How to deal with hostility from administrators when starting a new postdoc position? I applied for a postdoc at a lab in the US as I really liked
the work of that lab.
I had the initial interview with the professor and then with the lab members.
All went well and the professor welcomed me to join the lab.
When the administrative part started, things got very strange quickly:

The prof put me in touch with his lab manager, and then, casually mentioned that the university has a covid-related hiring freeze...but that it might be OK since I have a scholarship/bring my own money (which I do). It was however only then that I learned about the hiring freeze.

The lab manager (quite unfriendly) told me that given that I have my own funding I will be only considered a "visiting postdoc" and would not receive benefits. When I asked about more details, she told me to "google".

I then got invited to a zoom meeting to clarify some other points about a document I had handed to admin. First of all the mail suggested that it was me, prof and one admin person.
Against my expectations 6 or 7 people joined and it felt like a cross-examination.
In addition, the meeting turned out to not be about said document at all (they even said that that document was fine??). First, they told me that my scholarship can't be below their minimal level. Then they told me that I would not be allowed to collaborate with another college during this time. Then they asked all kinds of further questions like: If you are really an engineer, why was the department you were at before the department of chemistry? When I said that yes I was an engineer, the admin person said "OK I will have to google to check if this chemistry department really hires engineers" - i.e. she made it clear that they don't believe me....?

I asked them about the terms and conditions for "visiting postdocs", they said there are none (???). That is, I have no clue about what rights, benefits etc. I would have when joining the lab.

The prof seemed to side with admin, though he told me to call him after this cross-examination-style meeting. There he said that it is strange for him as well that admin does not allow for collabs (and he would not mind if I would collab but we should keep it under wraps) and mentioned that he would make up for it if my salary should be below the minimum. But, although he had previously
mentioned that he would make sure that I would not be just a "visiting postdoc", he now seemed to have changed his mind.
This entire process was so hostile, I still can't believe it. I invested a lot of energy trying to get this job, but then having to fully commit without being considered a full employe..? I feel like the prof was not fully transparent.. though I really like the work of his lab and it could be great for my career.
And by the way, the place I was before was Stanford, so I am not coming from some (supposedly) random university.
Is this usual behavior, and how could I deal with this most constructively?

Is this usual behavior

Short answer: no.
Longer answer: I have heard many stories of bad workplaces, both in academia and beyond. Even at good workplaces one occasionally encounters weird, rude, and borderline exploitative practices and staff/employer attitudes. So perhaps it’s not entirely accurate to say it’s not usual. But by and large, the situation that you describe does not sound good or normal. Self-respecting, respectable US institutions will generally go to great lengths to make their postdocs feel welcome, and will have an orderly, transparent hiring and onboarding process, clear policies, and staff that will communicate those policies to you upon request (even if not always in the most friendly or efficient manner). That’s quite a contrast with what you are describing.

and how could I deal with this most constructively?

Since you bring your own scholarship and generally sound like you are an attractive hire (and someone who has the self-confidence to not be shy about being one) I would guess that you have a fair amount of leverage in this situation, and will assume in this answer that that is the case - specifically, that you have a reasonable likelihood of finding alternate employment quickly if the current offer does not pan out. You need to put that leverage to use. The key is to make the professor/mentor-to-be aware that there is a minimum level of treatment that you are expecting from him and his department, and that should he fail to offer you credible assurance that you will be receiving that minimum, you have other options and will go elsewhere.
To put it bluntly (although in your communication with the professor you will want to be less blunt), you need to make a credible threat about withdrawing your acceptance of the offer to join the professor’s lab, assuming you’ve already accepted, or about not accepting if you haven’t yet.
In preparation for bringing this up, there are two crucial pieces of information you will need to know:

What are your options? Do you have other places you could quickly arrange to give you offers? Given that you have your own scholarship, I am hoping the answer is yes. But do your homework and explore this at least informally, by sending out feeler emails etc.

What are your minimum expectations from the current professor and his lab? That’s a personal question you’ll have to ask yourself and answer - it may include things like health benefits, a written contract or reference to a set of institutional policies governing your type of position, a conversion of the “visiting postdoc” to a title more commensurate with your qualifications, or similar things.

Once you know the answer to the above questions, ask to have a video meeting with the professor and politely bring up your concerns. Be tactful, and make sure to mention all the positive things that make you want to join his lab rather than someone else’s, but also make it clear to him that your concerns are serious enough that you can and likely will withdraw your agreement to join his lab if he does not take them seriously.
I mentioned the threat to bail out needs to be credible. That means it would be good to mention any specific facts at your disposal to make it seem like you have the ability to act on the threat (again, I am using blunt language - I trust that you can phrase it more diplomatically in the actual conversation). For example, you can mention names of specific places where you have a pending offer or promise of one, or at least adopt an attitude that signals your confidence that you can get another offer easily because you have your own funding.
Finally, part of making the threat credible is that you need to be mentally willing to act on it in the scenario where the conditions you are setting are not met. If you think you’re not willing, the approach I am proposing may not be right for you.
Good luck! I hope things work out. But cover your bases and be prepared for the possibility they may not. Honestly, this behavior does not sound normal, and should not (in an ideal world at least) be an acceptable way to treat people.


I was a rapporteur of the main session of an intergovernmental forum, should I add the final report as a publication in my CV? I was an intern at an intergovernmental organization, during an international forum I reported the first and main panel, should I add the final report in my CV as a publication?
The final report's bibliography has: the organization's name, date, forum name. Within the report there is the list of the editors and then the rapporteurs were my name is listed. However, as I did not participate to edit the report I hesitate to add it. What do you think?

You should ask the organization specifically what is appropriate. It might be fine, but I know of other such international collaborations in which it is specifically forbidden to claim authorship. The work is attributed to the committee as a whole, by name.

An additional reason for not doing this is the question as to whether it is a creative work on your part. I can't judge, of course, but it seems unlikely.

You can, of course, include your participation elsewhere in the CV.


What is PhD Level research? I am an undergraduate student, and I am trying to learn more about the PhD process. Based on speaking to my colleagues and research including reading many thesis the process is as follows:

Apply to a school
Get accepted
Work with your group of advisers to determine a PhD topic and course (that may or may not just ba a professor's project)
Do the research
Write a thesis
Defend thesis
Get PhD

(If I am wrong on anything above please correct me)

I am still fuzzy on what constitutes an acceptable PhD topic, most sources I found quoted the same thing:

  Independent research on an original topic.

Can someone break that down for me? (I am mostly interested in the US context for Engineering/STEM fields)

It seems that incremental improvements in methodology are ok, does research need to be groundbreaking? or are you just demonstrating you can do "PhD level" research?

In the social and physical sciences, doctoral level research solves a problem that has never been solved before.  In engineering and applied social sciences such as counseling psychology, it extends the frontiers of how to construct something.

The difference between an undergraduate and a masters degree is that an undergraduate degree is sort of a technician's degree.  It is just enough information to be able to claim a very basic level of expertise in some field.  A person with a master's degree is able to teach undergraduate courses and does not usually need supervision.  That person is a master in their field.  Their research shows that they have sufficient technical expertise that they should generally be able to operate alone.

At a doctoral level, the goal is to change the understanding of some phenomenon by showing that what we thought we knew was wrong.  It is important to understand that while undergraduate degrees are earned, graduate degrees are awarded.  Passing all of your doctoral coursework is not sufficient to be awarded a degree.

A committee is formed with a few people from outside the department to be sure that the degree is being validly processed and to provide insight from other disciplines.  That committee reviews the work.  My doctoral dissertation was around 400 pages with appendices and solved a fundamental problem in multiple disciplines.  John Nash's dissertation was four pages.  It included the title page and the references.  They were such an amazing four pages that he won the Nobel prize for it.  Mine was so long because I had to nail down all possible opposing points of view as it was a controversial topic.  I had to not only show I was correct, but that the various existing methodologies could not be correct.  As the number of tools thrown at the problem was very large, I had a very large number of groups to answer both theoretically and empirically.

You are to be the world expert on your specific topic.  You are teaching your professors how the world really works.  When you pass them, then you are a doctor.  I have a friend who is showing how certain chemical processes work on another planet.  Just think for a second how hard that research is to get approved and to do.

You have to identify an original topic and convince your advisor that it can be done in a reasonable amount of time.  Do note though that if you do not complete your research, then you do not graduate.  Unlike an undergraduate degree, nobody knows if or when a doctoral student will graduate.  You can be the best student in the program and not graduate.  The role of the advisor is to do their best to prevent sure failures.  This is why you often work in the lab on projects they are already working on.  They have a pretty good idea that it will work out eventually.

Of course, they don't know how it will work out or if it will work out, but their familiarity with the topic gives them a feel for the probability of failure.  You need to choose a program based on who is doing the type of research you are interested in.  If you have a chance to go to the number one program in the country, but the research is not what you are interested in, or the number eighty-three program in the country, but the research is what you want to do, then pick number eighty-three.  That is your number one.

It doesn't have to be groundbreaking, but it does need to be unsolved.


Is looking up the source of tests and using those to practice considered cheating? The question (Is studying past exams I found online cheating?) was sort of relevant but did not answer my question, so please do not mark this question as a duplicate:

Onto my dilemma:

I recently had a raw score 20 points higher than my classmates and was suspected of cheating. I scored almost perfect while others only got around 60-75. I actually found the test beforehand (coincidentally) because my teacher passes back old tests and quizzes (and his sources are obvious). I sought online materials because the textbook and the practice problems are utterly inadequate for relatively difficult exams. I know it gives me an advantage, but couldn't everyone just do what I did? Don't I have the right to study things that are openly accessible on the web and use that to my advantage? It's not like I hacked a school server to access materials.. I literally just found it by using some google search 'hacks' like verbatim, quotes, filetype, etc. I ended up not getting a score for that test, but did the teacher really have to do that? I didn't even copy the test word-for-word. I knew how to do most of it and just used it to make sure that I knew what I was doing. I am currently under a lot of backlash due to this incident and am trying to justify my standing. What are your thoughts and what prevents me from using those sources?

Clarification: it was not even the teacher's own test.

No, that is not cheating as the comments point out. You have invested time looking for material to practise and come across some. However, if you had to “hack” a system to get the test that is a different case.... :)

The “cheating” or , at least poor practice is from the teacher just taking and using verbatim a test from somewhere - editing, changing questions, changing numbers is often done to make a new or suitable version.

Using a test from somewhere else may be ok, but all the questions need to be checked : vocabulary, level etc before use and adjusted as necessary.


UK Postgraduate student loans for 2016-2017 intake The UK government announced that from 2016-2017 student loans for masters degree will be available up to a value of £10000.

I will complete a masters degree in August this year and I intend to do another masters degree starting in October this year.

Will I be eligible for these new student loans?

Or will only people who are doing their first masters be eligible?

The UK rules on student loans are described here.
Basically, it says that those doing their second masters are not eligible.


Completing requirements for PhD programs years after undergraduate degree A few years ago I received a Bachelor's in Computer Science and I'm planning to return to school as a non-degree student. I'd like to complete prerequisite courses for a PhD program in Mathematics including supplemental graduate level math courses. As a non-degree student I would complete core courses such as abstract algebra, analysis, linear algebra, and topology. Additionally I would take the general GRE with the math subject test, and work towards letters of recommendation. How effective is the completion of prerequisites outside of an undergraduate to satisfy admission requirements for a PhD program?

There isn't any issue about time (or age, in most places). If you attend an accredited university for your coursework and get grades like any other student then you should be fine, provided that they will provide a transcript of what you have done when you apply later to a degree program.
But doing online courses or unaccredited work is much chancier and you would then need some other way to assure the new institution that you have the required background.
But ask the registrar of the place where you will take courses about such things (grades, transcripts) to be sure.
It is also very advantageous if you make a positive impression on the faculty giving those courses, since your original professors may not remember much about you and you will want letters of recommendation.


Reviewers decision: Summary rejects typically do not receive technical feedback I would like to know what does this imply "Summary rejects typically do not receive technical feedback". Is that mean that work has a flaw?

"Summary" here is used in the sense of "performed speedily and without formal ceremony" (see Wiktionary, adjective definition 2).

They have concluded that the paper is clearly not suitable for publication in this journal / conference, and so they are rejecting it without a full review.  In such a case you will not receive detailed technical feedback about the work.

Some possible reasons:

The work is on a topic not covered by the conference
The importance or interest of the result is much less than what the conference normally expects
The work has major obvious technical flaws
The paper is extremely poorly written or incomprehensible
Your paper doesn't conform to the conference's submission requirements  (e.g. formatting, page count, double-blinding)

It would be wise to have a colleague in your field look at the paper before trying to resubmit somewhere else.


Why do some journals have anonymous editors? By way of background, there are journals in which the editor - as in, the person who contacts referees, guides the review process, and makes a decision is unknown to the corresponding author. Communication with the author is solely through a named, administrative editor who does not have any decision making authority, and is merely a conduit for the editor's decisions.

What could be the rationale for such a system? Of course, one can understand the importance of referee anonymity so they can comment freely on the merits of a submission. However why should editors remain behind a veil of anonymity?

Thanks.

However why should editors remain behind a veil of anonymity?

My educated guess is that these are the same reasons why peer-reviewers are anonymous:

An editor has to make potentially unpopular decisions, beginning with deciding about desk rejection over selecting the reviewers to making the final decision.
In fact, the editor usually has more power than a single reviewer.
These decisions should be made without fear of repercussions and similar, and editors do not want to pestered about negative decisions outside the journal’s channels.

By the way, all journals that I know to follow such a policy (which are almost all I know) also stop anonymising the editor in case of a positive decision, i.e., the acceptance is usually sent in the editor’s name and thus tells you who handled your paper.


Should I accept invitation to be an external examiner for a PhD? I have been invited to be an external examiner for a Ph.D. in electronic engineering at a UK University.

I work in the Electronics industry in a research role, regularly competing for external research funding with academics and sometimes collaborating with them too (including 2 or 3 of the academics in the department from which I have received the invitation).

I have not studied for a Ph.D., but feel I keep up to date with research on the topics in question.  I review papers for IEEE journals and have some professional recognition.

The Ph.D. has been sponsored by my employer and I believe that a colleague has been the industrial supervisor.  I have not met the candidate.  I don't feel that any of this creates a conflict of interest.

Am I qualified to take this role?  How much work will it involve?

Since you do not have a PhD degree, you should check to see if the university's regulations will allow you to serve. The University of Nottingham's regulations state:

  However, it will be appropriate in some cases for Schools to nominate individuals from other suitable environments provided that those individuals are experts in the field of the student's topic of research and hold a professional status which is equivalent to a University Professor, Reader, Lecturer or teacher.

You should check if your experience allows you to serve as a reader. You wouldn't want to get involved and then find out it doesn't count for procedural reasons.

Otherwise, if you'd like to do it, there's no reason why you shouldn't!


What is freshman undergraduate engineering enrollment in total nationwide in the US? What is freshman undergraduate engineering enrollment in total nationwide in the US in three most recent years?

I mean the number in total from in every discipline of engineering field.

According to the National Science Foundation's report "Science and Engineering Indicators 2016", as of 2013, there were 124,437 full-time freshmen enrolled in engineering programs.  See Appendix Table 2-21, which also includes data from past years.  Their source is "American Association of Engineering Societies, Engineering Workforce Commission, Engineering & Technology Enrollments, Fall 2013 (2014)."  AAES doesn't appear to have any more recent data available.


Should I include a letter of recommendation in my dossier for teaching positions? I'm a full professor in a US STEM field about to go on the job market for teaching professorships because of a terminal financial emergency at my current institution (a liberal arts college). I am fortunate to have worked with someone very well-known and respected in my field, especially for his contributions to education. When I went up for promotion to full professor, he wrote a strong letter of support, which he was kind enough to share with me.
Would it be better for me to include the letter in my applications or to just list him as a reference? He is fine with me doing either.
(Technically, I'm not applying for a specific position right now. Faculty at my institution have been invited to submit a CV, teaching statement, and research statement to a neighboring R1 institution in better financial shape. I am also planning to create an online dossier, which I will reference in my statements and will share with people I know at other nearby institutions.)

I take it this is in the United States.  In that case, letters are never provided by the applicant.  A list of references would be provided by the applicant.


How should I deal with a professor whose weak language proficiency is disturbing our paper's writing quality? I am a first year PhD Student, writing a conference paper with an Italian Professor, very senior and renowned in our field. Every commit he makes to the SVN is riddled with spelling and grammar errors. I have been fixing the errors and also trying to improve the expression but I have this impression he is not very happy about me doing it. (Maybe something to do with him having dozens of publications and me having a total of Zero)

On occasion, he actually reverted my changes to stick with his wrong or inferior-quality expression. How to deal with this? I would hate to see this paper go with an inferior quality language when I could have improved it.

As a French native speaker whose English was gradually improved over the years, I've been on both sides of this kind of situation, and there are different aspects to consider:

If your collaborator does not like you fixing typos, then there is a real problem;
It is usually accepted that papers are not written in British-English, nor in American-English, but in Global-English, and being a native English speaker yourself might not be strict advantage. If your collaborator has successfully managed to publish dozens of papers, then either his style is somehow accepted, or all his papers have been written by others, in which case he wouldn't mind letting you write the paper in your own style;
The style of an author is personal, and changing it can be seen as touching the ownership of the text, and can also be seen as offensive, especially when the gain of the modification is not immediately perceived (which might be the case for non native speaker, a "better" expression does not necessarily strike as an improvement). This is particularly true if you only change one expression: if you were to rewrite an entire paragraph, to change to some extent the content, it would probably be easier, since you've clearly improved the text.
At least for me, there is a clear notion of trust of people I'm working with. There are some people I completely trust, and I don't care a second if they modify my text, but I would be reluctant to see my text modified by someone I just started working with, especially if it's only for cosmetic purposes, like picking the best expression or word when the original one is understandable/correct, or changing a notation, or reformatting the paper, etc. I'm not saying I would be against, but I would need to understand and agree with the gain. In my opinion, this is mostly a notion of trust rather than seniority.

In summary, let it slide, as long as it does not impact the overall clarity of the paper, especially in the first stages of the paper (some expressions you don't like might disappear naturally after a while, replaced by new content).


Should I decline to fill out a recommendation form after saying that I will do it? I received an email from a student today. The email said that she was applying to a program, and that she needed her professors to fill out a recommendation form. She added that it shouldn't take long, because it should be easy to fill out. The deadline is exactly a week from today.

I am currently away from my institution, and will not return until her deadline, so this already puts me in a tight spot. She was also a weak student, maybe in the top half, but by no means a memorable one.

So I replied very quickly to her email (within 30 minutes of receiving her email), telling her that 1) if it's just the form, I can do it in a week; 2) if she needs a letter, I cannot write her a good letter within a week; and 3) overall, although if she insists I will do the job, she is advised to ask someone else for a letter.

She responded in a half-sentence, saying "it's just the form" So I asked her to send me her CV, transcript, and any relevant application materials. She has not responded yet.

I made a mistake here, though, because I was so busy that I did not open her attachment, thinking that if it's just a form, it should be easy to fill out. Now that I opened the form, I realized that I have seen this form before. I have already filled out this form for another student, and furthermore, I have written a detailed letter for her, because the form has an "additional comments" section that is very short (that I assumed had to be interpreted as a recommendation letter). I even asked about this letter here:
Should I write that a student is a feminist in my recommendation letter?

So now I am facing some tough choices.

Should I still agree to just fill out the form for her? Given that I have already written a strong letter of support for another student on top of the recommendation form, this will be a death sentence to this other student's application since her grades on the form will be lower, and she will not have a letter to supplement it (however, the first student is a lot stronger in every dimension that I am qualified to assess them on).

I could email the student again, and tell her that because of the above reason, I cannot even fill out the form because it is too weak and that she will surely not get in.

Or, I could just do a half-assed job of writing a recommendation letter for this student as well, although the letter will have to be very generic and neutral, as I have none of her application materials, I do not remember her well, and I am also pressed for time since I am at a conference all week. Even physically sending the letter will be a pain since I do not get back until the day of the deadline.

So I am once again turning to you, hoping that I can get some quick answers (if I decline to write the letter, I had better let her know soon, so that she can find someone else). What should I do?

You seem really to be overthinking this. You're writing a recommendation -- you're not the student's full-time advocate or cheerleader. Fill in the form, send it in, be done. If you want, to mirror the structure of the other student's application, write a supplemental letter also for this one, just a paragraph or so -- shorter than what you've spent time on in your question here!

By the way: there is nothing at all wrong with having your recommendation for one student look worse than another's if you believe the former is actually worse for the program than the latter. In fact, I've often explicitly written on recommendations that A and B are both applying, and that A is stronger than B. Your job is to help provide an assessment with which the program can make a fair choice among applicants.


Writing someone else's master's thesis: Unethical and illegal? It is really difficult for me to decide on this situation: when someone calls me and asks for work-for-hire for his/her thesis. I don't know what to do. I want to help and earn money but I think this way of earning money is unethical.
I think that receiving the title of thesis and giving back prepared manuscript is the intention that some people have, when asking for their thesis to be written.
There are plenty of websites offering such services!

The question is that: Is it legal and or ethical to write someone else's master's thesis as work-for-hire?

Think about it this way: Eventually one of those people for whom you write the thesis will be working for your stockbroker and influencing your investments, or working for your doctor or a hospital and influencing your medical care, or working for your government and influencing permits and regulations, or ...

Leaving aside the potential immediate consequences for your "principal" and yourself, you would be making the world a worse place for everyone.

Does that answer your question?


How to handle ego clashes within an academic department I am a new assistant professor in my department. While all faculty members have been welcoming so far to me, I find there are two or three distinct groups or coteries within the department. The coteries are distinct and comprise set of people who wouldn't mingle with people from another coterie. It is a bit awkward for me because there are even senior professors in different sets, and I want to be affable with everyone in my department.

How do I handle this sense of discomfort? Should I talk with the Chair? But the sectoring is pretty well-known and prevalent for a long time and there is little the Chair can do about it (or so I think!)

How do academic departments handle this situation of clash of egos usually? I am sure mine is not the only place where this clash is seen.

The best advice anyone can give you, in my opinion, is: Don't get involved.

You're entering a new environment and it's in your best interests to just get along with everybody, as you already suggest you are trying.

If the issue pops up in any discussions, just avoid it. The last thing you want to do is get caught-up in a territorial dispute of which you probably don't want to know the origins, and that serves no purpose to anybody, least of all to you.

I would only advise discussing things with the Chair if these divisions start negatively affecting your work, and only discuss it in terms of how it affects your work. As you've pointed out yourself, chances are he/she can't do anything about it, or worse, he/she may be involved.

Things like this can happen even in the best departments, and the best thing that can happen in such a case is that new staff bridge whatever divide may be there by ignoring it completely.


Can an image from a paper by author A be used in a published book by author B? Generally, is it acceptable for one author to use an image, or video, from another author's paper in a book, provided that the original author is credited.

For example, I'd like to write something to the following effect.

  Jekyl & Hyde instructed a set of subjects to rate the attractiveness
  of each of the following two 3D-rendered animations of human dance.
  [VIDEO 1] [VIDEO 2]...

There are some important, and unique, images that convey information that can't be concisely described. I'm concerned that my requests to use the images might be ignored (I figure that answering a request from an unknown person from a distant university would be pretty low priority for most busy people), and that consequently, I wouldn't be able to effectively convey the author's findings to the reader.

Check what licences apply to the paper by author A. In particular, look at the top left-hand corner of the first page of the paper. If it says (c) the publisher, then you'll have to check with the publisher. If it says (c) the authors, then there's a good chance one of the creative commons licenses apply.


How to write side-note reviews on assignments without sounding testy? I'm an undergrad teaching assistant of a physic BSc student's lab. My job is reviewing the (usually 8-10 pages long) reports the students make, arriving in electronic format. During the review, I add short comments (1-2 sentences) to the document: things like "that's false because this and that", "this would've been better such and such", "you also could've check that and that", etc. The students then get their commented report back graded by the professor. Related to the course, I never meet the students in person.

The main purpose of these comments, among letting students know what they did wrong, is to help them improve their experimental skills. Observing and documenting everything reasonable, interpreting the results, thinking further, being consistent, etc. As such, there're usually a lot of comments on every student's report - usually 3-5/page - even on A-graded ones.

My concern is it's kind of hard to write even constructive comments of this kind without the possibility of sounding somewhat cantankerous. The relatively lot of "that"s bad, that's wrong/missing/false/etc" comments I make on small, but not unimportant errors set up a negative tone as is, and in this atmosphere even writing something like "that wasn't strictly in the task, but it's interesting to think about this and that" may come down as negative. I try to add as much positive comments as I can - but the simple "Good!", "Clever!", "I like the approach" kind of notes feel falsely in large amounts, especially when the student didn't really do anything outstanding, only did what he was told. Expanding them with something like "That's good work. You could also check that and that" also turns into education.

I'd like to avoid coming down too testy: it would kill the purpose, making students dismiss my comments as "nah, that guy finds error in everything". I want the students to feel that I actually want to help them, and I'm on their side. The professor - of course - told them the purpose of the reviews, but I know that when I did this same lab course (a year ago), there were still (silent) words like that about our teaching assistants.

How could I make my coments more encouraging, without sounding false?

I can see you've given some thought to balancing the negative with some positive.  That's good.  Note, you don't need to remark on every single thing they did right.

If you have a rubric, a list of elements you look for in each lab report, you may wish to put a check mark in the margin wherever you see that a required element is present.

Sometimes a student doesn't manage to get much of anything right.  In that case, it can be helpful to notice something positive about what they were trying to do, e.g. "Glad to see you caught this contradiction."
Try expressing things as questions, rather than statements.  Examples:

  Can you also check such-and-so?  How does this fit in with etc.?

One of my professors would write in my proofs, instead of "Does not follow" or "Not relevant,"

  How is this germane?

As a student, with certain graders, I was sometimes unsure whether a particular comment was positive or negative or just food for thought.  So try to avoid those misunderstandings, e.g. "Food for thought: etc." or "Enrichment idea: etc." or "Conclusion is correct; be careful to make clear the connection between…"
Be tactful — meaning, your belief that they are trying hard, and can get better with your guidance, should come through.  Example: "Watch out, need more digits here to avoid rounding error later on."
I suggest you arrange with the professor to visit the class briefly at or near the beginning of the semester, and maybe at the midpoint again, to introduce yourself and show a friendly face.  Convey to them that your job is to give them lots of specific feedback to help them improve their work.  This can help humanize things.


Is the invited author of an editorial always the first author, even if their co-author wrote the whole thing? I've recently had an experience where I wrote an editorial at the behest of a distant colleague.  He was invited to write it by a journal and asked that I do so with him (for him actually).  Is it still appropriate for him to be first author even though he did not write any of it (but he was the invited author)?

Authorship practices vary quite a bit from field to field, but except in those fields where all publications are in alphabetical order, it is expected that the first author should generally be the one who contributed most to the work.  Thus, if you wrote the bulk of the document, then normal academic practice would be for you to be the first author (I assume you are not in an "always alphabetical" field).

An invited editorial is a bit different, since the people soliciting the editorial were probably wanting to get the opinion of the person they invited.  As such, putting you as the first author may cause embarrassment to your colleague and might annoy the journal.  Your colleague should probably have checked with the journal before asking you to write the editorial, rather than trying to conceal their lack of work by claiming first authorship.

To put a person who hasn't done much work as first author, however, is dishonest and will reflect badly on you as well as your colleague.


How to overcome a much earlier academic dismissal from undergraduate program in graduate admissions? I am an international student from Korea and I have a very serious question while I am preparing for graduate school admissions.

I graduated from two years college with 2.8 GPA. After that, I went to a 4 year institution but got dismissed within three semesters due to insufficient GPA. (I was taking more than 18 credits hours because of my greed and exhausted). After the dismissal experience, I went to another 4 years institution without transferring the classes that I took from the 2nd school bur 1st school and graduated from there with 3.87 GPA. In total, I spent two years in two years college, three semesters in the 2nd institution, and 2 years in the third institution.

Now, after some teaching experience while and after my undergraduate degree, I decided to continue and develop my academic career in order for more experience and more effective teaching in a graduate school.

My question is that as I alluded to above, I have a dismissal record from my past school, and this makes me quite scared. What can I do to be wise on my application regarding this fact?

(Please, don't say that I must lie or hide my record because I don't want to take that risk, also that was part of myself and moment that I could learn a lot.)

American perspective:  Your question shows that you made a mistake, but you corrected it.  Your mistake will probably be forgiven if you explain clearly what happened, how you learned from it, and how you will prevent it from occurring again.  Include this as a brief statement in your application letter.


Inquiring about PhD status and mentioning standing offers I have a PhD few admission offers from some universities. My first choice school didn't make its decision yet, or maybe didn't post it online yet.

Is it OK to send an email asking about application status and explaining that I have other standing offers which I have to make decisions about quickly?

Would this have any negative impact on my application?

Is it OK to send an email asking about application status and explaining that I have other standing offers which I have to make decisions about quickly?

Yes, it is more than okay.  If you think you might prefer school X over your current list of accepted schools, definitely let them know.  At worst they will be indifferent to this information.  At best, they will be very grateful to know this and be given the opportunity to enroll you.  They may for instance fly you in on short notice to interview / recruit you.  In no case (well, no reasonable case...) will they respond negatively.

  Would this have any negative impact on my application?

As mentioned above: absolutely not.  Rather it could have a positive impact, including in some cases resulting in better funding for you.

Added: The above is general advice without factoring in the thought that school X may be better than the schools to which you've already been accepted.  The advice is still valid, but the response from a top school may be less dramatic: top programs tend to make their admissions decisions more independently and tend to have good funding anyway.  (Nevertheless they would be happy to know that you are still interested in them before you make your decision.) A (fairly long) while back an old friendly acquaintance of mine was visiting the Harvard math department as a prospective student after already having been admitted to MIT (which is not a measurably worse department, I should mention).  He expressed to me the hope that MIT's interest would engender a "bidding war" between the two schools.  This did not happen and in fact the student did not stay in any graduate program for very long.


Is the status of postdocs perceived differently in western Europe vs. North-America? In a footnote at this answer by on leaving a postdoc early, user Luke Mathieson writes:

  A postdoc in the US has lower status that it does in Europe/Australia/New Zealand/...,

I'm aware that postdocs in the USA typically have lower pay than in (say) Sweden or The Netherlands (I did not look into other countries).  I don't know if pay is quite proportional to status.  In the way postdocs are perceived by others—undergraduates, graduate students, pre-tenure academics, tenured professors—is there a difference in postdoc status in different parts of the world?

I realise this question is somewhat subjective, so I'm looking for either testimonies based on people who have worked as or with postdocs in both western Europe and North America, or in-depth articles exploring this issue.

The big difference is that most places in Europe don't have a tradition of assistant professorship, or, more generally, tenure-track faculty. Here's an example of the "typical" career progression of an academic in Austria (durations can vary by a lot, I just give examples here for illustration purposes):

Phd Student (4 to 5 years finished with Doctorate)
Postdoc (6 to 10+ years finished with habilitation / venia docendi)
"Privatdozent" (undefined length, non-tenured position, somewhat comparable with a non-tenured associate professor)
Full Professor / Chaired Professor (tenured position).

Note that there is no assistant professorship, and (2) that no tenured position before Full Professor exists.

Clearly, in this system there are postdocs with many years of experience in their field. They often have developed their own small group, work very loosely with a faculty mentor or completely independently, have their own funding and supervise PhD students that are "quasi" theirs (postdocs are not formally allowed to supervise PhD students before habilitation, but it is common practice that the mentor of the postoc formally supervises the postdoc's staff without involving her/himself much in the actual process). These postdocs are often considered assistant professors, even going so far as to call themselves assistant professor on their web pages and business cards despite not actually being professors de jure.

The general takeaway is that being a postdoc in Europe may have higher status than in the US, but it is not true for every postdoc. As postdoc status can last a very long time in Europe, one needs to look very closely at the person himself to see how senior she/he actually is.


Is there a financial benefit for PhD student to join a funded research project I'm a first year PhD in Computer Science at a UK university. Recently, my supervisor has asked me to join a funded research project consisting of other post-docs and lecturers, i.e. I'll be the only PhD student in that project. My supervisor believes that it will be helpful for me to join since my research topic and a project's theme have many similarities, which I also agree. However, he doesn't mention anything about if I get paid to work in that project. So, I wonder if it is normal for a PhD student to work in a funded research project without getting paid.

I'm not in the U.K., but in my part of the world, it's common (one might say usual) for computer science PhD students to be paid. Is the determination of whether a PhD student is paid related to whether the project is funded? Not necessarily.

When is it appropriate to ask about payment?

Should you talk to your supervisor about this? Instead of asking

  Is it normal to not be paid?

ask yourself

  Is it unusual to be paid?

In any scenario in which is is not unusual to be paid, it is neither inappropriate nor offensive to (politely) ask whether you can be paid for work you are doing.* In your case, it is definitely appropriate. So, go ahead and talk to your supervisor about this.

* Here is an example of a scenario where it is not usual to be paid, and it was therefore inappropriate to ask for payment. As you can see, it's an extreme example :)


What category does a collection of mathematics tricks come under? I am currently researching on Recreational Mathematics - Mathematical Tricks and I have come across this article:
Ten Amazing Mathematical Tricks
.

This article is of free style and does not follows the pattern/format I have seen in all the other articles/research paper so far.

My question is: Is this a research paper? Is it a paper? If not, what is it? Can such a paper be cited as a reference? I want to know more about these freestyle articles.

A number of people have correctly told you (I can see the article) that this is a collection of mathematical puzzles, rather than a research paper.  So let me tell you a little more about this type of article.  Martin Gardner is considered by many to be the biggest popularizer of recreational mathematics in the 20th century (perhaps ever).  For 25 years (1956-1981), he wrote a column for Scientific American called Mathematical Games.  Many of his columns have been collected into books (such as Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games).  Some other well-known examples of similar writing include that of Douglas Hofstadter, Ian Stewart, and Keith Devlin.


Should I send recommendation/reference letter to universities that don't require it? Sending recommendation letter to some universities is optional, but some others don't even mention it in their required documents. Is there any point in sending recommendation letter to such universities?

Most organizations that have set requirements for applications refuse to look at any supplementary materials that are submitted in order to be fair to those who did not submit supplementary materials. The National Science Foundation, in many cases, reserves the right to return proposals without review that have certain kinds of unrequested or forbidden supplementary materials. I think it's best to only submit what was asked for.


How should to-be-published articles be referenced? Can I use an unpublished but about to be published soon paper as a reference for a conference paper?
Suggestions would be appreciated.
Thank you!

The usual way of handling this situation is to use [in press] in the reference instead of the publication date to indicate that the publication is accepted but not yet available. Usually you should also provide soft copies of the to-be-published articles so that the reviewers can have access to them during the review process.

Note that some journals (there is no conference publishing in my field) will postpone the publication of your article until all in press articles are online/published to make sure the references don't need further editing and are correct and useful on the long haul.

Note: Do not use in press if you only speculate that the cited paper will be accepted, only after a firm notification of acceptance.


How to find out people interested in the same paper and discuss? I am reading an academic paper, but I cannot understand a lot of things in the paper, especially some proofs. If I ask someone else who is not reading the paper, or who is not studying the similar research field, then he/she might need to spend much time and may still turn out to not understand the paper either. So is it possible to find out people who are also interested in the paper or have read the paper, then to create a discussion group? I think this will definitely accelerate my understanding of a paper and make research easier.

Most of the time, I find out that I am the only one in my research group to study on some problems, and it is difficult to discuss with others on specific research problems. How to seek help from others who have different research topics? I do not want to waste other people's time if they cannot help eventually.

Professional societies often have mailing lists and a request there is probably an appropriate item.

Departments sometimes have bulletin boards on which you could post a request.

I found it very useful (before retirement) that our doctoral program had an internal mailing list to which every student and every advisor was subscribed. In fact, there were several lists, some specialized but one for everyone. Communication on such a list is very useful and I encourage others to establish these if they don't already do so. Our program was small, so a single overall list made sense. In a larger place it might be necessary to do this per specialty.

But, don't just look for such things as a place to get help. Consider it as an opportunity for sharing. If you give you can get, but if it is just a request for help, it might be better directed at the faculty - say an advisor.

But if you are faculty, then work to establish cross-university collaboration efforts so that like minded people have a way to communicate ideas. Having a wide range of collaborators is a good thing for most academics.


When the co-author of a potential paper is not responsible I am a math postdoc and my young mentor is unfortunately a lazy person. I have prepared a manuscript 4 months ago and still no news about revision of that from the mentor. I do not know what can I do. Is it good to find someone else to help me to finish this paper? Sometimes the unknown referee suggest some ideas to improve the paper, Can I submit it to a journal and waiting for referee report?

The answer to your question is the same as for 50% of the other questions on this website: Talk to your adviser. Find out what the hold-up is, how you can help, what other roles you could take on in the lab to free him from work that holds up his side of the collaboration. Communicate about what your issues are.


Should bullets appear before animations, or animations before bullets? I'm designing curriculum that involves many steps and a correlating animation to go with it. The end goal of this curriculum will be to turn into a video where it might end up on Youtube (or something similar) for self-study.

Each animation has text that goes with it that describes it. My question is, Between the Animation and the Text, what should appear first? Please also include why you think it should go first.

I am not concerned on whether I should or shouldn't have animation or text. For the sake of this answer, both must be there.

To help frame the question, I created two simple slides/videos:

A. Bullets before Animation

B. Animation before Bullets

Which of these two options leads to better learning/retention? If one is better suited for video and self study, and the other is better suited for in-class live-teacher presentation, please let me know and why you think so.

Here is what I would do:

I would move the ball first. Show them what is happening then use the text to support/explain it.
Only change one thing on the slide at a time. There should be a delay between the ball moving and the bullet being added. Too many things moving is confusing. But one thing moving is a great way to guide someone's eyes to the important information.
Possibly gray out the previous bullets. If you end up with a wall of text then it may be unnatural to dart your eyes from the very top (where the figure is) to the very bottom (where the new bullet is). Putting them side-by-side might help too.

Slide design is an art so don't feel compelled to follow any strict rules. Try it out and see how it works.


Why don't more academics write textbooks? For example for an undergrad CS/ECE course, say Intro to Computer Networks, there are about 5 textbooks published by the top 15 publishers in the last 20 years. Why aren't there way more textbooks, since there are probably tens of thousands of people (academics) who have the necessary knowledge to write such a book.

Is it because:

publishers don't publish a book about a topic for which they already published a book previously;
or academics don't think writing a textbook is beneficial for their careers and royalties are very low?

As in the other comments and answer: it's a lot of trouble, doesn't generate money, and doesn't generate status, either. In fact, it often generates anti-status, for various reasons: because of the other features, many academics (I'm in mathematics) would never consider writing any sort of book at all... and many of these people seem to subliminally want to rationalize this as a positive virtue by denigrating anyone who does write a book (especially a textbook). This is a fairly typical mechanism: declare the desired state a virtue... I've had "colleagues" say to me, quite snarkily, upon hearing that I was working on a book, "Oh, you must have a lot of time with nothing to do!" Sigh...

It is also true that there is pressure from publishers to make new textbooks as similar as possible to old textbooks... which perpetuates certain features that one might decide are not so good. That is, understandably because publishers want to sell books, a new textbook "has to" resemble existing ones enough to compete in the market for those books.

Another disincentive, of a different sort, is the point that nowadays with an internet, one needn't have pseudo-perfected a body of material before putting it on-line, because it can be corrected, tweaked, etc., indefinitely. In contrast, a physical book's immutability creates pressure for a degree of perfection that is (relatively) very expensive (if only in time and energy), due to severely diminishing marginal returns. The very linearity of a book creates similar somewhat-fake problems... And physical books are not searchable! It's crazy! :)

So, I personally have written some texbooks, didn't make much money... Nowadays, I mostly just put textbook-like material on-line, thus without the constraints of old-timey publication. This similarly generates no status-points at all, and no money. :)


Is Manuscripts.io a legit tool? Any experience with it? A colleague just tipped me about manuscripts.io which advertises itself as a collaborative writing tool, with some really sweet features like importing docx and LaTeX; searching and adding citations directly from within the platform.. It is also free!

That being the case my metaphorical spider-sense tingle a bit, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. I am wondering if anyone knows more about this platform. Are they secure, is the text submitted used for some other purpose (text-mining or so) in the background? In the cut-throat competitive nature of academia, it does not surprise me if it was a scheme of sorts (yes, I do realize how paranoid that sounds).

In any case, just wanted to know if anyone has looked into it and if so, what came out of it.

A good rule of thumb is that when you get something for free on the internet, you're the product, not the user.  There is often something being done with some or all of your user information or content you provide to generate some cash flow somewhere.  Or, you may be an advertising target.

An exception might be some academically developed mechanism supported by some society.

Poking around the website you point to, though, I see no Terms of Service immediately available, and this is a red flag.

There isn't necessarily anything inherently wrong with an arrangement like this.  You might find the service provided worth any use of your content/data or putting up with ads.  SE network, in fact, does this openly, and we're still here.


Is an algorithm that stitches together various algorithms "good enough" material for IEEE Trans? I have worked on a paper which utilizes concepts from signal processing and machine learning, and then implements them in a low-cost embedded system. Since the work was more on the implementation side, it required less mathematics and more engineering. Furthermore, since I was using hardware from a particular company which suited my application the most, among other contenders in peripherals and price, the implementation is really hardware-dependent. Finally, I cannot seem to find similar work. In that way, it is a bit novel. Is this something which will be acceptable for say, IEEE Transactions in Industrial Electronics?

"Stitching together" some existing algorithms is not necessarily bad, if the combination is both valuable and non-trivial. It can be argued that a lot of today's research in computer science is mostly stitching together ideas that have existed for a long time. Further, I am a huge opponent of the notion that it is somehow better / scientifically more valuable to come up with your own (almost always inferior) algorithms for well-known standard problems just so that one can claim to have a higher "novelty".

That being said, it is of course hard to answer your question without knowing the concrete work. As a rule of thumb, read through a number of back issues of your selected journal. If all of them seem to have a much broader contribution than what you have in mind, your idea may be too small (but don't let the impostor effect get you, either).


Are appendices included in the maximum page count for conference papers? I am writing research paper following the ACM 2-column format in Latex. The conference is limiting the number of pages by only 6-8 pages. So far, my paper has a lot of figures and tables and would be impossible to fit them all in 8 pages.

So what I want to do, is to include an extra page as an Appendix at the end. will it be considered as 8 pages or 9 pages? Will it be considered that I am following the conference regulation?

Are appendices included in the maximum page count for conference publications?

In my experience from CS, typically yes. That is because the page limit has (at least) three purposes:

To ensure everyone gets the same space to make their point (whether that increases fairness or actually decreases it - different topics may require different amounts of space - is a different question).
To limit the amount of information/contributions per publication, lest the conference talk be just an exemplary excerpt that fails to encompass the entirety of the paper.
To actually limit page size in printed proceedings. I base this on the observation that I have come across conferences that would charge authors for extra pages, and even a few that would charge authors or put a (lower-than-total-pages) limit on pages with coloured content.

It is for the latter point that "bonus material" such as appendices also counts towards the maximum paper length.


How to become an Editorial board member? How to become an Editorial board member?Is it appropriate to contact journal's Editor in Chief to show interest for joining editorial board?

That's generally not a job you can apply for, but a job you're asked to take on. At least in reputable journals, the members of the editorial board are largely scientists well known in their field. They have that role because the editor-in-chief trusts their opinions and perspectives on submitted papers, and also because they have the stature in the field to write to potential reviewers and ask them to review a paper. Well established researchers also have fewer potential conflicts of interest: They no longer have promotions coming up, and so feel less conflicted about rejecting papers by people who might otherwise be asked to write letters of evaluation about their promotion.

I don't know what your career status is, but suspect that because you are asking the question that you are still young. As an editor-in-chief, I usually try to avoid using younger researchers as members of the editorial board. That's not necessarily because I don't trust their judgment, but because they have conflicts of interest and because they will have a harder time receiving the necessary reviews within a reasonable time frame.


Is it ethical for PhD advisor to collect ideas or even project description text from students/postdocs for his/her own funding proposal? Is it ethical for PhD advisor to collect ideas or even project description text from students/postdocs for his/her own funding proposal? Not sure how common this situation is, but this seems strange. Could anyone help?

In many places, your stipend (including overhead) as well as the costs of running the lab, buying computers, publishing papers, and traveling to conferences all comes out of your PI's budget. That budget does not magically appear, but is funded through grants. Those grants have some leeway in what work they might support, but not infinite latitude.
So: going forward do you want to be supported? If so, would you not prefer to be supported to do something that you want to do, rather than whatever your advisor can get funding for without any help from you?
So, yes, it is entirely ethical for your professor/PI/advisor to ask you for ideas and even text to contribute to the grant application. Should you have no desire to help procure funding for the group to work on problems of interest to you, you really need to contemplate just how you are currently funded.


Undergrad studies in Physics: Europe vs America? I'm currently in my first year of undergrad in Physics in Leipzig, and was just wondering, does a 3 year undergrad program make it necessary for one to pursue MSc instead of going straight to Grad school for a PhD like most American Physics undergrads do?

P.S. My interest is inclined towards theoretical particle physics.

An undergraduate degree in physics in Germany will usually leave you better prepared for PhD work than an undergraduate degree in the U.S.  Of course there are plenty of people who are individual exceptions, but what I'm saying is that the two degrees are not perfectly aligned.  You need to keep in mind that the German equivalent of the U.S. high school is not perfectly aligned with the U.S. high school "diploma" either.  You would have to do U.S. high school plus one or two years of U.S. college to be at a comparable level to the entering first-year college physics student in Germany.

I am basing this answer on what I have heard from my spouse who studied physics in Germany, and my spouse's comments over the years about what our son did in high school and college (physics major) in the U.S. where we live.

But the best way to check if my answer still holds would be to compare programs of study, course descriptions, and syllabi.

Bottom line, for physics, at least, you can probably go comfortably from a German undergraduate degree to a U.S. PhD program.


How common is it to get an academic position in a different country after getting a PhD in the US? For someone who is doing his PhD in a US institute (STEM filed), how likely is it to be employed (as a post-doc for example) in another country (which is not my home country, in general) ?

For example, for a PhD student, it should be much more easier get a job in an environment that you know; for example, the school that your are doing own PhD, or some other instituted that you are familiar (possibly in US also), but, in general, is it common for such a student to get employed by an institute in Europe or elsewhere?

I wouldn't think there would be discrimination either in favor of or against a PhD from any particular place. That isn't how people make decisions about who to hire. Instead, they will look at what you have done and whether they find it "interesting" and "deep". You can produce such work anywhere and it will be valued everywhere.

In any application, whether for a degree or for employment (a) there will likely be a lot of competition and (b) you need to make your case. These things aren't decided by plugging things into spreadsheets, but by  people looking at your output and your perceived potential to contribute.

That said, you may need to make sure that you speak the local language and are comfortable in the local culture. If a job involves teaching, for example, not speaking the lingo may be disqualifying - at least in some minds. But even in a non-teaching position, you will be expected to interact with others in the institution. Don't take a math postdoc in, say, Italy just because you want to begin to learn Italian.

I recognize that I answered a slightly different question: How difficult is it... I hope that serves your needs.


What is the page limit for an open access review paper in IEEE or Elsevier? I am writing a review paper in the field of engineering.

At the moment the paper is 20 pages and I am afraid that this goes up to 80 pages when it is finished.

I was thinking about making it open access. However, I am afraid to break the paper into several parts and pay the open access fee multiple times which I definitely could not afford.

Could anyone please advise how much is the page limit for an open access review paper in IEEE and Elsevier. If my paper is not publishable there, where else could be a valid and feasible journal for me?

IEEE say on their FAQ-page:

  There is no page limit for articles

It is more complicated for Elsevier, as different journals have different page limitations, you simply have to check the journals' webpages.

Having said that, a paper of 80 pages seems to be rather long - in my field this would certainly result in an immediate rejection, unless you explicitly classify it as a review paper - and that seems to be what you should do. In my field, however, you are not simply writing a review paper, but are usually asked to do so and then it is clear/obvious (even expected) that the paper will be long.

So, if you were asked to write a review paper, everything should be fine, write as many pages as you want. If you have decided on your own to write a review paper, check if you can classify it as a review paper during submission process - if not, tell the editor that this is a review paper (the referees have to know this).


Does paper acceptance mean an on-site talk is required? I am sorry for naïveté.

I found a workshop that fits my research and I want to submit a paper to the workshop. The problem is that the location of the workshop is far away from my hometown and I don't have funding to cover the travel expenses.

Do you think it is obligatory to visit the workshop (conference) and to give a talk in case the paper is accepted?

Personally, I have only seen conferences which require every paper to be presented on-site. Most conferences explicitely state that paper will not be published in the online proceedings, if the authors do not present their paper. If this is not stated on the conference's website, please write to the committee.

However, I recommend you to find a different solution. Discussing a paper at a conference is a very important part of your scientific career since you get in contact with other researchers. If you encounter financial difficulties, you can write to the committee and ask politely for a waiver or reduction of the fee.


How often do publishers sue researchers for copyright infringement for putting their articles on a personal website? I know that some publishers sometimes send copyright infringement emails to researchers putting their articles on a personal website. How often do publishers actually sue researchers for copyright infringement for putting their articles on a personal website? (assuming the authors didn't have the legal right to do so)

I am mostly interested in United States-based authors, but I am curious about other countries as well.

I have never heard of an individual scientist being sued for posting a few articles online (large-scale systematic activity is a different story).  So far, unlike the music and movie industries, scientific publishers appear to have simply not found it worth the cost in resources and community relations to do so (though they've been quite comfortable suing organizations on occasion).

If a scientist decided to resist a takedown order, however, it seems possible that a journal might feel forced to make an example of them.


Should I leave my "first" job for a PhD student position? I graduated from a masters degree half a year ago and I am been working at a private research institute. Today I received an email from a professor who is asking me to join him in August this year for an graduate position in the experimental sciences. If I accept, I would have to quit this job before the contract terminates, which I think may spark off some negative consequences in the industry, such as a marred reputation. I tried to make the best out of this situation by asking the professor whether I may defer admission for 6 months so that I finish my contract before I start. He said it won't be possible to defer, and advised me that I will have to apply again next academic year if this was the case.

I've previously had 2 years of resaerch experience as a research assistant, and the sole reason I think I need to do a PhD eventually if not now is because I want the rigorous technical training that only a PhD program can offer.

Pros for doing a PhD now:

I want to do it now in my early 20s as I think it will be more difficult as I get older (physically, or even mentally.
It is a rare opportunity that I get an offer since I had an egregriously low GPA when I was an undergraduate. I may not get this opportunity again.

Cons for doing a PhD now:

I am doing well in the private research institute I am in now, and I am responsible for a project that is not yet finished.
Quitting my job after just 10 months will not look good, and may raise issues with the HR in the future.

What do you guys thinks?

You did not mention how do you feel in your current job. Do you feel that you are learning a lot, are you enjoying it? If the answer to this is yes, and seeing as it is a private research institute, then maybe consider staying there. There has been a lot of articles around about how you do not need to have a PhD to be successful and satisfied in your career.

Another point to consider is, why did you get this offer despite your GPA being so low? And maybe your GPA being low is an indication to you being able to grow more in a job at a research institute, as the environment, different from academics, may suit you better and you would end up learning more here. Or maybe your GPA is low for other reasons, and it does not always reflect how you strive in a PhD program anyway.


Publishing Ethics: not listing Professor's name I did summer research work with a Professor who is not my adviser. He gave me a big topic (big enough that doesn’t help you to navigate to a specific area) and but didn’t contribute much.

Now after the summer, I continue to work on this without his guidance, and got some good results. I am thinking of publishing the paper. I don’t know if I should ask whether he wants his name on the paper.

Also, I was wondering what happen if he decided to block my paper from publishing? (I knew he always wanted the paper to be submitted to Venue A, but I want to submit to Venue B). Does he have the right to do so?

This Professor is from the same school of mine.

Why not ask for his feedback and if he would like his name on it at the same time?

He has two responses:

Yes, I’ll give you feedback and would welcome my name on the paper.

Or: happy to provide feedback, but due to X, can’t put my name on the paper, thanks for asking though.

I have assumed that he won’t refuse to provide feedback. The first option may lead to a better paper.


Dispute over precision with coauthor I am currently having a disagreement with a coauthor on a paper over the matter of significant figures.

He would like to specify (for example) that a certain organization has an environmental footprint of 7,622 gha.  Environmental footprinting rests on a tonne of assumptions and is not a precise methodology, so I don't think we have anything like 4 significant figures of precision in our calculations - more like 2 at most.  So I would like to publish that figure as 7,600 gha.

I have pointed out that doing otherwise implies a level of precision we don't have.  Currently we are publishing an executive summary prior to peer reviewed journal paper, so I also said it would be embarrassing if the precision issues were picked up at peer review stage and we thus ended up publishing two different sets of figures.  He responds that he has never had a problem with publishing more accurate figures in previous journal publications.

The coauthor does not have a quantitative background so has limited understanding this issue, however he is more senior.

So two questions

does this issue even matter?
what would you do about it?

UPDATE

It looks like you all agree with me that this matters.  Good, I'm not insane :)

As we are currently writing an executive summary/press release for the general public, there is no place for scientific notation or estimates of error - they will make it harder to read and likely put off some people.

Can someone link me to a good, polite and authoritative rant on why this matters that I can show to my colleague?  The trouble with almost all material I have seen on significant figures, is that it doesn't discuss rounding off digits left of the decimal point.  i.e. it talks about turning 7.36654 into 7.4 but not 736654 into 740000.  I suspect my colleague draws an arbitrary line in his head at the decimal point, being unaware that the position of the point is just a function of the units used.  And I doubt they would be open to that sort of argument.

Just because you have the additional digits, doesn't mean you should report them.

Accuracy and precision are extremely important concepts in the reporting of scientific data. Excessive precision, as you suggest, implies too much reliability in the accuracy of scientific data. For instance, someone turned in a report to me saying that a particular parameter was known to be:

  E = 1.3405987423423 GPa

If this were to be published in a paper, it could be rejected out of hand for incompetence, because the parameter E is often known only to one or two decimal places, let alone four.

In general, you need to make your reporting consistent with the assumptions and the accuracy of the measurement techniques. One way to figure this out is to note the accuracy of your measurement—what is the expected error in the measurement? If the error in your measurement technique is, for instance, plus or minus 1 global hectare, then by all means report it to the nearest hectare. If it's plus or minus 1000, though, reporting to the nearest hectare will look quite silly.

How do you deal with this? (I've actually had to do something like this before. Similar argument, but not exactly the same.) In this particular instance, engaging in a little hyperbole might be useful. Instead of reporting it to four significant digits, show him a version of the text that lists the data to the full precision you have available—something clearly ridiculous that reports things down to six or seven decimal places, if possible. Then, when he argues that what you're doing doesn't make sense, you can argue "what's the harm in reporting extra digits?" That should be enough to have your coauthor "see the light."


Viewing MathJobs Applications as Living Documents? I am in the process of applying for tenure-track positions. I have been told that getting your file submitted early is useful, so I am eager to apply.

I have a final draft of my application materials, but I am potentially still getting feedback from mentors. Is it appropriate to start to submit applications now, with the potential of editing these documents mildly as time progresses and I get feedback? Also, most of my recommenders have not uploaded their letters, so I am curious if I should wait for a certain number to finish.

You can edit documents after submission, but there's no guarantee that the search committee will see your edits.  Some people might start reading them as soon as you submit, even if it's before the application deadline.  Or some others might download or print out the applications for later reading.  But in either case they might not check back later to see if there have been updates.  MathJobs doesn't automatically notify the committee when you make an update, and even if did you can't expect the committee to reread your application every time you make a change.

So it is best to wait until you are satisfied that the documents are in a "final" form.  If you do find a serious error or need to add something, you can, but it's possible that the committee will still work with the original erroneous / incomplete version.

You don't need to wait to submit your application until all letters are in.  Most search committees would probably just wait to read your application until the letters have been uploaded.  Or, if their process is to read the application separately from the letters, then they could start reading the application right away and then read the letters after they come in.


Data mining online course: does it go into my bibliography? I am writing a paper that relies on data extracted from Facebook and analysed using techniques I am learning online at DataCamp. Considering that most of my methodology comes from those courses, it seems that I should include them in my bibliography.
The thing is, I never really saw that kind of citation anywhere - but it seems so wrong not to include them.
Any opinions?

While you saw it first on this online course, that doesn't mean they are the correct citation. You can mention the URL, for instance, if you want to support it, but the citations should reference the original material OR some revised version (like a book, if the subject is somewhat  old).

Long story short: Want to cite a specific method? Search for the original article of the variation you are using and cite that. Is it something very common that is "textbook material"? Pick a good textbook and cite that.


How difficult is it to obtain a postgraduate qualification in the academic field that's unrelated to your undergraduate programme? How hard is it to obtain postgraduate qualification in the academic field unrelated to your undergraduate programme (or sharing a rather strenuous connection with it)? I'm looking for answers that would accommodate one's personal experiences in doing a U-turn in their academic career, and in switching to a totally new field of study (e.g. from Theoretical Physics to Art History, or vice versa).

This really depends on what kind of U-turn you want to make and what kind of additional resources you avail yourself of. In this day and age, because we have access to so many resources (from university extension courses to online classes to self study via Youtube and the WWW), a dedicated student can build their skills in a field not necessarily related to their undergraduate degree.

That said, it depends what kind of U-turn you want to make. To pick up your example, if you have a BA in Art History and you want to get an MS in Physics, I doubt that any serious program is going to let you waltz right in. However, if you took a series of courses through a university extension program, or, perhaps, even online, that covered the terrain of an undergraduate physics program -- and if you also demonstrated your competence and interest in the field through an independent research program, you would probably be able to find a program somewhere.

On the other hand, if you have a BS is a technical field and you want to get an MA, programs are usually more accommodating. In my field (politics and policy), students with an undergraduate BS can often add substantial value because they have an in-depth understanding of math and programming that allows them to gain more traction when analyzing research questions using quantitative methods.

In either case, it will greatly improve your chances of admission if you can articulate why you want to make the U-turn and also explain how your particular path adds value to the program you are applying to. If you find a school and a program that excites you, try contacting some of the professors at the program and see if you can meet or talk with them. During the conversation, you can make the case why you want to move into their field and ask them how you can best prepare yourself.

"This above all; to thine own self be true" -- W. Shakespeare


How to make a one-year study plan for a difficult exam and remain motivated throughout? In a year, I will be taking a difficult entrance exam at a renowned postgraduate school. There are many competitors, most of whom are smart. Despite that, I'm aiming at becoming #1 in the exam, and that's why I have started preparing now.

I have interviewed a few top candidates of the past years and already learned which books I should read and how much I should study every day.

I think that learning more about planning would help me a great deal. But those books on planning and goal-setting mostly focus on reaching financial goals. I have not managed to find any books befitting my situation.

Another thing is that, because the duration is quite long, I'm afraid that my enthusiasm may start weakening after a few months into it, no longer performing at my best.

So, here is my question: How can I a make one-year study-plan for myself, and remain motivated in the long run?

Also, any suggestions about books, software, etc. that will help me reaching my goal will be appreciated.

I would recommend you not to rely upon external entities for motivation. Rather then relying upon just some books and software, practice "Self Motivation".

Each day think about the happiness and satisfaction that you will achieve once you got an admission in the targeted postgraduate school.

Furthermore, browse through the list of notable alumni from the same school and make a target that you will also feature in the same list some day.

It will encourage you to put 100% effort each day without losing excitement.


Professor that refuses to fail students - should I talk with him? I am an instructor, and the head of my department is a professor that refuses to fail students.

I found out about this situation through multiple semesters where students would complain about this professor treating them unfairly, both to other students within my classroom, and to me directly; my ultimate question is: Should I talk to this professor, who is also the head of my department?

For context:

The professor assigns a group project with 6-8 students in each group. The projects take most of the semester and each group does 2 projects at the same time. Each student has a very heavy work load for these projects and teamwork is essential.

The issue is when a student refuses to do the project. I've heard reasoning from, the student didn't agree with what everyone else in the group agreed to, or the student just didn't bother showing up to any group meetings.

When students mentioned how one of their team members would not participate, which was only increasing the work load for other students who also had to worry about their other courses, the professor seemed to take the right action at first by talking to the non-participating student about the project and how important it is for them to contribute.

If the student continued to argue with group decisions (sometimes they do the project their own way) then the professor would just tell the group "find something for [the student] to do." And if the student never did anything, they would still pass the course, despite never participating on the 2 biggest assignments, which equated to 60% of the grade (including participation).

Back to my original question -

Should I speak with the professor - head of my department - or let it go?

Personally I'd consider it worth talking to him, where 'talk to him' is defined not at 'tell him he's wrong' but as 'for your own peace of mind try to find out why he believes his choice is a good one'.


How do you tell a professor you interviewed with you will be going to a different program? I had an email exchange and interview with this professor and I feel like I should tell her I've been accepted elsewhere to my first choice program, but writing the words down and getting the tone right are hard.

Yes, that's a hard letter to write. But she will have gotten letters like this before. Thank her, say you would have enjoyed working with her but that you have found another position that suits you better or better fits your interests.
If you want to edit your question to show us a draft you may get useful feedback.
Write her soon, so she can offer the job to someone else.


Is it possible to do a PhD in one field along with a bachelor's degree in another field, all at the same time? I have an MBBS (Medicine bachelor and bachelor of surgery) degree and I am currently doing my master's in biotechnology and planning to move on to a PhD in the same (or a very closely related) field, Meanwhile I am very eager to study theoretical physics and I was initially planning to get going on it right after the PhD. But, for time purposes, is it possible to do both simultaneously?Is it applicable/ practical?

The usual disclaimer applies here: the answer depends on your country, your university, your program, etc etc etc. It also depends on you. There are many variables here and not enough of them have been defined, so no one can answer your question definitively.

Let's theoretically bound a few of those variables and do a thought experiment by answering this.

Let's say that for the sake of argument, you are a genius who can not only get done work at an incredible speed, but who can also comprehend and understand all the work in front of you without issue, and this applies just alike to everyone around you who you may have to do any form of teamwork with (thanks O.R.Mapper). Then yes, you can do both of these things at the same time (because the main limitations here are time, comprehension, and energy) - provided you aren't doing them both at a university which has a rule against this kind of thing. As long as you handle scheduling conflicts in a reasonable way, yes. This means: If you have a time where you NEED to be doing obligations for one degree or the other (physics degree = unmissable physics labs even in a theory degree, for example, or exams) and you can make it to all unmissable obligations for both degrees (say they're in the same university or the same area) then yes. However I can imagine quite easily that you will have to resolve scheduling conflicts often. You will probably have more schedule obligations with an undergrad degree than with a postgrad one and it's tough to be excused from those, even if you have a good reason. I'm thinking about things like practicals, scheduled exams, and other things you really can't miss. I'm also mostly thinking about how it was for me in the UK system, and perhaps in other systems scheduling is more flexible, so YMMV.

Unbounding that variable a little: I will state the obvious; a physics degree is difficult. A PhD in biotech is also likely to be extremely difficult. You are a human being. Folks struggle with bachelors degrees, folks struggle with PhDs. I think that any person who is likely to be imperfect (in a totally normal way) is liable to struggle with one of these, not to mention both of them at the same time.

Personally if it was me trying to do both these things at once, I'd be so overloaded and stressed and unable to learn after only a short while that I wouldn't be able to do it. You would have to have impeccable time management, extremely prudent stress management techniques, and you'd never really have a proper 'break' from working or studying because both of these things are full-time+++ jobs. You'd be taking on two of them at once. You'd be subject to the same chances for failure as anyone working two 40-70 hour work weeks. Whether you succeed or fail is a function of how well you handle all of these stresses, and how you allocate the time. And how little you value sleep. I think, but I don't know for sure, that how 'clever' you actually are has less of an effect on your success than the above stuff. You have proven your intellectual capacity already with your qualifications, but a PhD and a BSc at the same time is serious business and even the most clever humans in the world would struggle with it from even a logistical perspective alone. I know that if I tried to even have a part time job during my physics degree, I'd have probably failed. My friends with jobs did fail. I was told by the people coordinating our program that it's this way by design; it's designed to push us to our limits to show us what the research world is like, and to differentiate between good, better, and best.

And this isn't even stating the most obvious part: When you're writing your thesis, you will have time for nothing else.

Since my answer has really been a non-answer I will leave you with this:

I didn't do a theoretical physics degree, just a 'normal' physics degree. I had friends in the theoretical program. They still had to do one academic year of unmissable physics labs for 4 hours every week (to demonstrate the principles of basic physics). They still had to sit exams which were unable to be scheduled to a different day/time. They still had to study with us during 60 hour work weeks to understand the material in the months leading up to exams because there were so many of them and because the material was so vast (this applied even to the insanely clever ones). The only real difference between a theoretical degree and a normal one was that you're able to do theoretical physics from anywhere where you can concentrate (so you can do the 'research' part of your PhD mostly from home if your supervisor doesn't ask you to be in the workgroup's office and if you don't need their help to get things done). This is where my 'depends on program' disclaimer comes in; it might be different where you are. In fact, it almost surely is different.

A lot of it will come down to your motivation level and your ability to multitask without fail. Why do you want to do this (it seems like a strange choice)? I don't ask because I'm being snarky; I'm asking because if you really do do this, this is a question you'll be asking yourself in what I can only suspect will be a very short period of time.

If you want it enough and you're really really really good, sure, go for it. The long and short version: There is no reason why you can't, but there are many reasons why a person would not succeed at this.

Would I recommend it? No way. In the end, you are a human (even if you are really good) and something will have to give way eventually.


issue with discontinued or missing journal I published a couple of papers for the International Journal of Security and Its Applications which was run by a publisher called SERSC (Science and Engineering Research Support Society). The link in Scimago is the following:
https://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=21100199112&tip=sid

One of my papers was indexed in Scopus and the other one was indexed by ESCI. The reason for that is that in 2017, approximately, Scopus stopped indexing this journal.

The problem is that since November of this year the journal and the publisher links are not accessible; some authors also have claimed through Scimago that the emails of the editors are not actually working. The question that I have is what to do with the two articles that were published in that journal? Because it is no longer accessible, should I put it on my personal web page? Or just wait and see?

In general, what can an author do with their published works when the journal "disappears" eventually?

Publishers who care about the availability of published works tend to join archival initiatives such as the Controlled Lots Of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe (CLOCKSS) or Portico. These archives become public after so-called 'trigger events' occur (as determined by a governing body of these initiatives), such as when the articles are no longer available through the original publisher. This archival is a primary function of a scholarly communication system (see also Roosendaal & Geurts, 1998)

If your publisher does not have this policy, you could rehost the article on your webpage or another file sharing site. Note that this would depend on the copyright status, because if the publisher (for example) went bankrupt the copyrights might be transferred in a firesale of that company.

Edit: Centralized => Controlled


emailing supervisor to ask about application status I have applied for PhD programme (in Dec 2020) and informed my potential supervisor that I have completed my application. Recently (9 days ago), he asked me if I have received any communication from the institute regarding my application and told me he has not received my application yet. To this, I replied that the Graduate admission office will not answer individual queries regarding application status and I will be receiving emails once the decision has been made (I informed this after making an inquire with the admission office). Also, I had asked him to update me if he has any further updates regarding my application. I have not received any email from the professor after this conversation. The institute has no specific timeline as to when the application decision will be made.  Now, Should I write another email to the professor and ask him if he has received my application? or should I make another inquire in the admission office about my application status by mentioning that the professor had asked me about my application status?

It doesn't seem effective to ask the admissions office again if they have already said that you will hear only when decisions have been made.
But you could give the potential advisor an update that you haven't heard anything yet, asking if he has. But it seems unlikely that one of you would be notified and the other not.
Unless you have some actual reason for needing to know, such as replying about another opportunity, I'd suggest patience. You don't speed anything up by sending pointless emails.


Should an undergraduate applying for academic internships switch to a multi-page CV from a one-page resume? I am an undergraduate student applying for internships that are frequently in academia.

Currently, I've been providing all my experience in a one-page resume format, and find myself having to continue to make the text font size smaller and smaller.

Would it be best for me to switch to a CV?

CV's are used more for people who have more experience in academia - as it includes publications, awards, grants, etc. As someone who is still an undergraduate student, I can't imagine that your resume should be more than 1 page - usually it is 1 page per 10 years of experience. I would suggest going through your resume and take out bullet points that could be considered "fluff". Stuff like "demonstrated leadership" and "increase efficiency within the department" do not show any actual accomplishments. However, it would not be a bad idea to have a CV on hand. As you probably know, resumes should be tailored specifically to each job, so I would highly recommend that you keep a master resume that details all your accomplishments at each job, and maybe have the "fluff" in there, but when you apply for a job, make a copy of that resume and tailor it specifically to the job.