

I was warned by all the postgraduates/PHD students to not take this person's course as it was poorly taught and it was incredibly frustrating raising fundamental errors made in lectures. Eg

Me:The projector says s < t

Lecturer: No it doesn't (doesn't look at projector)

It clearly did... I wasn't the only one that noticed it

The reason why I decided to take this course is because it happened to be related to my thesis area and I had studied it and taken similar subjects before. Ultimately I just wanted an easier semester.

Anyway there came a point in the semester where I questioned a mistake made in the lecture and I said another result should have been used. The lecturer got out the result they quoted and the result I quoted in response on the projector. It was quite obvious that what they said wasn't correct but just said in response that I wasn't correct even when I quoted a reference. This prompted me to try and drop the course and use another course for credit.

Initial Complaint

Unfortunately when I tried to drop the course I was too far into the semester so  my other option was to make a complaint to the department. I really needed to graduate at the end of semester so I decided to take the course in the mean time but put in minimal effort to pass as I was so frustrated with everything in the course. I made this very clear to the department.

I approached the head of the department and made a complaint about the course.

I waited well over a month to hear back from the department and the department decided to not do anything because there was insufficient evidence. I certainly understand that it is difficult for them to make a conclusion.

However they also said that my grade was probably a reflection of the educational background that I had (what they meant was because I was already familiar with the area that due to differences in ways in how it may be taught it contributed to my poor grade).

This really frustrated me. Ultimately I really regret letting my pride get in the way by not putting in any effort in the final. But at the same time I don't understand how the examples that I gave (which were the ones given above plus more) leads to that conclusion. I feel that they pretty much came up with their own conclusion as to what happened. I made a request that they should talk to the students (past and present) and see their experiences but it seems that they didn't bother at all.

What I want to achieve

I just want to remove that subject from my transcript and replace it with the other subject I have. It seems that the option that I have is to escalate this to the university and have it resolved centrally. This seems like quite a lot of effort and stress. A part of me feels like I am obligated to do this because so many of the postgraduates have had similar experiences to me. They choose not to complain to avoid awkward situations.

Another reason why I am quite reluctant is because if I was to make a complaint of this nature centrally to the university this would probably put the lecturer in quite a predicament.

I have seen similar questions posted here but ultimately what I am asking is what are some potential consequences for the lecturer assuming that my complaint is successful?

Finish the course, and let it go. It sounds as though you are being properly taught a lesson in taking a course you knew you shouldn't take. This is actually a lesson worth experiencing. Real life will require you to face unwanted tasks, in unpleasant situations, while being judged by a person that you know is not qualified to judge your performance.  So i suggest you simply get the best grade you can, and move on with your academic career.

Good luck.


Separating your publications into journals vs. conference/workshop It seems typical in some fields (e.g. engineering) for researchers to classify their publications on their websites and CVs into two groups: journal vs. conference/workshop. This appears to be because journal papers are considered more significant, in some sense.

This doesn't appear to be the case in other fields, such as computer science, where conferences are seen as more significant. With more people in engineering publishing in top CS venues, and the lines between the two fields becoming a bit blurry, the reasoning for separating papers into journal vs. not journal isn't clear.

Question: What is a good strategy for organizing publications in on a website/CV?

I happen to prefer a chronological listing. But it is really up to you. For example, if you work regularly in two different research areas you could even list publications and such separately for the two areas.

The chronological listing makes it easier, IMO, to follow a thread or trend in research where other divisions don't.

But, if you have access to examples of how others do it in your field it would probably be best to follow along.

You are asking here for what amounts to opinion and those opinions may not be valid in your field. Do what is expected, I think.


Simultaneous submission short version to conference and full version to journal I know that it is a common practice in computer science to submit a short version of article in conference and extended version in journal. What if I submit same article one short version to conference and full version to journal simultaneously? The journal has already mentioned that they accept the extended PUBLISHED conference articles; but in my case the conference article is not published at the time of journal submission. Moreover, the review process will complete almost within same time frame for both the conference and the journal. I also want to know what does it mean when journal say that they accept the conference paper if it is 30% extended? It means 70% of text and results can be duplicated in both conference and journal article?

Your milage will vary on this, but I would advise against it. The spirit of the practice of extending conference submissions to journals is that one can use the conference to discuss a first version of the research with colleagues, go back to the lab, improve the work based on the feedback, and then submit a vetted version to a journal. In your scheme, if you submit both manuscripts at the same time, and they get published about the same time, what's the point of your conference paper? You won't be able to take any feedback into account, and the community also does not really gain by there being a published version of the research that is basically superseded from day 1.

I understand, and sympathize, that for you personally the advantage may well be two additional lines in your CV rather than one, but you should be aware that the academic community gets increasingly more stingy about the topic of "salami-slicing" papers, that is, the practice of trying to squeeze out as many papers as possible from the same research - and your plan, even if not strictly unethical, can easily be seen as salami-slicing, or at least be perceived similar in spirit.

  I also want to know what does it mean when journal say that they accept the conference paper if it is 30% extended? It means 70% of text and results can be duplicated in both conference and journal article?

It means that there should be about 1/3 more intellectual contribution in the journal version than in the conference paper. Clearly, this is only a rough guideline, as there is no metric for "contribution". However, you should not understand this as 70% of the text can be verbatim the same. Some amount of text duplication is often tolerated for journal extensions, but 70% seems way, way above what I would tolerate as a reviewer or editor.


When should I get business cards and how much do they actually matter as a graduate student who has not yet built up their CV? Context: I am a graduate student within the social sciences, who will be obtaining their Master's degree on their way to Ph.D. (hopefully by the end of this academic year). Though I have not yet published to any peer-reviewed journals, the work I do this year will likely be the foundation for my first publications and I will be attending conferences soon. That being said, I have had my fair share of networking at conferences (outside of my field) and been given business cards, but very rarely have I ever seen a business card from someone in my own field! My program encourages many strategies that will help fellow scholars find me online to contact me, but regarding business cards, I have been given various answers. Most of my mentors seem to think that surely business cards are important, however, it seems that they only become imperative after I have started to publish my research, i.e. give people a reason to need my business card.

As of now, passing out my card at a conference would only serve to introduce my research interests.. which have not yet been conducted and it will take 1-2+ years before I am out in the field, producing this research. Moreover, the conferences I attend within the next 1-2 years are geared towards introducing graduate students to panels and whatnot, and it is unlikely that their research interests will substantially align with my own. Even more perplexing - I have met students in my field that are far more experienced than myself but are not concerned with business cards whatsoever at this early stage of their career, but I have also met students with my same level of expertise who hand out their card often.

Provided this information, when should I start seriously considering business cards? To what extent would my business card matter to you personally, and if it does not matter much because I am so early on in my career, at one point do you suggest taking business cards more seriously? As of now, my business card would likely list my occupation as "graduate student" or "teaching fellow," which do not seem substantial enough to purchase cards in bulk.. especially when my occupation will change, as I progress in my program. Any and all advice is welcome, as well as personal anecdotes regarding one's experience with the timing of obtaining their own business cards!

Thank you!!

There's no harm in getting business cards, though the importance in academia is smaller than in business contexts.  While you can give them off pretty indiscriminately, they're most useful when you've actually been having a conversation and want to carry on offline.  Therefore, your email address, phone number, website are the most important items.  Your official title doesn't much matter at this point in your career, in my opinion.

In the US, you can put together a simple business card and get a few hundred printed for around $10.


What is this 'tenure track' thing really about? I'm planning to apply for PhD programs in Engineering in the US this fall. If I get in then, following the PhD program, I will most likely end up going back into Industry (hopefully landing a higher-level, more research-oriented position). However, I am keeping an open mind to staying in academia, although reading articles like this one is somewhat off-putting.

So, to my question: what is this 'tenure track' thing all about, really?

I mean, why should there be this distinction (which is apparently being set right at the start of someone's academic career) that some people will be eligible for 'promotion' and others won't, regardless of how good they are and the level of the work they do? Why can't everyone who is doing academic research/teaching post-PhD be eligible for a tenure position, if they work hard and publish enough high-quality papers?

This question probably seems a bit naive coming from someone that hasn't done a PhD and has more experience in Industry, but the situation seems somewhat unjust. Is it basically equivalent to the situation in Industry between those that are full-time employees and those that are contractors/gig workers? (although, of course, contractors working in Industry tend to earn higher salaries than permanent staff, to offset their reduced benefits and lower job security)

Are there any examples of universities that are moving away from this model of tenure-track vs. non-tenure-track (particularly in the US)?

Why can't everyone who is doing academic research/teaching post-PhD be eligible for a tenure position, if they work hard and publish enough high-quality papers?

Supply and demand: tenured positions are pretty much lifetime positions. Not in the sense that the positions are fully guaranteed without having to work towards them once obtained, but in the sense that, absent misconduct or complete failure to meet expectations, there is a job there.

There are way too many PhD graduates in most fields for them to all have a permanent position in academia. I suppose you could start every researcher on the tenure-track and then make many more people fail to get tenure, but I don't see that as an appreciably better outcome than limiting tenure-track positions: there has to be a gate someplace. "Tenure-track" is really just a probationary period in which candidates demonstrate they are suitable for tenure.

Like hiring for any position with many applicants, there will be imperfections in the hiring process. There are too many "qualified" people, too many difficulties in determining objectively which of those qualified people are "best," and too few positions to put them in.

edit to address clarification in a comment:

  I don't understand why it would be less desirable to have more people failing to get tenure, as opposed to the 2-tier system that seems to exist. Why not put that 'gate' at the point where a tenured position needs to be filled, and then decide? Where is the incentive for the institution to not want to keep their options open as long as they can? Surely that would also be better for the majority of postdoc academics, who are currently on non-tenure-track and (apparently) locked out?

I wouldn't see them as "locked out" necessarily, there are lots of possible situations: a post doc (in some fields labeled a non-tenure track assistant professor; the distinctions are small though I believe more likely to include teaching for the latter) is someone who hasn't gotten a tenure-track job yet: their "clock" hasn't started yet.

Or, they are someone like me, with a semi-permanent soft money academic job, who likes research but didn't want all the extra stresses of finding money and earning tenure that a tenure-track position requires, and who is willing to take the difference in pay and independence.

Or, they work in a field like medicine where their primary responsibility is as a clinician, but they also teach, and they don't do enough research to fit their institution's standards for the tenure track.

In experimental fields, hiring a new tenure-track assistant professor is a big financial investment due to needed lab space, equipment, etc. Non-tenure track positions like post-docs let people build their research career in someone else's lab space and develop their independence more gradually.

The other side of the coin are the primarily-teaching adjunct-type positions; these positions are a tough topic that's been addressed elsewhere on this stack, but in summary they exist because people are willing to take them when they can't get another job (either to keep the possibility of an academic career alive, or just as a paid job), and they are a massive cost savings for universities. Whether that is ethical or not is unclear, but eliminating them would likely reduce the number of academics employed even if it increased the average salary/benefits.


Pass/Fail decisions on 1st year PhD report At my university in the UK, candidates doing a full time PhD (3 years) have to submit a 1st year report which includes literature review, the "gaps" that will be tackled by the doctoral work, expected outcomes, research methodology, Gantt diagram of the future work, the completed training plan, and some preliminary experiments (if any).
The supervisor makes a report about the performance of the candidate (training, attendance to meetings, etc.).
A committee of faculty members (excluding the supervisor) reads the candidate report and the supervisor report, and examines the student on the content of the report and challenges the topic, etc. It's like a mini-viva. The committee is called to make a decision if the candidate is able to complete the PhD in the next 2 years or not. If the answer is not, then the candidate gets another chance in 2 months and if they fail again, need to leave the program.
My question: How can one make a decision about the ability of a candidate to complete a PhD from their performance in the first year? I have seen people struggle in the first year and then do amazing work and vice-versa. Questions like "the ability of the candidate to perform novel work" cannot be answered after the first year.
I am early-career faculty.

When a candidate enters a program, the admissions materials are intended to help a committee and/or an advisor make a prediction about successful completion. If they are sufficiently conservative, then the predictions, when positive, are fairly, but not absolutely, reliable.
This interim analysis has the same purpose. We, the faculty, need to make a prediction of success. The sorts of things asked for in your description seem fairly well focused on that. The real question, is, "is this a serious student" who is currently "doing the right things" that will lead to success - probably.
But, if the student is really doing research, then, just as you suggest in your addendum, it is impossible to predict with perfect accuracy. True research can't be scheduled and the more you learn, the more questions should arise.
So, while the pre-admission judgement should be conservative, I think an interim judgement needs to be more "liberal". That is, the benefit of the doubt should be given to most candidates if they are actually working. But the combination of the student's answers and the advisor's judgement should be able to find situation in which a student really isn't serious and is just wasting their time. I would think that 20% in this category is too high, however, and might indicate a failure of the system as a whole or the admissions process. Perhaps after the two month review it turns out a bit less.
But getting advice about life choices after a year of study seems like a good thing, as long as the student has a chance to explain what might be the reasons for an apparent lack of progress. And getting faculty advice about getting back on track, is also probably a good thing for those few having problems.
As I noted in the comment, I would also expect that a fair number of students for whom success was predicted don't, in fact, complete on time, due to a variety of factors, some personal, but many also related to the uncertain nature of research itself.
After all: “If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?” ~~Albert Einstein


How to draft a recommendation letter for myself after professor asked me to do so I asked a professor I have been working for about a year to write a recommendation letter for graduate school. She agreed but says she usually ask students to write for themselves and she will do some editions on it.

I was supposed to ask her for a template at that time... And now I have no idea how to draft one for myself. Anybody has any advice?

Professors often do not have time to write a recommendation letter. Sometimes, they do not know the student well so they ask the students to write a recommendation letter for them. However, universities are aware of this form of "Ghost writing" and they can recognize ghost writing pretty easily. I would suggest to read some recommendation letter online and then try to write one for yourself.

If you are working with your professor for some time, try to write about the project in the recommendation letter. Try to write what you are doing in the project and what is your contribution in the project. Also, try to discuss your differences with other project members (if you have any). If you have taken any course with the professor, then try to discuss the course's interaction from the professor's perspective. If you won any awards, you can also discuss that from the professor's prospective. I guess the best idea is to read about some recommendation letter and then try to write your own.


How independent should an academic be? I am a computational scientist and I often find myself much more productive when working with others with resonating mind. When working alone, my motivation level is lower, distracted more easily, and I feel the progress is slower. However, in academic jobs, I often hear that it is important to show that you are an independent researcher.

Q1. What are the defining properties of an independent researcher?
Q2. How can I show that I am independent?
Q3. I like working in
teams, is academia (esp faculty in research university) not a good
career path for me? (I could think independently, but I could do
better with others, so why be independent?)

Collaboration is generally seen as a major strength in computer science and computational science, not a weakness.  One of the biggest questions we ask about any faculty candidate in my department is "Who in the department/college will they work with?"  We do occasionally hire faculty that work alone in their cave and occasionally emit theorems, but they're rare exceptions (and even they still work with their students).

The most important thing is to establish a reputation as a leader in your collaborations, rather than a follower.  You need to establish your own research agenda, instead of just following someone else's.  More importantly, you need to be seen to have your own research agenda, instead of just following someone else's.  Your agenda must be visible in your publication record, in your recommendation letters, and (eventually) in your funding record.  To this end, it is very important to do a few things:

Limit your collaborations with more senior researchers, especially your advisor, especially between getting your PhD and getting tenure.  As I've suggested elsewhere, publishing at least one paper without your advisor before you graduate is a strong signal of independence, even if you have other coauthors.  Once you have your PhD, DO NOT publish with your advisor for at least a few years.
Do not always publish with the same set of coauthors.  It's fine to have two or three different groups of people that you always work with, as long as you can wind a consistent story that ties most of your work in those different groups together.
(Once you have a permanent job:) Get at least one grant as a principal investigator, not just as a co-PI.  Definitely join other grants as a co-PI, too, but you must have at least one grant with your name on top to get tenure.