Can I omit my undergraduate school from my CV? I noticed some prominent academics omit where they got their undergraduate degrees from in a CV (I am sure it's not a case where they never earned an undergraduate degree at all; those people also exist).

My question: After earning a PhD degree, is it bad form to remove from your CV that you have also earned an undergraduate degree (possibly from a lower ranked place)?

There are all sorts of CVs, ranging from complete CVs to abbreviated highlights.  Job applications or promotion/tenure cases generally require complete CVs, but shorter versions can be useful for getting a quick overview in other circumstances.  Senior faculty sometimes post short CVs on the web, to emphasize their best qualities (most famous papers, most prestigious prizes, etc.).  For comparison, a complete CV could easily be twenty pages or more, which would be much more cumbersome.  I would not recommend imitating this until your CV also becomes unmanageably long; otherwise, it can come across like unrealistic boasting: "there are so many wonderful things I could tell you about myself that I wouldn't want to waste time on trivia like where I went to college."  Of course it can sound like boasting for senior faculty as well, but so can posting a lengthy but complete CV ("I bet the world is eager to read a list of every invited lecture I've given"), so there's no really modest option there.


How to publish a paper that does not seem to be within the scope of any journal? I have written a paper on applying a mathematical theory to a linguistic problem. I privately submitted it to several renowned professors (some of them very famous indeed) in the field of linguistics, semantics and so on. They made some suggestions and expressed some criticism on some details, but for the most part they praised the quality of the paper.

Following their suggestion, I submitted it to a leading journal in the field. The answer I got from the journal’s preliminary assessment was that the paper had huge potential, but was too mathematical for them. They advised me to resort to their sister publication, where much more focus on natural language processing and mathematics is to be found. The answer was the mirror image: nice paper, definitely scienficially worthy, but too soft, that is, too linguistic or informal for advanced mathematicians or computer scientists.

Now I am in no man’s land. The paper is indeed interdisciplinary (as corresponds to a linguist using some mathematics as he needs them), but I find it very unfortunate that due to a false sense of the own domain, noone seems to feel responsible for its contents, which I deem valuable. Before trying any further submission, I was entertaining the option of submitting it to the ArXiv, but I do not know whether that will make any sense.

How can I proceed to find a journal that considers my paper to fit within its scope?

I posted this question on Math Stack Exchange before and was recommended to repost it here.

Interdisciplinary papers have this problem a lot. A - now - very influential paper in my field, I was told by the first author, was in limbo for 4 years before it was published, despite the senior author being world-famous.

Persistence is the key. Try to find someone influential who is knowledgeable and you can convince to help you expanding/adapting/explaining the work better and you could then co-submit with. Or else, you could consider aiming for a general-purpose journal such as PLoS ONE, and whose reviewers are advised to select by novelty and correctness, rather than (subjectively judged) relevance.

Learning to write for the specific audience of a journal can also help.


To what extent can I use the concept of "God" in a meteorology lecture without offending anyone? In about a week I'll be introducing the Coriolis effect to a group of about 50 undergrads.  This means I'm going to have to at least touch on fictitious forces and frames of reference.

These aren't physicists and I can't guarantee that they've taken (or paid attention during) elementary physics, so I can't just put the equations up on the board and get comprehension; I'm going to have to be a bit more visceral.

My strongest example refers, from time to time, to the inertial frame as the "God's eye view".  This means that while working through it, I would be using the word "God" a few dozen times during lecture.

I don't personally find this term offensive but I don't want the presentation to turn my students away from the content.

So my question has two parts:

Is using "God" in the way that I've detailed acceptable, or should I search for a different example?
If it is acceptable, should I have a heads-up at the beginning of lecture?

Extra information:

I'm an adjunct at a large public university in the United States.
This is an introduction to applied meteorology course.
I've been teaching for six years but this is only my second time teaching this course.

It's acceptable, but why do you need to use it? It seems to me that you could just as easily use a secular phrase like "looking down from above"?


Would using 'they/them' in publication biographies stand out? Some journals require authors to submit a photograph and a short biography to go along with the publication.
The question I have is: Would it strike you as weird if said biography had a gender neutral tone, using "they/them" pronouns? As in, could a non-binary author that is not out use those pronouns and not have a conversation (comments by advisors/co-authors) occur? Would it be something that could be passed by without a second glance?

As a reader, familiar with the gender-neutral usage of they/them, I wouldn't consider it weird. Beware, however, of two facts:

Papers are read by international readers with different levels of English who may not clearly understand the usage.
Frequently copy editors (e.g. I'm familiar with IEEE on this) heavily edit the biographies to adapt them to the publishers' editorial styles: sometimes, I have found that in doing so the copy editor introduces significant errors (because e.g. they do not understand local information). So, if you submit a biography using the pronouns they/them check carefully the proofs and be prepared to ask for changes defending your choice.


Are there journals with the same "great big debate" format at Behavioral and Brain Sciences? I've found that articles from Cambridge University Presses long-running journal of Brain and Behavioral Science (BBS) are a great way to enter a literature: they introduce the names, reveal the faultlines, the arguments, counter-arguments, and counter-counter-arguments, and provide a huge range of perspectives on an issue.  I recommend it to students all the time. But as I interact with students outside of the behavioral sciences, I find that I'd love to be aware of venues in other disciplines/areas with similar formats.

If you aren't familiar with BBS, articles work like this: core authors make a big picture argument in 30-40 pages, BBS editors solicit 1-page responses from 20-30 strong researchers in every relevant discipline, core authors organize a 15-20 page response.  The result is a very long but quite comprehensive view into a whole research area, and articles are consistently engaging. Instead of getting one short paper by one set of authors with one background and agenda, you get tens of authors batting it out.

BBS calls the model Open Peer Commentary. Does this kind of format exist in any other journal or discipline.  Does this ring a bell?

Although I haven't seen this format in particular (and I'm a neuroscientist, maybe I should be paying more attention!) it looks like Open Peer Commentary is also a phrase used by other journals, so searching based on that phrase may help you find journals in other fields relevant to your interests.

A less-formal approach that is somewhat similar is "post publication peer review", although at least in my experience these venues have not really taken off. PubMed Commons, for example, was discontinued after a pilot. These formats allow for online comments on published papers, but not in a curated format like your example.


What can happen if someone acknowledges a grant on papers not related to that grant? When I was preparing the camera-ready version of a paper, one of my co-author asked me to put in the acknowledgements section that his research was funded by the grant N12345.

Just out of curiosity, I searched the grant number, and found its description: "applying technique X on problem A".

I was very surprised, because my paper is completely unrelated to either X or A. Moreover, I know very well that this co-author has very little background in both X and A, let alone doing research. Although he is a very good researcher, these just are not his expertise.

The grant is for 3 years, and it is going to expire in a couple of months. He has not published any paper related to A or X. However, he has published many papers in completely different topics, e.g. the paper with me, and claimed that they were supported by this grant.

Is it the way to do if your field of research has limited funding? Might he go into troubles if it is discovered by the funding agency that the papers are actually not related to the grant proposal?

The big underlying question here is what it means for a paper to be "related to a grant". Different funding agencies have different rules on this, either a more "staff-oriented view" or a more "topic-oriented view".

Many pure science funds, for instance the Swiss National Science Foundation, take a liberal stance on what kind of science can be enabled through each individual project. Essentially, while a project is given to support a specific idea, they are fully aware and quite happy that in addition to, and sometimes instead of, this project, other more or less related studies will also happen by the staff paid partly or in full through the project. At the end of the day, the SNF and other similar agencies care not so much about the specific piece of science that is described in the project, but that some valuable science is happening and that PhD students are graduating. Based on this view, researchers funded through SNF are expected to acknowledge them on every paper they do, no matter if it has to do with any of the science described in the project description. The collection of all papers acknowledging this project is then  not understood as "all papers on topic X", but rather "all topics enabled by funding project Y, on topic X and any side projects that the funded students did in addition or instead".
Other, especially more applied funds such as most of the European Commission's Horizon 2020 programme, are much more interested in specific topics than in funding just about any research. For them, acknowledgements have much more the meaning that you seem to imply, that is, that citing this project in the acknowledgements of the paper implies that this contributes to the mission of the project. How strongly this is enforced or checked depends on the project officer. Most people also seem to take a rather liberal approach in practice, but there are certainly project officers that have formally complained about projects using the allocated funds to sponsor other research.

  Might he go into troubles if it is discovered by the funding agency that the papers are actually not related to the grant proposal?

So at the end of the day, it really depends on whether the agency actually considers this "topically unrelated but financially enabled by the grant" paper as "unrelated". I would say, in absence of any other information, you can safely assume that your co-author did nothing wrong, and that the agency may be fine with this acknowledgement.


How to list a published reply to editor in publication list I recently had a reply which myself and my coauthors wrote in response to a question from a reader of our published article be sent as a letter to the editor which was published after my initial article in the journal. The reply has its own DOI number. I am wondering what the best way is to list this in my publication list. Should it be a sub-bullet point to the main article, its own bullet points, or something else?
Thanks for the help!

A conference paper, journal article, letter, book chapter, ..., they're all just publications, they can each appear as independent entries on your publication list. A blurb can describe relations between works, e.g., I pioneered X [1], with extensions to Y [2] and Z [3], where X is your original article, Y is your letter, and Z is, I don't know your work, something else you did in that area.


Peer-review -- Can I ask to cite my already published paper that is relevant? I have to review a paper for a journal that is on some work related to a paper I published 2-3 years ago.
The authors do not cite and compare our work although they try to solve the same problem.
In particular they use a similar fairly innovative way for the field to treat the input data, as we and another publication did, but they cite neither of these 2 papers.
Is it an issue of conflict of interest if I ask at least for a citation of these two papers that are preexisting (and one of which is mine), and ask also for a performance comparison with at least one of the competing methods?

If you are absolutely certain that you know (say) two papers which are clearly relevant for their work, you should state it:

The authors should comment on the work presented in [1, 2] and how their work improves on that or is different.

Add more details if you want to be helpful to the authors; for example, if the work [1, 2] uses a very different methodology than the present paper, you may want to offer a bit more detail to help the authors out. But it is voluntary. Also, whatever you write might end up copy-pasted in the final paper.
If you are not absolutely sure the papers are the most relevant and would improve the paper, you might still write:

The authors may want to comment the related work [1, 2].

maybe with more qualifications or detail. You can certainly make friendly suggestions, but given the power relations in play, you should explicitly mark them as voluntary improvements or such.
Also consider that there might be a lot of related literature that would be as appropriate to discuss as yours and the authors had to cut off their literature review at some point. In such a case, asking them to cite your paper in particular seems suspect. You should adjust the certainty of your recommendations according to how well you know the field.


Is using a survey classifications plagiarism? I'm writing the related work section of a paper and the survey paper X does such a wonderful work categorizing the existing approaches in the field, that I'm thinking on using the same categories in my paper (I have already cited the survey).

Is this consider plagiarism?
If so is the case, how can I use the same categories without incurring in plagiarism?

If properly cited, I would not consider this plagiarism, but you should be very explicit in your citation that the categorization you use is specifically from paper X. I would be more concerned about reusing the categorization if you are going to essentially discuss the same works that the survey paper has already done; if so, you are probably better off citing that paper and only summarizing what is most applicable to your own paper rather than trying to recapitulate an already wonderful work.


In a grant application, how to address gender aspects when working in a highly technical field? The guidelines for a certain funding source ask me to address gender aspects. This call is open to all scientist, but I work with pen, paper and computers and I see no gender aspects in my work (only that usually in the institute there are clearly more men than women, but this is not something I could fix in the project). I wouldn't like just to ignore the comment, as it might make my reviewer unhappy. What might this mean for mathematicians/informaticians/physicists?

It's unclear to me what "gender aspects" means. It sounds like you're assuming it's asking about handling gender in your research, which is a great question since a lot of studies (especially psych and medical) have been done on all-male participants. Some of these fail to replicate in mixed-gender or all-woman experiments. There's also a pretty interesting (and depressing) history of abuse of women in scientific research as research subjects that has gained greater attention recently, which is wonderful. In that aspect it seems like it won't relate to your work at all, since you don't have test subjects. Even amongst research program without the kinds of testing issues, some projects in philosophy, social theory, or medicine are plagued by sexism in their experimental design or theoretical conceit. Here the issue is less the treatment of test subjects as inherent issues and assumptions in the underlying theories. This would also not apply to mathematics, physics, or computer science as they don't develop theories about humans.

However it could also mean to ask about more administrative things, like discrimination against women and transgender people in the project. If this is a small project it might not relate to you, but in a larger project and especially a in a lab this is important.

To clarify, by "small" I mean "me and two of my grad students and we know each other well." Even a working group of 5-10 people can run into gender discrimination issues. Do you know how you'd respond if a woman working under you came to you and said that she was being harassed or her ideas were being discounted because she's a woman? Do you know how you'd respond if a new grad student was to join and tell you that they were transgender? Or how you'd respond if they were rejected by other people in the project because they are transgender? If you haven't thought about these things, you definitely should. Even if this isn't what they meant, you should have an answer to these questions.

I would recommend reaching out and asking for clarification as to which of these interpretations is meant. Definitely don't say "I don't think it matters to my work" because that can come across really poorly, especially if they mean the second interpretation I gave. Simply say that you were unsure if the question was asking about gender as a topic inside of the research or about discrimination within the group of researchers.


Does one invite adviser / cohort / lab to one's wedding? For a PhD student getting married in the middle of the degree, is there an established etiquette for invited your peers and/or your adviser to the wedding?

Obviously, circumstances of the wedding affect the answer. But for the sake of argument, assume we're talking about a medium-sized affair in the US that includes extended family and friends (i.e. it's not a small, intimate affair).

For a specific example, I'm talking about a small lab of 8-10 people plus the adviser, most of whom have at least 2-3 years of working together.

The issues I think need to be considered are:

Does an invitation cross any boundaries?
Similarly, does the lack of an invitation imply some offense?
And lastly, is it all-or-nothing binary? That is, do you invite everyone or no one?

Just invite the people you would like to have come.  If there are other students, post-docs, faculty, or staff that you are close enough to that you would want to have them at your wedding, then just invite them.  There is no established protocol for who you should invite, and no one is likely to be offended if you invite some of your lab-mates but not all of them.

This is, fundamentally, a workplace issue, rather than an academia issue, although the laboratory workplace for a graduate student poses some unique challenges.  Whether to invite your advisor is just a particular example of whether to invite your boss to the wedding.

I got married halfway through my Ph.D., and I invited a few other graduate students.  I did not invite my advisor, and I know that he was not offended.  When I got back from my honeymoon, he even gave me a small wedding present.


Are there any tools to automatically search and download literature in a given .bib file? I'd like to download automatically tons of papers listed on .bib file so I'm trying to find a way to facilitate the process by, e.g. I import or input to a tool a certain .bib file which contains a list of literature, the output is the literature's .pdf file. Any idea to do so?

In contrast to the freemium/proprietary tool suggested in the answer by andreas, I propose a FOSS solution that works reliably for this specific task.

Assuming you are connected to a network that provides permissions to legally download the required content, the cross-platform reference manager,JabRef has integrated fetchers to download full-texts for the entries in your library. Import your bib file into Jabref (maybe just start a new library for this task to keep things clean) and select the desired number of entries for which full-text PDFs are needed. Then, from the Quality pull-down menu, select Lookup Fulltext documents.

However, you still have to manually confirm all downloads. From the user's perspective, this requires just a bunch of clicking the OK button in the same on-screen co-ordinate (for pop-ups that appears sequentially for each citation entry). Jabref does all the heavy-lifting and correctly downloads the desired PDFs of the full-text and link each of them appropriately by matching to their relevant citation entry in the library.

The latest master build of Jabref is recommended, since there were some recent fixes to its IEEE fetcher (i.e. if IEEE matters to the OP).


About a problem with finding potential referee for my manuscript I asked this question About withdrawing manuscript in academia about one month ago. At that time, I decided to wait more and sent the editor in chief the name of three potential referees. Today I sent a tracking email. The editor in chief said that none of them accepted to be the referee and he told that he sent to more potential referees. ( I am sure one of the potential referees has not received any email to review my paper, because I asked him). Now I need your guidance in this regard, what is the best option for me now? Shall I withdraw the paper?  Now it is about 6 month that I have submitted my paper and unfortunately they have not found referee for that!

This kind of decision is always a balancing act with no obvious answer.

If you do not withdraw: Do note that the editor might not invite all the reviewers you suggested. That's the lazy thing to do, but they might also be doing their own checks, e.g. did you coauthor a paper in the last five years? Did you work at the same institution in the past five years? Et cetera. Remember there're systemic differences between author-suggested and editor-suggested reviewers; you cannot expect the editor to rely entirely on the reviewers you suggest.

If you do not withdraw, there's no way to tell how long it'll be before this journal finds reviewers.

If you withdraw: in this case you'll probably wind up submitting to a different journal, which means you start from square zero, which means they are also going to be looking for reviewers. It's possible the new journal handles things quicker. Perhaps their editor is more motivated and/or has greater connections, perhaps they invite more reviewers, perhaps they send more reminders ... but it's also possible the new journal handles things worse. They might not even respond to your queries.

Ultimately nobody can tell you the answer, because nobody can predict the future. You'll have to make the decision yourself. Are you willing to give up what you've already reached in this journal for the uncertain prospects at another journal? Expressed differently, is a bird in hand worth two in the bush for you? It's a question only you can answer.


When should one opt for a one-year master's program in the US? Some US universities offer a master's program that lasts for just a year. At times the cost of such programs are higher than the regular 2-year MS programs.

When should students opt for a one-year master's? What are the merits involved in such an option? The demerits seem to be many: lack of time for courses or internship opportunities or learning in general, less useful for a research career, etc.

One-year master's programs in computer science are usually terminal course-based degrees.  They are essentially useless for a future research career, because they do not include time to do research.  (PhD admissions committees care about your research potential much more than your grades.)  Put brutally, professional MS programs exist for the sole purpose of trading tuition for the promise of a higher salary.  The advantage of these programs is that successful graduates (at least from my department) actually do get higher salaries, and the program only takes one year.  Also, if you work for a particularly enlightened employer, they may be willing to (help) pay your tuition.

Two-year master's programs in computer science are more research-based.  In addition to classes, most research master's students write a thesis describing original research; that's why it takes two years instead of just one.  That's also one of the advantages of the program; you have more time to learn outside the formal classroom environment.  You may also be able to secure funding through research or teaching assistantships; these are almost unheard of for professional master's students.  The disadvantage is that if you're not interested in research, the program takes two years instead of one.  On the other hand, a research masters seems to have the same effect on salary as a professional masters, in part because it's impossible to tell from a resume what type of MS you have.


Should we reply to the editor after a paper has been rejected and we don't plan to revise/resubmit? After receiving a rejection (not revise and resubmit) decision from the editor/associate editor of a journal, should we write an email to thank him/her for the time, or just do nothing? I imagine one might do that out of courtesy, but then I don't really have much to say otherwise.

I don't recall ever having received such an e-mail as an editor, so it's not standard (let alone mandatory), but I wouldn't be unhappy to receive one.  I doubt anyone would care enough to make it worth the effort, but it could be a nice gesture if you feel inclined.


Complete stranger asking PhD student to review paper before submission I am a PhD student and I have been contacted today by some other PhD student with a very odd request. He is from a different university in a different country and I don't know him at all. He is asking me to review his own paper before submitting it to some journal. Is this a common thing to ask? What is the best response in this case?

I'm not surprised to hear this.  I often encourage my students to reach out to others working in their specific field.  Do it if you have the time, interest, and expertise.  Ignore it if you don't.  Don't think there's more to it than that.


How common is it for a professor to agree to review a bachelor thesis outside of his subfield? I am asking for a professor to review my undergraduate thesis. I like him a lot and I don't want someone else who is an expert on the field.

How common is for a professor to accept to review my Bachelor thesis outside of his field, in computer science?

Is there anything I can do to maximize my chances of him accepting?

I don't think it really matters if it is common or not. If the professor feels comfortable doing it then he will do it. If not, than he will tell you.

As Bryan said, it depends on what you are defining as outside his "field". If he is an art professor and your thesis is in math, than he probably won't do it.

I was in a similar situation to you. My undergraduate thesis was about how to choose landing sites for rovers on Mars, but my professor had never done anything like that, however he was a geography professor who used satellite imagery (something that I would use a lot of as well) so there was at least some overlap.

I'd just go and talk to the professor. If you like him, and feel he's a good guy than I'm sure he'll give you an honest answer and won't hold anything against you for asking.


What does this mean in the offer letter In my offer letter:

  $XX,XXX is being offered as "for Spring and Fall semester for the year 20XX"

Here what do they mean? Is $XX,XXX being offered on a per month basis or for the whole year?

From your comment, $MMM is on the order of US$20,000.  This is almost certainly the stipend for one academic year.

It will probably be paid in monthly or semimonthly installments, over 9 or 12 months.


Is it typical to use an uncertain affiliation within a paper? I am an international graduate student, recently-admitted to a Canadian university. My admission has been finalized and I am just within the visa processing to acquire required study permit.

Now, I am going to submit a proceeding paper and feel myself in a dilemma to determine my affiliation within that, appropriately. As a matter of fact, my preference has been focused on utilization of my position
in the new university, instead of my undergraduate affiliation. But one might, realistically, imagine the situation that I use my favorite affiliation for the target paper, but (for any reason) I will be rejected by Canadian embassy to acquire the study permit. In this case (I hate even thinking about it!), I not only lose that position, supposedly, but that applied affiliation onto the paper will, also, be invalid, actually.

Now, technically:

Is it ethical to do something like that in academia, or I must bite the bullet for stabilization of my expecting affiliation to be applicable,
formally?
What are the potential consequences for me and my paper, if above scenario would be happened?

No. There is no bullet to be bitten. Whenever you submit a paper, you just list your current institution as your home institution, no matter what you want to put here.

The affiliation on a paper has two purposes:

to allow others to contact you - nowadays it's mainly a disambiguation in case your name shows up multiple times on an internet search, but in former times, the institution information was necessary in order to send the author a letter or in order to call him/her;
to assign credit to the institution that supported you during your research.

The Canadian university did not do any of that (yet), so they should not be listed. Note that if you already started at your next institution when the final version of the paper is due, then it is entirely reasonable to update your affiliation then, just as you would update an e-mail address that expired. However, for reason number two from above, you would add a footnote stating that the work was carried out while you were still at your former institute/university.


Are accepted papers going to be plagiarism checked? here's my friend's situation, he submitted a journal paper then gave up after some time and thought it's going to be rejected after a few rejections in an open access journal,he put some parts (as it is), in a conference paper and submitted this work, to his surprise he got acceptance in both.

I asked him to cancel his conference submission not to risk a potential problem with his open access journal submission. He didn't take this seriously and moved on with both.

what are the chances of him getting caught in this situation, given that it's just about 8 months before he will graduate?

In most of the open access journals, it takes less time to put the article online (one of the pros for choosing open access). It might take less than one month, even some cases, after paying the article processing charge, the journal put the author submitted version online.

Now, for the conference paper, I guess the time difference between the acceptance date and actual conference date is not more than six months. In several cases, the author needs to upload the final camera ready version to the conference submission system in advance. If the conference maintains a good ethics, then the paper will be automatically verified with similarly checking softwares before sending the papers to the proceedings publication department — during this period, the open access article will be online.

You get the idea on the consequences.


Getting Letter of recommendation with letter head So I did my engineering back in 2010. I do know few of my teachers but none of them are now in the same university.

I want to get an academic reference letter for admission on postgraduate level in UK universities.

Would it be fine if I get recommendation letter from my teachers. Of course then the recommendation will be without letter head. So it would be preferable to get recommendation on university letter head?

There shouldn't be an issue if they use letterhead of their present employer. They will probably say something about the change of affiliation. But it might be improper for them to submit on the old employer's letterhead.

But a letter on plain paper should also be fine, assuming that the letter writer provides contact information so that their affiliation can be checked if necessary.

Or you can also indicate in application materials that the affiliations of letter writers are new.

Note that I'm retired and so have no current affiliation, but my last employer is happy enough for me to use their letterhead and has provided me with an electronic template for it. Perhaps that is available to your writers as well if it seems important.


Do universities employ teachers? Do universities employ people simply to teach?

I come from a family of teachers, so teaching comes naturally to me. What worth would a university put on a person that is willing to take a large amount of the teaching load?

Would certain departments employ people who are willing and able to do the teaching, leaving other members of faculty to do other things or is teaching just simply not a big enough part of a university's work to justify employing people specifically for it?

Yes, research universities hire full-time faculty whose primary job is teaching.  At least in the US, these faculty typically have different titles from tenure-track faculty, such as instructor, lecturer, senior lecturer, and teaching (assistant/associate/full) professor.  For example, my department employs 12 lecturers and teaching [rank] professors; my wife is one of 13 lecturers in another department.  We work at a large R1 state university; both our departments also have lots of "standard" tenure-track faculty.

Teaching faculty in my department are primarily responsible for the large lower-division undergraduate courses.  To first approximation, each such class is taught and maintained by the same teaching faculty member every semester.  In contrast, tenure-track faculty like me normally bounce between a few different courses, including upper-division requirements, electives, and graduate classes.  Teaching faculty in my department typically teach 3-5 times as many students per semester as tenure-track faculty, mostly because our intro classes are huge.  Most teaching faculty also have teaching-related service responsibilities, like serving on curriculum revision, grievance, and appeal committees.

At most R1 universities, including mine, teaching faculty are ineligible for tenure. But there are exceptions, like Berkeley's "Lecturers with Security of Employment" or Duke's "Professors of the Practice".


Opportunities for physics PhD students to study/research pure math My interest includes pure math, string theory, quantum field theory and some applied mathematical topics, so I'd like to be so-called a pure mathematician and a string theorist. Considering my performance so far, I think I will have decent chance for any physics PhD programs except for top ones, while I will not have much chance for the math PhD programs of my interest. Therefore, it seems to me that the best choice is to go to the physics PhD program with faculties influential on string theory. Fortunately, such a school tends to have a math department with decent faculties on the fields of my interest, so all of my demands seem to be satisfied by this choice.
However...

How much is it possible for a physics PhD student to interact with math grad students and professors through math courses, research and seminars? What limitation will I be likely to experience?

Well, there is an entire broad field known as mathematical physics.

Your primary limitation will probably be time.  There are a few issues of "language barriers", curiously enough, as mathematicians and physicists don't always use the same terminology for the same concepts, but that is a minor issue to get around if it is important to you.

You already have to deal with the requirements of the physics department, leaving you less time to also deal with courses in mathematics.  Furthermore, the two departments don't always have synchronized schedules: you may find that their seminars conflict, or even that you have courses to attend during the other department's seminar times.  This is especially likely if you have some sort of teaching/lab responsibilities.  In my graduating university the physics department did their lectures mostly on Tuesday/Thursday, and labs were mostly on MWF.  However, the math department lectured mostly on MWF, with discussion sections set for Tuesday/Thursday.  Since the professors of both departments tended to prefer seminars and colloquia to occur on lecture days (since that's when the professors were most likely to be there, and graduate students are less likely to have conflicts), this meant that one department's graduate students were doing teaching duties during the other's seminars.  If you get an early enough time slot for these duties you may be available, but you are still going to have to measure if you need to spend your time doing other work more--grading, your own homework, preparing for qualifying exams, research, etc. all take time.

However, this is not to say that it's impossible.  I've seen physics and EE graduate students in graduate mathematics courses before (and vice versa, by virtue of my being an example).  And not simply in applied math courses.  I even know of one physics undergrad+master's student who, for the heck of it, took an undergraduate topology course, and was found so exceptionally gifted by the professor that he was given a full TA-ship in the mathematics department so he could spend more time doing mathematics for his last two years or so.  Ultimately said student went on to do his doctoral work in particle physics at a top university, has written at least one book in the (vague) area of "abstract mathematics for physicists", and many other things befitting his intellect and character.  As a curious aside, some other mathematics students and I had to actually convince him to at least leave with a Bachelor's degree.  We couldn't quite get him to go through the trouble of a Master's degree, but I can assure you he could have easily earned a doctorate in mathematics if he had so desired.

There are several physicists who have joint appointments in the mathematics department, and vice versa--though in my experience it tends to be rare when they have a significant presence in the other department, even if they are known and well-respected there--and legions of graduate students who are unsure of whether they should be considered a mathematician or a physicist.  At least one of which has made the hilariously inconvenient mistake of saying exactly this to US immigration officials.

So in the actual practice of your research, you can easily cross barriers or reside in grey zones between physics and mathematics, with researchers in either department taking note of your results, and working with you.  Your ability to be actively involved with both departments, either as a student or faculty, however, will be heavily limited by time constraints.


Can a theoretical physicist win a Nobel Prize anymore? The background: The big news in the science world this week is that, on Thursday, it will be officially announced that LIGO has detected gravitational waves. Some people have even started talking about a Nobel Prize. I agree that this is a momentous accomplishment and these people deserve all the nerd glory the world has to offer; that said, I feel that, in a fair world, this Nobel Prize should be shared between LIGO and (posthumously) Albert Einstein. After all, he is the one that came up with the theory of physics that predicts things like gravitational waves.

The observation: Nobel Prizes can't be awarded to deceased individuals; the Nobel Committee doesn't award Prizes for theoretical work before its predictions are experimentally confirmed; and theoretical physics is churning out ideas that can't be directly tested with today's technology and resources. Put these factors together, and  I have this uneasy feeling that  Englert and Higgs might have been the last theorists to receive a Nobel Prize. It really looks like Stephen Hawking and Ed Witten, which are widely recognized as among the best theoretical physicists ever, will never get one. For practical purposes, the Nobel Prize in Physics has become the Nobel Prize in Engineering Physics.

The question: are there any theoretical physicists that are young enough, their work groundbreaking enough, and the testing technology sufficiently within our current reach, that a Nobel Prize could reasonably be awarded to them?

We've now seen three Nobel prizes in physics awarded since the posting of this question (February 2016), and I think it's fair to say that the answer has proven to be an unequivocal 'yes'. So far, four out of nine physics Nobel laureates have been theorists.

The 2016 prize was awarded to three condensed matter theorists (Thouless, Haldane, and Kosterlitz) "for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter". The 2017 prize was awarded to Weiss, Barish, and Thorne "for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves." Of these, Kip Thorne is very much a theorist, known for his work in relativity and astrophysics, and for being one of the authors of that one thick book with an apple on the cover.


Advice needed for leaving academia TLDR: I am being targeted by an institution where I previously studied/worked and would like to leave academia entirely without giving anyone the knowledge of where I'm going next.

Backstory:

I  finished my master's at a lab where I was one of targets of bullying. I mean, my advisor threatened to lock me up in a room with this other person until an analysis was done his way; I was called all sort of labels by supervisor ; constant rummaging through my personal notebooks and one time journal; gossipping; intentional mischaracterization/relay of information. I asked the supervisor several times for feedback and all I get are positive remarks, which kind of put me in the twilight zone. I was also not allowed to do anything in the lab without the approval of the lab manager, a PhD student, and him. Any suggestions I made were shot down, and some were implemented later without acknowledgement that I had contributed to them. At one point, I asked him why he accepted me because it doesn't look like he needs or wants me here. He said that I'm here to do experiment X and leave. It sounded to me that my role is to be a technician's assistant and not a master's candidate. It also sounded like neither he nor anyone wanted to be my mentor.

The straw that broke the camel's back was when previous supervisor made a racist remark about a group of which I am a member. That emboldened even one of his undergrads to use a racial slur around me. I decided to leave and in retrospect if it weren't for the support of my family and the lab manager, I wouldn't have had the ability to show up to my defense.

The problem is that me leaving triggered a whole other set of events. From my observations, my previous supervisor likes to not allow his students to be independent scientists. That way he can keep them under his control and influence.

He has already sabotaged my application to PhD program at a different school. So I went back to undergrad to change fields. I still missed lab work and needed the money so I applied to work as a technician at a lab there. The head of that lab ended up calling my previous supervisor probably because I left the latter out of the list of references. Since then I have dealt with assumptions from people, cryptic references, dismissive testimonials, outright rudeness from people. In one of my classes, we had to analyze the behaviour of people in a scenario that is verbatim one of my encounters with my previous supervisor. If it were more generic I could have dismissed as coincidence, but really the scenario itself was so nonsensical that I have no confidence asserting that it is common.

I left the second lab after 2 years because I could not trust the people there anymore. Now, I am at a third lab to finish a thesis project for my degree. I thought that this lab would not be connected but recently they had been forging new relationships with close collaborators of previous supervisor. Things were going well at first in the sense there weren't any referential or odd remarks. Recently, however, I'm not so sure I can trust them either.

So here I am. I am jaded and distrustful of anyone who asks me anything personal. I plan to leave academia for good now. But I don't want to leave to live yet the same patterns in industry, and to do that I have to make sure no one can relay where I'm going next. The problem is I don't have a fraction of the manipulation and influence prowess of these professors so I can't convince someone to not disclose  or share that information to protect me. Moreover, since it looks like more and more people are being recruited into helping said supervisor, I feel like I'm trapped without references unless I submit to his will.

Has anyone successfully dealt with people like previous supervisor and gotten away from them? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

I plan to leave academia for good now. But I don't want to leave to
  live yet the same patterns in industry

You may find industry to be just as bad or even worse. People with power can be very nasty.

  Now, I am at a third lab to finish a thesis project for my degree. I
  thought that this lab would not be connected but recently they had
  been forging new relationships with close collaborators of previous
  supervisor. Things were going well at first in the sense there weren't
  any referential or odd remarks. Recently, however, I'm not so sure I
  can trust them either.

Due to traumatic past experiences, you have developed a "paranoia". It is highly unlikely that your previous supervisor (who seems to be a big shot, with multiple "close collaborators" and a large enough lab that he can treat his lab members disrespectfully and continue to have enough members to sustain his research) has the time or desire to go out of his way to badmouth a former undergrad to a group that is distant enough away that the connection is only through his close collaborators. He might even want you to succeed in this new lab, so that you are content/happy there and less likely to bother him again (asking him for letters of references, making complaints to his university administration for abuse/racism/academic-misconduct/etc.).

However, I appreciate that you will not be able to easily trust anyone anymore. You are vague though, about what happened that made you not so sure you can trust this new lab, so I'm limited in how much I can help you there. But what makes you think you will be able to unconditionally trust people in industry? You may consider also exploring this stack exchange: https://workplace.stackexchange.com/. You may find stories even worse than the one you've described here. Finally, part of your lack of trust for people, is in fact healthy, because as you get older you'll learn that you can't trust many people in this world.

  Has anyone successfully dealt with people like previous supervisor and
  gotten away from them? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

In the comments, I've given my email address and you can perhaps tell me which field you're working in so that I can see if I can help. Sometimes it's just a matter of finding the right lab, distant enough away from the previous one. Luckily this happened during your undergraduate years. While it will be impossible for you to fully appreciate this, you are in the very very early stages of your career (considering you did a masters and two undergrads, I'm guessing you are 1-2 decades behind my colleagues and I, so still very young). This means that the stakes are very low, and there is still a chance for you to have an upward rise in your career, which will help you to forget about all the nasty things that happened to you during your undergrad years. Trust me on this. When you get to my age your troubles as an undergrad become almost irrelevant.


How to approach the dean and/or provost about a years-old two-body problem? Both my wife and I are scientists in the same field. Approximately 4 years ago she accepted a tenure-track position, and in what seemed like a good opportunity at the time, we both decided it was a good move even without seriously discussing a spousal hire for me. At the time I was confident that my field of study and marketable skill set would make the transition a no-brainer "after the fact". By this I mean the dean and/or provost would see the long-term necessity (and benefit) of securing university employment for not one but both persons.

However, this has turned out not to be the case. This place is awash in administrative problems. Compounding this is our location: A realistic job search radius is a very short 25 miles or so. (Our city is also charmingly referred to as an "island".) At this point we are about 1-2 years away from her tenure (which appears to be a good bet), and I'm out of patience. From my point of view, I'm not being fully utilized in an environment where it makes very good long-term sense to do so. In other words, by securing the stability of both "units", one also works toward the stability of the whole. But the standard response is always, there's no money for that. (Given the wealth I see every day around me, I have a hard time believing that.)

My question: how would one approach the upper administration to seriously consider a spousal hire for an individual that fits very well into the research and teaching framework of the department I'm already serving as an adjunct in? My initial plan would be to put together a sales-pitch of sorts with the department head that would outline the creation of a non-fixed-term assistant teaching professor position. Included in the proposal would be a host of benefits:

The department would be expanded by 1
Connections and therefore resources are imported along with myself
The university would gain a research-capable faculty member

Output: papers
Input: money
Low equipment/space requirements
Very portable; no startup needed

The university would also gain a (badly needed) teaching professor

Improve the student/teacher ratio
Produce higher-quality problem solvers / critical thinkers

The stability of one of its existing faculty members would be improved (i.e. reduces "flight risk")

But all this seems to be wasted as an adjunct. I know instinctively that this effort will fail, but I need the satisfaction of having tried.

Unfortunately, I doubt this will be easy.  You've already set the precedent that you are willing to work as an adjunct, and the administration is probably hoping that this continues as long as possible.  They might not ever have to hire you long-term, and even if they do they'll at least have saved some money in the meantime.  If they were going to do something out of sympathy for the difficult position you are in, they probably would have already.  That means your only real line of argument is to convince them that hiring you would be better for the university.  This means establishing either that the status quo cannot continue (so keeping you ad an adjunct isn't an option) or that hiring you would be better for the university than keeping you as an adjunct and spending the money on something else.

  In other words, by securing the stability of both "units", one also works toward the stability of the whole.

Your best shot may be if you or your wife gets an offer elsewhere.  This may or may not work, depending on the local culture: at some places, getting outside offers is viewed as a sign of disloyalty.  However, the worst case scenario is having to take the other offer, and it's not clear that that would leave the two of you worse off than you are now.  Without an outside offer, there's no clear evidence of instability.

If you're going to seek other offers, it's probably better to do it soon.  Once your wife has tenure, getting another tenured job (or giving up tenure) would generally be harder than getting a tenure-track job.

  Included in the proposal would be a host of benefits:

I'd focus on the "(badly needed) teaching professor" part.  That sounds like it has the greatest potential for making an argument to the administration that the department is understaffed and really needs this position.  By contrast, they are much less likely to go for the argument that they should hire you on research grounds.


M1 vs M2 in France: In the French system, which one is designed for those interested in Academia, M1 or M2? I'm applying for Master's degree in France and have learned that there are two different ones - M1 and M2. I read the answers to this question and a few websites with general explanations, but couldn't quite figure out which one is more suitable for someone who is going to do a PhD after their master's, and intends to work in academia.

Would studying a 4-year or 3-year undergrad make a difference? I've done my undergrad in the American system (4-year bachelor, but a relatively broad education), with a few extra courses that were more advanced (graduate-level courses), but I still do need to take courses to prepare for Ph.D. Can I take introductory (but graduate-level) courses in an M2, or the courses in M2 are all very specific? Do I stand a chance for a direct M2, or is it the case that a 4-year US undergrad is not considered as qualified as a 3-year French undergrad + M1?

There are different kinds of masters in France. But this is not what the M1/M2 distinction is about. M1 and M2 literally mean "first year of master" and "second year of master". They are not degrees, they are years, like "sophomore" or "senior" in the US. The master's degree is the combination of these two years. You cannot apply for M2 if you have not completed the equivalent of M1. What qualifies may depend on the university, but US undergrad certainly does not, as it would be the equivalent of a license degree (L3, third year of license - see how it works?), even if you did it in four years.

The different kinds of masters that exist are teaching, professional, and research. If you want to work in academia, you probably need a PhD, and to apply for a PhD in France, they usually ask for the equivalent of a research master's degree. A professional master prepares you to work right after getting the degree, while a teaching master prepares you to be professor in middle/high school.

So research M2 is the one you need to do. It will involve taking classes but also an "internship" during which you will have to write a "memoir", kind of like a mini PhD thesis. In most fields, the teaching and research master's degrees are the same in the first year and split  in the second year. Thus if you only have undergrad education, then all you can apply to is a common M1 year in the field you want, and next year you will be able to apply for a research M2 year.

Perhaps to drive the point home: you typically need to complete the M2 to apply to a PhD. But you need to complete the M1 to apply to the M2. So the question cannot be "which is the one for academia". It would be like asking whether 11th grade or 12th grade is the one you need to complete to enter a college. You need to do both.


How to gracefully step back from academic administration duties during the pandemic? I am a tenured professor who holds some administrative positions (e.g., graduate director) in exchange for teaching reduction. I had previously asked about the administrative tasks consuming all my time, and this community helped me reprioritize my efforts.
The trouble now is the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the exceptional situation, my management work has increased exponentially. This is not "what I signed up for." I am burned out from administration and want to step back from this position and focus on my research (i.e., quit my leadership position while retaining my professorship).
My concern is that if I quit my leadership position abruptly in the middle of a pandemic, it could reflect poorly on me and burn bridges. I am thinking of announcing my resignation now, but sticking around for 3-4 months to ensure a smooth transition. Is this reasonable? Are there other things I could do to ensure a smooth transition? Or should I just force myself to finish the two years left in my term?

I have to admit to some ambivalence about the issue -- which may be what many of your colleagues might feel as well, and that might affect how they see your decisions.
On the one hand, I think we all sympathize with your situation, and your desire to go back to be a "regular faculty" with a life that revolves around teaching and research. I get that a pandemic is not what you had in mind when you took the job of graduate coordinator, and that the resulting upheaval in all things academic (and non-academic) lead to a workload that is not what you thought it was going to be.
On the other hand, however, you did get a promotion and (I assume) a pay raise that reflects your increased level of responsibility and leadership. By accepting these, you are also accepting the fact that your job becomes less predictable and that you become a more direct subject of the whims of the higher-ups wanting you to respond to this or that. That's really no different than nearly any other promotion: If you work at McDonalds, you can have a low-stress job by flipping burgers Monday through Friday 9-5; just don't accept the promotion to shift manager, because then you have to deal with workers not showing up, unhappy customers, etc. So while you say "this is not what I signed up for", I'd argue that in a sense you did actually sign up for it -- maybe not in such explicit terms, but the uncertainty comes with the job, and it is rewarded in certain ways.
So while I assume that your colleagues will have personal sympathy, they might also ask you why they paid you more (or gave you teaching reductions) if you jump ship when showing leadership is actually required. I suspect that it might also be difficult to find someone to replace you during these times, and that might also factor in how your colleagues see your decisions. A department actually needs its graduate director, so not having one is going to be a problem.
In the end, talk to your department head and your colleagues how they see the situation. You might also discover ways in which you can lighten your workload somehow, and become happier with your role. For example, if you find that during the day, you stomp out the really urgent fires and in the evening at home deal with the mundane and boring stuff, consider whether one could hire a student worker to do at least some of the work that mucks up your cogs. Delegation is often possible, and your department head might recognize that it's going to be cheaper and easier to find ways to make your more comfortable with your role, than to replace you.


I found a mistake in my master thesis's code I defended my master thesis couple months ago in a German University. It's a thesis in Computer Science. In my thesis I mainly implemented some machine learning methods and compared their performance. The implementations of the methods and making them available as open-source are considered one of the main contributions of my thesis. I published the source-code online on Google's Code.

However, recently I was browsing the source-code of two methods' implementation and I found two bugs. One of the bugs makes the results of one experiment useless since the method became simply wrong.

Now I'm very worried about that and don't know what to do or what I must or have to do. (They're not going to take my certificate back, right?)

My questions:

Since one of the main contributions of the thesis is the release of the source-code, am I obligated to fix the bugs?
Am I required to keep my source-code online? In other words, can I now decide to take it down and not give it to anyone? I'm the only one who has a copy of the source-code. My professor never asked me to put the source-code on a CD-ROM and put it in the thesis. I also mention in my thesis the online repository for the code.
I had very difficult memories of academia and I was so relieved when I finished. I don't want to contact them again to tell them about the bugs. But am I obligated to do that? I just want to start a new life and never think again about the past.

I'm asking those questions just to know my rights and if I have any obligations. However, since I'm passionate about my thesis topic, I'm actually considering fixing the bugs but I'm not willing to contact my professor and tell him, simply because I just don't want to communicate with someone from the past and still feel that I'm still stuck with academia or have obligations toward them.

Nobody has used my code yet, so if I fix the bug then the person who will clone the project will get a correct version (hopefully! I mean every software is subject to bugs!).

Edit:

I was asked "obligated by whom?". Well what I'm thinking is that since one of the main contributions of my thesis is the source-code, and since my examiners passed my thesis because it has contributions, then I thought that I must have that source-code always available. It feels to me like a contract:

Make contributions (source-code as the main contribution) -> thesis passed -> you get your degree.

Now revoke contribution -> thesis failed -> you don't deserve your degree.

Isn't it like that?

they're not gonna take my certificate back, right

No, your degree won't be revoked on the basis of an honest mistake.  (Revoking the degree would only make sense for serious fraud or misconduct.)

  Since one of the main contributions of the thesis is the release of the source-code, am I obligated to fix the bugs?

Obligated by whom?  There's certainly no legal obligation, but deliberately withholding knowledge from the rest of the world would be unpleasant and harmful.

If you know how to fix the bugs without much effort, then I'd recommend that you do so.  If you don't know how to fix them or it would take too much time, you could at least attach a note explaining the problem (for the benefit of anyone who wants to use the code in the future).

  Am I required to keep my source-code online? In other words, can I now decide to take it down and not give it to anyone?

Again, required by whom?  Nobody can punish you if you take it down, but going out of your way to deny access is at least unfriendly.  If your thesis said that the code would be publicly available, then changing your mind now would be unethical.

  I don't want to contact them again to tell them about the bugs. But am I obligated to do that?

Nobody can make you, but it would be nice.  Think about it this way: another student might begin a project related to your thesis.  If you don't tell your advisor that the results of one experiment were wrong, then this student might experience pain and wasted time that could have been avoided if they had known about the problem earlier.  You might not care about your advisor, but surely there's some value to preventing future students from suffering unnecessarily.

And what's the worst case scenario if you tell your advisor?  Maybe your advisor would insult you, in which case you can take some satisfaction in having behaved better than your advisor, but there's nothing he/she can do to disrupt your life now.

In response to the edit:

  Well what I'm thinking is that since one of the main contributions of my thesis is the source-code, and since my examiners passed my thesis because it has contributions, then I thought that I must have that source-code always available. It feels to me like a contract:

If you said in the thesis that the code would be available in a public repository, then you have an ethical obligation to keep it available.  But universities revoke degrees only very rarely and for exceptionally serious reasons, such as research fraud or cheating.  There's no way a university would even try to revoke your degree for taking down the source code.  (However, if you're still worried you could look up your university's procedures for revoking degrees or search online for degrees revoked in the past.)

I don't mean to encourage you to take the code down, and I don't think you should.  My point is that this is about doing what you feel is right (keeping promises, helping other people, contributing to the world's knowledge) rather than about what someone else might try to make you do.


How many students are typical for an advisor? I am an undergraduate student in China, majoring in chemistry. I am now considering which advisors would be most suitable for my future research.

Actually, I have been working in a professor's lab since over a year at my university and I am interested in their research topics. What concerns me is that he recruits many students. He is the only professor in our group with over 10 graduate students, expected to increase to 14–16 students next year (depending on whether I join this lab). I am hesitant because I unsure whether he would have the time to provide me guidance with so many students.

How many students are typical for a professor?

[EDIT]

Our group typically hosts 1-2 undergraduates per year.

It depends on many factors:

Does the professor have any intense other duties like teaching, committee work, own research, being an editor, writing grants, etc. or can they focus on supervising?
Does the professor delegate supervisory work, e.g., do PhD students have postdocs or similar as a first person to go to?
Is there a healthy communication and collaboration within the group? Is everybody roughly informed what everybody else’s areas of expertise are so they can seek help (e.g., from the resident programming expert) directly without going through the supervisor? Is this encouraged by the supervisor?
How much supervision does a typical student in your field require?
How efficient is the professor in supervising?

Due to these factors, the group size you mention can work very well, but may also be a total disaster. As it’s impossible to judge these factors as an outsider, the best way is to talk to actual supervisees and look at the graduation statistics of the group (if available). If you are actually working in a professor’s group, you should be able to assess this better than anybody else.


Can I write publications if I don't have co-authors? I'm currently studying a BSc so I'm not fully involved in academia yet. I'd still like to write some publications and have them peer-reviewed about specific subjects.
According to Does one need to be affiliated with a university to publish papers?, I can publish even without an affiliation, but do I need co-authors? If so, how to find any?

Yes it definitely can be done.

If you have an idea then do a literature review of the subject and if you have a contribution that builds on the activity in one of the journals you find then publish there. Perhaps also look into doing a conference paper first. See here for the difference between the two.

The best co-author for your case would probably be a professor or grad student at your university.

No, co-authors are not required. They can be useful though if you need their help/skills in the project.

In computer science, journal papers usually occur during one’s PhD. Bright Masters and Honours students usually start publishing conference papers, but journal papers are not unheard of.


What does it mean if a professor asks you to draft his reference letter for you? This question is, honestly speaking, probably somewhat opinion-based, but I still want to give a shot.

A professor acceded to my invitation of writing a reference letter for me. Nevertheless, unlike the other professors who also acceded to write a reference letter for me, he asked me to draft it on my own. Originally I did not feel anything "wrong", and I just felt embarrassed to recommend myself. But yesterday a friend told me that a professor would ask you to write her reference letter for you when she does not actually think that you are "worthy" enough for her to write you one on her own.

What is the probability that such viewpoint is true? Any opinion is greatly appreciated!

For me, it means two things:

I am really busy
I don't know anything about the job you're applying to and what you want to emphasize about yourself

If the first draft you write is something I can't sign, I'll edit it or I won't sign it. If it's not braggy enough, I might add some emphasis. But metaphorically handing me a piece of blank paper and asking me to recommend you is actually asking me to put in quite a lot of work. Do these people you're applying to value initiative? Creativity? Willingness to work long hard hours? Cheerfullness? A driven nature? A gentle spirit? Is the fact you write great software relevant to them? How about your careful bench work? For all I know you want to do less of one thing and more of another. So now I need to ask you a zillion questions about what you want to emphasize, and maybe go research the job too, and then ask you if what I've written is ok - frankly, it's way easier to ask you to write the first draft. And some days, I take the easy route.

It does not mean:

I intend to sign words I didn't write. I will write the final draft
It's ok for you to make up strengths you don't have
You'll know what I send in the end
I can't write a simple letter without help from a student.

Your first draft doesn't even have to be a letter, it can be point form. But tell me you're choosing me as a reference so I can confirm your amazing Xness, Yabilty and Zation. If I can, I will.

By the way, I wish I could find the idiot who started the theory that it means I don't think well of you and want you to retract your request. Several students have retracted their requests after I asked for a first draft, and that's a shame, because I would have cheerfully signed a glowing recommendation for them. I just didn't have time to write it all from scratch myself.


In a mathematics article, how much of the argument can be given outside of "proof" environments? I'm writing an article containing one main theorem, with the other results essentially corollaries of that theorem. The largest part of the article is thus spend proving this main theorem.

It feels natural to me to write the prove as one long "story", most of which is told outside of "proof environments". So something like this

  bla bla, consider this and that construction. Notice that bla bla. But we saw before that such and such, and conclude:

  Proposition 5: (concisely write down the conclusion from the arguments laid out above)

  (there is no proof environment here, the "proof" was essentially given in the block of text above the proposition) Keeping this mind, we now observe that bla bla...............

So this style results in a section without any actual proof environments, and propositions/lemma's in the section are essential "milestones" in the argument.

Is this style frowned upon, or considered annoying/difficult to read? To me it feels more natural than the more common style of mostly just a string of lemma's leading to a theorem.

It is hard to judge in the abstract, of course. But there are a number of ways to organize such a paper. It is probably best to be clear when you are giving formal arguments (i.e. proofs) and when you are just giving informal discussion.

One way is to list the main theorem early and state that you intend to prove it. You can precede this with some of your supporting lemmas (with proof, perhaps) and follow it with others. You can then show how the lemmas fit together to prove the theorem if needed.

But, I think, that a sequence of lemmas with no reveal about why you are stating and proving them followed by the theorem statement isn't very compelling reading.

Organize it so that your reader wants to read it and so that the purpose of each supporting piece is clear.

Sometimes the lemmas have independent interest. But sometimes the technique of the proof is much more interesting than the statement of any theorem. Take that into consideration.

You don't want your readers constantly asking themselves "What is the point of this?".


Mentioning that a part of the thesis was done at another university in my PhD thesis While working on my thesis, and for about a month, I did some simulation studies on another university with the supervision of another professor. I want to mention this at the begining of the section where the results of this study are reported. How do I properly acknowledge this?

A simple statement such as "This study was carried out at X University under the supervision of Professor A" would probably suffice, but check with your supervisor in case there are any local regulations that you have to follow.

For example, my university requires every PhD thesis to have a "declaration" statement after the abstract, in which you list things like funding sources, collaborators and any publications resulting from your research. Your university may require something similar, in which case you would put this statement there.


What does it mean if a professor does not respond to an email about research in a week I emailed a professor a week ago about any potential undergraduate opportunities he might have in his research lab. I have not yet gotten a response. Is this normal? the end of my email went like this, was I too pushy or was I not explicit enough with my question? would it be rude to send another email asking again? thanks for any comments

  I would appreciate the chance to talk with you about any possible
  undergraduate opportunities you are currently offering for the Spring
  2016 semester or Fall 2016 semester. I understand you are very busy.
  We could schedule an appointment or I can drop by your office when you
  are available. Please let me know if there is any other information I
  can provide. Thank you, (my name)

This is very common. I am a doctoral student and my advisor is the director of department. Sometimes, it took him two weeks respond my email. You can send him/her again with a friendly reminder as start or you can stop by his/her office. The latter one is what I usually do.


How can I ensure that my software is correctly cited? I have the following situation.

I have published a paper and in order to get and analyse the results for my research I created some software. I want to make my software open-source, so that anyone can do research with it and change/improve it for their purposes.

But I would like people to cite my paper if they are going to publish anything using my software. So if someone is just using it for fun, I do not care, but if someone modified it and used his modified version to collect/analyse the results, which he publishes in any paper, I want him to cite the paper I have wrote.

Is there an appropriate software license or other means for this purpose?

You could try adapting one of the existing open source licences, with help from your university's Legal IP team.  But a software licence is the wrong tool for the job.

One way to do it, is to write a methodology paper. That's the paper that then gets cited by anyone using your code, or an adapted version of your code, to produce material for subsequent papers.

As the paper you published was just about the results you got from the software, I've got some bad news and some good news for you.

The bad news is that you've got to write another paper.

The good news is that this new paper will use work that you've already done. It will be a methodology paper where you describe the software in detail, providing the source as supplementary information. And that's what will get cited, by those who use your software.

You can also include something such as a bibtex file in with the distribution of your software, to make citation easier: the more you can do to reduce hurdles to citation, the more chance you've got of getting those citations. Once you've got the above paper written, the bibtex file should describe that paper. And before then, you can do what the R-project does:

  To cite R in publications, use

 @Manual{,
   title        = {R: A Language and Environment for Statistical
                   Computing},
   author       = {{R Core Team}},
   organization = {R Foundation for Statistical Computing},
   address      = {Vienna, Austria},
   year         = 2013,
   url          = {http://www.R-project.org}
 }

  Citation strings (or BibTeX entries) for R and R packages can also be obtained by citation().


Will you be expelled if you commit a crime as a student in the UK? I initially thought this was off-topic but StrongBad told me this is not, so thank you.

A friend of mine has been a victim of fraud by someone at an university. This was investigated by the police and will almost certainly lead to a conviction and probably a prison sentence. My question is do universities (automatically?) expel people for committing criminal offenses whilst a student?

The specific University in question here is Cambridge.

I am aware of no University that automatically does anything. That said, most Universities, have policies in place to protect their reputation. At Cambridge, both Christ's College and Griton College have almost identical policies which makes me think there is an underlying university policy that I cannot easily find. To quote Griton's policy:

  Additionally, the University has a number of sanctions for behaviour impinging on the image of the University, while the most serious breaches, including all criminal behaviour, will be referred to the local police.

Basically, Universities should be reporting any criminal activity to the local authorities. They also have the right to follow their own policies, of which expulsion is a possibility. Universities like to protect their images (e.g., the recent sex offence scandals in the US). So what the University will do may depend on if the victim of the crime was another student and how vocal the sides are.


Using Titles in Germany? I was wondering what is the correct use of titles in Germany as I am so confused by it all.

My English title is: Mr X HNCert, CertHe, FdSc, AMRSB, Mem.R.E.S, FIScT, FSABM.

Would my German Title be: Herr Bakk. rer. nat. mult. X HNCert, CertHe, FdSc, AMRSB, Mem.R.E.S, FIScT, FSAMB

I am going to work for six months in Germany and was wondering of the correct way to do things. S

Actually, these are not titles.

The only academic titles that are used in Germany in writing or conversation are Dr. (also Dr.-Ing.) and Prof. (sometimes MSc and more rarely BSc and also there has been Dipl. which, of course, is still in use).

No one would ever use certificates or memberships in their name. This would look extremely strange in Germany. Also, one usually does not introduce yourself as "Dr. X" or "Prof. X" (you may want to use these on letters or emails signatures, though).


How to properly format and write a department/office/lab/subsection of a university? How would one properly format a department/office/lab/subsection of a university? If say I work in Lab X of University Y, should I format it like this?
Lab X, University Y
or
University Y, Lab X? Or something else?

In the context of describing affiliations of different authors on a paper "Department name, Faculty Name (optional), Institution name" is common. For example, see this paper:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1609.06958.pdf


Recommendation Letter: How to properly mention the grade and the rank of a student in multiple courses? I am writing a letter of recommendation for my student as he is applying for a master's degree to study in the UK. The GUIDANCE FOR REFEREES states that I should mention the grades of the applicant in the courses I taught him, as well as his rank in each one in comparison with other students (i.e., with how many students am I comparing the applicant?). If fact, I taught him five courses, and I need an example of how to properly state the required information without repeating the same sentence multiple times.

X attended with me class A (grade A), class B (grade B), [...] and class
E (grade E).

Or your preferred variation of the above. However, you can also repeat the grade statement several times, possibly adding for each class details about the student's participation.


Can an algorithm tested only on artificial data be accepted in a high rank conference? I devised a classification algorithm which is useful for specific complicated distribution of classes of data. The method works good on the artificial data which cannot be solved by typical algorithms in the literature. But yet i couldn't find any real data to evaluate the algorithm on real problems.
Also there is mathematical support for the basis of the approach and the way it works.
So i was wondering if an algorithm with good mathematical support but no evaluation on real data has any chance to get accepted in computer science conferences like SDM or CVPR?

But yet i couldn't find any real data to evaluate the algorithm on real problems.

There exist a good site on benchmark datasets in machine learning,  uci machine learning repository that you can use these datasets as well as the artificial tested data.

  So i was wondering if an algorithm with good mathematical support but no evaluation on real data has any chance to get accepted in computer science conferences like SDM or CVPR?

The answer is yes if your approach is backed by theoretical support. On validation of attained results, you should provide intuition about how your proposed approach works on a class of problems via the theoretical results if you have such ones'.


How does one remain focused while studying for the GRE? The program that I want to apply to isn't accepting students until next year, so that gives me plenty of time to study for the GRE. However, I also want to take it as soon as possible because 1.) As far as I know, they're only offering at home testing until Sept. 30, and I'm way too OCD to take the test in person, even if everyone is wearing a mask. (I have a phobia of germs as it is, and I've become completely paranoid since the pandemic.)  I also want to "get it over with" already because it's a source of anxiety. However, I want to get the best score possible, and I've set my goal as a top 10% verbal score and a math score sufficient for the program not to reject me due to a low score... (I'm applying to a humanities field with virtually no math involved.)
After a week of intense focus (studying most of the day), I've been distracted for the past couple of days with ruminations, and I'd like advice as to how get back on track. How does one stay focused while studying for the GRE?
Also, what is a realistic time frame to study? If I set a date in mid or late Sept., would that be too soon to achieve my goals? (A top 10% verbal score/decent math score [I don't have a number in mind for math])
*question edited to delete my specific ruminations

A few things that helped me
Pomodoro Technique - Study for 25 minutes with a 5-minute break in-between.  After 4 Pomodoros, give yourself a longer break.
Timeboxing - Limit your study time to specific times of the day, like 9-4 with a lunch break.  This will train your brain to expect to focus during the time-window, then do other things after.  Combine this with the Pomodoro Technique to best utilize your time.
Retake a practice test at the end of each week - This will both get you as familiar with the test as possible, and let you take a snapshot of your progress.  This snapshot should happen during your timebox.  Arrange to take the test during this timebox as well.
Take at least 1 day off a week - Be sure to give yourself at least 1 day off a week where you do not study or do work.
See a therapist - Studying for the GRE and applying to grad schools is stressful.  It may help to deal with your ruminations so they won't be as distracting.  They may also be able to teach you how to manage stress and time better.
It sounds like you may have burned out studying in one week.  Take a day off.  Tomorrow regroup and try at least some of these suggestions.  You'll likely need to play with the times suggested, but they are a good place to start.
Finally, remember that a few hours of focused, uninterrupted time is better than a day filled with interruptions and poor planning.  Make sure you're getting quality study time, then look at increasing the quantity.


When can/can't I upload full-text to researchgate? I just joined research gate (finished PhD in December - published 3 papers early this year) and as soon as I made an account, it shows that someone requested full text of one of my papers 20 weeks ago.

Am I allowed to just upload the .pdf? What are the rules there and how will I know if/when it is appropriate?

This is entirely dependent on the policy of the publishers - there is no single general rule. For example:

Cambridge: no (but you can upload the submitted version)
Elsevier: possibly share the manuscript, but not the final PDF
Springer: accepted manuscript only

You can see most journal policies through the SHERPA/Romeo site. Note that some (eg Cambridge) have explicitly different policies for institutional or subject repositories versus commercial sites like ResearchGate.

The big exception is if your paper was published open access with a Creative Commons license or similar, either through an all-OA journal such as PLoS ONE or through a 'hybrid' OA option. In this case, you can repost it anywhere you want without permission.


Showing research experience in graduate applications As an undergraduate, I have heard this term a lot. I have not graduated but will graduate soon.

When applying to graduate programs, research experience is what everyone tells.

Research Experience is used rather recklessly. Many students, even if they had to just type in data for professors/researchers, check some test tubes in laboratory or whatever depending on discipline mention they had research experience.

Last year, I had an internship at a renowned research organisation. The only thing they do is research and development. As an intern, I did not specifically join saying, I wanted a "Research Experience". I were involved in their project which was a research project. My task consisted of API development, working with Matlab and various stuff important for the project.

Yet, I did not come up with something new. Well, they did.

So, this is far better than what many students mention as research experience. But, is it worth calling this a research experience in my CV or applications? Shall I call this reaserch?

Making the question specific, what does a "Standard Research Experience" consist of? When graduate schools say undergraduate research experience, what kind of activities are they expected to have been involved in?

You're expected to describe research experience. It sounds like you've had some. You should describe it in your application. Talk about what role you had, what sort of things you actually did ("various stuff important for the project" and "working with Matlab" aren't very good descriptions). What was your role? Did you make decisions or did you just assist? What sort of products did you produce and what skills did those products require? How did you solve problems you encountered?

The idea behind these application questions is to try to differentiate people with no experience from some minimal experience (cleaning instruments in a lab and feeding rats) to moderate experience (sounds like what you have) and people who engaged in truly independent research (which is pretty rare, depending on where you did your bachelor degree and in what field). Be honest and detailed, that's all that's expected. Of course people will play up what they did, but if you made substantive contributions that demonstrate your abilities and experience, that will show through in your write-up.


How to teach multiple levels of French? I am a 5/6 and 7/8 split French teacher with students ranging from anglophone, all the way to francophone.

I am having difficulty finding ways to make lessons that will include the whole class, and I feel like I'm either way above the level, or way below the level of half of my class.

Does anyone have any techniques that may be of use to me? All suggestions are very appreciated!

I suggest studying the techniques used in one-room schools.

The idea is not to even try to teach one lesson to the whole class. Instead, you get small groups doing work appropriate to their level, while moving around and giving instruction to groups as needed. Generally, the younger students will need the most attention.

For example, you could set a group of the most advanced students to first translate a passage individually, and then discuss, in French, the differences between their translations. If they disagree about a translation and cannot resolve it themselves, they will need your help for a few minutes. Gradually make the passages more difficult, so they go on learning. Periodically, explain an advanced point of French grammar or usage, and then set passages to translate in each direction using it. You can tell them to use the new structure when translating to French.

You can also use more advanced students to help teach. Trying to explain e.g. a tricky point of grammar can be a good way of clarifying it in one's own mind.

Meanwhile, you can be working with the beginners, who will need more direct instruction.


How do postdoc proposal and PhD proposal differ? I am particularly interested in postdoc proposals in the social sciences and in the humanities. In these fields, the applicant usually has a thesis manuscript that they want to turn into a book or a few articles or both. This task requires revisions; it may also require some additional research, if the manuscript is to be substantially augmented.

Since it is mostly (say 75% for a one-year postdoc) about extending and revising an existing manuscript, there seems to be a large overlap between the dissertation exposé and the postdoc proposal. How to avoid a proposal that is overly «backward-looking», i.e. that mostly repeats the PhD thesis? Since some kind of summary is probably necessary, what is a good ratio between the summary and the description of the proposed future work? Finally, how does a PhD exposé – which typically explains the state of the art, the research puzzle, then the methods and hypotheses – differ from a postdoc proposal in terms of its structure?

It seems obvious that while some forward-looking ideas may have been included in the thesis and defense, a proposal to develop them should have much more than just a concept -- timelines, deliverable milestones, cost of equipment (for physical sciences and engineering) or travel or payments for volunteer research subjects, what approach to publication will be used, etc.  In short, mostly the same things that go into a grant proposal.

On the other hand, the methods of the thesis are not so important and should be condensed to an executive summary.  The only part that should really be common is the proof that an important problems is addressed -- if the resulting book will have no impact, there is no point funding the effort to finish it.

Disclaimer: I'm neither a social scientist nor in a postdoc.  But I do know what my employer would ask me to prepare in a proposal for funding for elaborating my dissertation.


How can I remove a verified google-scholar account? I have moved to another university and created a new google scholar account here. However, my old account which was verified with the academic email address of the former university still shows up. I am no longer at my old university so I CAN'T LOGIN to that old account in order to delete it. I tried to remove that verified google scholar, but I could not. I also contacted google scholar via google scholar support email, that is ‘scholar-support@google.com’ but nobody answered me.

So, I'm wondering how to delete that old account?

Deletion of the entire linked Google account worked in my case.

I used to have a Google Scholar profile through a Google account at a corporation but when they (unwillingly) deleted my account, the Google Scholar automatically got deleted. Considering Google did not get back to you, it might be worthwhile to get in touch with your old university to see if they could permanently delete your account.


How to survey recommended course readings? I am interested in analysing the selection and distribution of course readings given to students of middle eastern studies in universities internationally.

By course readings I am referring to subject bibliographies given to students as background reading to accompany lectures, etc. I suspect this would be difficult to investigate, since most course readers are not available online.

Does anyone know of lists, bibliographies, methods or other resources which may help to conduct such a survey of course readings?

This is indeed a tricky task, as you are quite correct, many universities won't necessarily publish online and there are scant compilations for course readings specifically.

However, having said that, I found this Middle Eastern Teaching tools link list from the University of Portland and this compilation by a Dr. Alan Godlas.

At the bottom of the 2nd link is information regarding listserv's which may be of help.


Resources for students designing surveys? Somewhat similar to this question, but looking for resources (books/articles, etc) for undergrad students who are not very familiar with designing effective surveys, (for example, one student is creating a survey in SurveyMonkey to evaluate nurses' attitudes toward their work). I'm looking for a resource to help my students develop survey questions that will return meaningful, non-biases responses.

Note: this is in the social sciences, but would welcome resources that will be helpful to undergrads in any field.

What they need is proper training in survey design and analysis. Let's say, around 80 hours of teaching and then a lot of practical work, assuming they've already got a basic stats grounding.

It's a serious technical skill, and you won't do them any favours if you don't treat it as seriously as any other tool they might use.

One option might be to work with a colleague who does teach survey design and analysis. They may well have students who are looking for some material on which to practice their new skills. Perhaps your colleague can set for them, as homework, the task of working with one of your students on the survey design. That way, your students get to introduce their students to their subject (learning by teaching), and they get to see survey science done reasonably well (assuming your colleague has taught them well).

Just because survey design looks easy and online tools enable any fool to do it, doesn't mean that any fool should do it.

A complaint about "giving them a well when they only need a drink", doesn't hold water. How could any teacher encourage their students to do bad science, or cultivate a contempt for other experts' fields?
(are they physicists?)


What is the impact factor of EPJ Web of Conference? The journal EPJ Web of Conference is indexed in many databases: DOAJ, EBSCO, CAS, SCOPUS, etc., but I cannot find its impact factor. Does anyone know it?

According to their Homepage this journal is supposed to be listed in Clarivate Analytics' Databases, Web of Science and Journal Citation Reports, but I cannot find it there. The are some EPJ Journals indexed in WoS. The one you are looking for is apparently not. The only EPJ journal indexed in the JCR is EPJ Data Science by SpringerOpen. As EPJ Web of Conferences seems not to be indexed in the JCR at the moment, it should not have an Impact Factor.


When is it okay to ask your advisor solution to a technical problem? For example, if (hypothetically speaking) I am stuck on proving a theorem, is it okay to ask my academic advisor some help for next step? My approach has been, "this is what I have tried, I am stuck here...can you point out how I can continue". But the amount of time that it takes the professor to reply is stressing me out, I am afraid that he is getting exasperated at my question.

What makes thing a bit worse is that the prof says flat out he likes people who are able to solve problems independently. But he also has a reputation of being a fast replier to student emails regarding problems arising in his course. I wonder what he expects of me.

So what is considered appropriate to ask your advisor without pushing him to the limit of having to solve the problem himself. Ultimately I am worried about looking totally incompetent. Is there some way for me to not appear totally incompetent?

Your approach to asking -- "this is what I have tried, I am stuck here...can you point out how I can continue?" -- is the right one. Without knowing how difficult of a problem you have gotten stuck on, and how often you ask for help, it is very hard for us to judge how your advisor will interpret your request.

That said, in general I very much appreciate it when my graduate students and postdocs let me know when they get stuck on some step of a research project. My students and I are collaborators after all, and if I can help them get going again, or alternatively if I can recognize that we've been heading down a dead-end, this is very much to everyone's benefit.

Of course, they should not be coming to me with trivial problems: "I can't get this expression to format properly in LaTeX" or "I don't know how to compute the Jacobian matrix for this function", nor would I want to get these requests on a daily basis. But if a competent student has made a serious effort to solve a problem and is still stuck, I'd like to know about it and to help if at all possible.