Mentioning resolved illness to statement of purpose? I had hyperthyroidism which is now resolved. It didn't affected my performance.

Do I have anything to gain if I mention on my SOP that this condition caused me mental symptoms that made it harder for me to study - and despite that I did well?

I wouldn't put it in writing as it is too easy to misinterpret. If someone thinks that the condition might return it won't work in your favor. Other people have situations that make it hard to study also, medical and otherwise.

I would be less concerned with mentioning it in an interview if it would be a natural part of the conversation, but even then, will require explanation and possible misinterpretation.

Represent yourself as a hard worker who gets things done and performs at a high level. The rest is unimportant.


Do exercises in a theoretical reference book need to be solved when doing research? I am a first year graduate student in a computational math program. Based on my background (I just finished a one-semester graduate real analysis course), instead of reading a specific textbook, my supervisor suggested me starting reading papers. And if I find unclear concepts, I can refer to some books in library, learn the specific knowledge and come back to the paper.

In general I agree with this method since I think this is the most effective way to learn a new technique, that is, applying the new knowledge directly to my research. But I am not sure what I should do if it's a pure math concept, instead of a numerical scheme. For example, say the existence of weak solution of a particular PDE. After reading the relavant chapter or chapters of a classic book which I borrowed from the library, should I try to do the exercise after those chapters before moving back to the paper? Based on the suggestions here, I should try to solve as many as exercises in that book to make sure I understand the theorems and techniques, and this is what I usually do in my undergraduate study.

But I have several concerns about this approach. Firstly, it may be time-consuming and may delay the research process. Secondly, unlike reading an undergraduate textbook, I started the reference book in the middle, while the exercises may require some previous chapters' techiniques,  which I may not know and may not be directly related with my current research.

So may you share your experience about how to deal with this senario? Do you come back to the paper immediately (say after knowing the statement of a theorem) or do you spend some time solving exercises? If the exercises involving previous chapters' concepts, do you usually read previous chapters as well or do you just skip those exercises? I know it's good to learn more things, but given the time constrains and tons of things I need to learn, sometime it may not be practical.

You are definitely looking at the wrong factor here. The question for you should not be "Should I solve the examples?", but rather "Do I understand the technique well enough to confidently apply it to my own research?".

If the answer to the second question is yes, you don't need to waste your time on doing more examples. If the answer is no, you need to study the technique more before applying it, and doing the examples may or may not be a good way to do it. However, in the second case, doing the examples cannot be "too time-consuming", as you will need to spend more time on learning the technique anyway. At the end of the day, it isn't about "solving as many examples as possible", but about understanding the material well enough. As a young researcher, you should be advanced enough to tell when this is the case.

That being said, the way how you phrased the question makes me wonder to what extend you actually understand the technique. Specifically:

  I started the reference book in the middle, while the exercises may require some previous chapters' techiniques, which I may not know and may not be directly related with my current research.

Of course one needs to know the concrete example to be sure, but if you are unable to do the examples because you have not read the previous text book sections, it seems to me that your understanding of the overall area is not all that great yet.


Contacting via email or Linkedin (or similar sites) to help land a faculty appointment I've applied for faculty jobs (in physics) in a number of places, and am just waiting for someone somewhere to contact me.

In the meantime is there any way to raise my level of visibility? For instance by trying to contact professors in the department by cold emailing them or trying to connect on LinkedIn?

I fear this might come off as desperate or look unprofessional in some way. Am I right to feel this way, or am I missing out by not utilizing such tools?

As a general point, email and linked in are very different tools. Personally, I find linkedin doesn't have much weight in academia. I realise people use it, particularly in business areas, but I don't think many academics use it much for social networking with other researchers. Social networking tools for academics is an emerging area. Researchgate has improved a lot in recent years and is starting to get more popular as a place to share research and connect with other researchers. So in general, being on sites like this may help a little with connecting with other scholars.

That said, publishing good work in good journals, going to conferences, forming meaningful collaborations and so on are going to do more to improve your social networks.

If you are going to contact someone by email, you don't want to waste their time.

So, if you are legitimately wanting to connect and form a collaboration with an academic and you think that they might be legitimately interested, then by all means send them an email. This site has various tips for writing such emails.

More generally, there is the question of when you should contact people who work in a department when you are applying for a job in that department. I think this can be a good strategy but it depends a lot on how it is done. And it's definitely easier if you know someone in the department or you know someone who knows someone. If you can have an informal chat with a contact in the department, you might learn something more about the school to help you decide whether you want to apply, determine how competitive you are, or help you to frame your application. They may also be able to assist you in meeting others.

That said, you don't want to waste people's time, and you don't want to come across as someone who wastes people's time. I'm also mindful that for some positions there are hundreds of applicants for one position, and if every one of them contacted people in a department, it could be a huge issue.

Also, remember that some employers (universities included) wont let you know that you did not get the job. Or if they do, they may take a long time to let you know.


Any places opening up this year? I'm hoping to start a PhD, I had been planning to do application this year and start next year but I've now been laid off with no real prospects of getting more work soon.

Wondering with all the travel bans and people leaving cities if previously filled places might become available this year in the US? Obviously universities are in disarray so don't want to bother them at this time.

Is anybody aware what happens when people pull out of programs or defer?

I am in NYC and hoping to start a programme in CS, or statistics in NYC or the east coast anyway, my partner works in the city too so I can't go too far. Just wondering if there's any scope to start this year as now I have no work. Any ideas if this is feasible? If I'm already living here so I'm able to attend with very little hindrance compared to those in other parts of US or coming from an international location. Better to fill a place then let it go to waste?

Has anyone one some insight in to what happens in exceptional times such as these?

Wondering with all the travel bans and people leaving cities if previously filled places might become available this year in the US? Obviously universities are in disarray so don't want to bother them at this time....Just wondering if there's any scope to start this year as now I have no work. Any ideas if this is feasible?

It sounds very unlikely. It is possible previous filled positions will not get filled -- that part is true (though I'm not sure I expect a very large effect here, as many will just join a program of their choice anyway despite not being able to visit). But they would not give the slot to some new person who did not apply earlier on the normal timeline.

Actually, PhD slots are always under or over filled from one year to the next -- it's expected. For example, a program might admit 100 students, but anywhere from 25 to 50 might actually join, which is a big difference. The way they compensate for this is by simply admitting a smaller or larger number of students the next year -- not by trying to fill the slots in the same year.


What should I let students do when they finish exams early? I organized my students to take their exams in the school’s computer labs. Some students finished well before others. In each section, I tried different policies for what students should do in this situation, but none worked very well.

I let one section of students leave when they finished, but make much noise while moving their chairs and gathering their things. Furthermore, I am concerned that students will find ways to cheat, e.g. leave and access the Web-based testing system from their iPod.
I let one section do as they like on the computers when they finished, but this made it difficult to determine who was finished and who was using resources to cheat on the exams.
I gave one section some extra credit work to do if they finished early, but many students did other homework instead, which led to similar difficulty in determining who was finished or cheating.

What is a good policy that does not cause interruption to other students but also does not hinder proctoring efforts?

Why were the students leaving early disruptive? Under the rules of every institution that I've been at you are under exam conditions until you leave the room. They should be utterly silent and respectful to other students or face the usual penalties for breaking the rules of exam conditions.

If you're not happy with them leaving early I'm not sure why you would do anything to occupy them. Make them sit in silence and wait for the the exam to finish. Boredom never killed anyone.


What should I do if I'm on the waitlist for a PhD program? I'm on the waitlist of a top 2 program in my field which has a good track record of accepting waitlisted applicants. They told me to wait until April 15 and then I would hear from them. Interestingly, I got rejected by every other program I applied to, so I have no other place to go to. This is my second admissions season - I applied to PhD programs last year as well, got waitlisted from a couple top programs but it didn't work out.

I'm going to give up after this season if this waitlist doesn't work out. Is there anything I can do to maximize my chances of being admitted off the waitlist?

I don't want to seem obnoxious when I email the director of graduate studies at the university, so I don't want to talk about how I don't have any other plans or something like that, but what else can I do?

@Davidmh's advice is spot on, but I will definitely add that now is time to review your backup plan. (Of COURSE you have a backup plan, right?) There's always the possibility that you won't get into any of the schools you applied to; it sucks, but it happens. You should have a solid plan in place to make sure that your resume doesn't go stale in the interim. This could involve working as a lab tech/research assistant for a lab in your field, applying for internships in industry, taking on academic teaching positions, or even just finding any job to ensure you have income.

Whatever your plan is, now is a good time to start making sure it's feasible, and if it involves applying to jobs or the like, you should probably start doing that as well. You can always state that you cannot start working until after whatever the last date you can expect to hear from the university happens to be. The worst thing that can happen is that you have too many options. That is far better than the alternative.


Must a Masters thesis involve original research? Can it be merely a review of some recent research direction? I am currently completing an Masters degree in physics. My M.Sc requires a thesis. Now I applied to Ph.D. programs in the United States and got admitted to one of them. I finished all my M.Sc course requirements. I am still to complete the thesis. Now, I can not find a thesis supervisor currently. Can I just drop the Masters's? Will my admission be affected?

Another question: I am currently doing some independent studies myself. My area of specialization is theoretical physics. Now I think it might be possible to convert what I am independently studying into a Masters's thesis. However, I am not sure if this thesis must involve original research ideas. What I am currently doing is to study some advanced topics in theoretical physics. Can I do a Masters thesis which consists in review of a modern topic of research?

My last question: Can I do a Masters thesis without a supervisor?

I do not know whether you can do a thesis formally without a supervisor. However, even if it were possible (which I doubt), this is a "Really Bad Idea" (TM). There are very few students who have such a powerful grasp of the topic that they might be able to do an MSc level work without a supervisor, and even they may profit from learning from a more experienced person (Feynman comes to mind who had to learn how to write papers to avoid them getting rejected).

A review of work may be sufficient if it creates a synthetic view of the field, but, again, this is something that only your supervisor can help you decide.

Ultimately, I think the department is responsible to find you a supervisor. They accepted you for the programme. If you have acquired the qualifications entitling you to go forward with the thesis, they have to solve this problem. That being said, the question is why you cannot find a supervisor. Do you have the wrong interests for that department? Or is your profile not strong? If the latter, supervisors may not be enthusiastic to take you on, but then this would not be good starting point to aim for a PhD, though, and definitely discouraged.

Since you do go for the PhD, I therefore assume you have a strong profile and your department should be able to help you.


Can I quote a full paragraph which contains some other citations? I am trying to quote a full paragraph in my PhD dissertation. The problem is that this paragraph contains some citations. What should I do?

Copy the paragraph with all citations, putting the references in my list of references?
Copy the paragraph with all citations without putting the references in my list of references?
Copy the paragraph without the citations, indicating omissions by "..."?
Any other ideas?

I assume that the citations in this paragraph are not material to your dissertation.  I also assume that they are also not material to the quoted paragraph.  If so, then you can omit the citations and note that you have done so by adding "[citations omitted]" immediately after the quoted paragraph.

For example, if this is the original quote:

  "Counterfactuals are thus temporally asymmetric: Events in the counterfactual world prior to the antecedent would be more similar than would subsequent events to those of the actual world (e.g., Edgington, 2004; Lewis, 1979). This asymmetry may be related to the finding that people have an easier time imagining counterfactual alternatives to later events in a sequence than to earlier events (Miller & Gunasegaram, 1990). The earlier events seem fixed, the later events more mutable, at least when no further relations constrain them (see Byrne, 2005; Kahneman & Miller, 1986; Parker & Tetlock, 2006)."

You could quote it this way:

  Counterfactuals are thus temporally asymmetric: Events in the counterfactual world prior to the antecedent would be more similar than would subsequent events to those of the actual world. This asymmetry may be related to the finding that people have an easier time imagining counterfactual alternatives to later events in a sequence than to earlier events. The earlier events seem fixed, the later events more mutable, at least when no further relations constrain them." [citations omitted]

EDIT
By "material to the dissertation or quoted paragraph", I mean cases where the citations are important or central, and leaving them out would leave a void for the reader.  For example, let's say your dissertation chapter was a comparison of two rival theories, and your quotation made specific points about one or two of the prime authors of those theories.  It would then be material and including the citations in the quote would be valuable to the reader.  Another case: let's say your quotation was a commentary on what one or more authors said or did.  Leaving out the citations would make it ambiguous for the reader as to what source material your quotation referred to.


How much do my career prospects suffer if I start a mathematics/CS PhD. at the age of 27? I was doing a PhD in a different subject and that was going nowhere and I lost interest in everything that I was doing. But I always loved mathematics and during the dark days of my 3rd of my (former) PhD. I happened to meet some exceptional theoretical CS people who encouraged me a lot. One of them got me as a TA and I am starting afresh in this new field.

How optimistic should I be about a career ahead?

I want to be a researcher/faculty.

How much do my career prospects suffer if I start a mathematics/CS PhD. at the age of 27?

Not at all. 27 is not considered "old" by any stretch of the imagination.

Also see this answer on MathOverflow and this question here on Academia about a PhD student who is actually unusually old.


Is it necessary to add experiment to my designed framework for a journal I'm working a framework X and trying to publish it in IEEE Communication Magazine. But, due to its limitation on the number of text and figures, I wonder it is necessary to add any experiment or proof-of-concept system there?

Thanks.

It depends a lot on the journal, the research area, and the research topic that you are working on. For some fields of computer science, reviewers will immediately reject most submissions that do not include some artifact or implementation with a convincing experimental evaluation. For other fields, this is totally optional (but even then, it may help).

I'm not familiar with the IEEE Communications Magazine or the field of communications in general. However, you can easily find out (and this goes for any other journal as well!) You should do the following:

Look at other papers that have been accepted in the journal in the past, especially related to your topic. How many of them had an experimental evaluation? All of them, some of them, or only a few?
Ask an expert in your research field, such as your adviser or any professor you have access to. They will likely know whether this particular journal expects an evaluation, and they should also be able to offer other specific advice about to your planned submission.
Finally, consider whether your particular research contribution requires or would benefit from an experimental evaluation. Are your main claims sufficiently justified without an evaluation? Even if the journal does not expect it, the evaluation may be necessary to make your paper convincing. Similarly, even if the journal does expect it usually, if your contribution is clearly of excellent value without any evaluation, you may be accepted without it.


Mixing primary and secondary references Suppose paper 1 establishes that roses are red, and cites paper 2 for the statement that violets are blue. Apart from the blueness of violets, no other results from paper 2 are relevant for paper 1, nor for my own essay.

How should my essay refer to these two assertions?

I see three possible options:

Citing the primary source for each statement: Roses are red.[1] Violets are blue.[2]
Citing each relevant source for each statement: Roses are red.[1] Violets are blue.[1,2]
Downgrading the second statement to a secondary citation: Roses are red.[1] 2 had earlier established that violets are blue.[1]

Is there a generally accepted preference for one of these?

It really depends on the context and the reasons why you feel that sharing such assertions contributes to your own essay.

Generally, the first option you mentioned is best, which is citing each assertion according to its original source: Roses are red.[1] Violets are blue.[2]

In some cases, if you have no access to source 2 cited in 1, it may be acceptable to cite only 1, particularly if 1 is a meta-analysis or a review of existing assertions: 1 notes that roses are red and violets are blue.

Similarly, if you are using a direct quote that was itself directly quoted in source 1, it is generally acceptable to simply explicitly make note of this if it is difficult to track down the original source 2: "violets are blue"[2, cited in 1]

Your second option could falsely imply that both source 1 and 2 independently demonstrated that violets are blue (which they do not in your example), and your third option misleadingly cites 1 when you have already cited 2 in the sentence, which is confusing to the reader.


Is it acceptable to publish a paper using an affiliation with a former employer? Recently I've changed jobs, and consequently the field of research has also changed. But I'm still getting proposals for publications in the previous field, and it is interesting for me to accept some of them. My concern is about which affiliation to use: on one hand I gain all the knowledge in that field while working on the previous employer, also I hope they can cover my expenses related to the publication. On the other hand, I do not work for them anymore, and my current company has very little interest in my old field of research, and probably will not support it financially, but I think it is wise to mention them as well. As a compromise I'm thinking to put the previous employer in the affiliation, and the name of my new employer in the footnote, something like "currently at XYZ". Surely I'll discuss this issue with both, although the opinion of the community is also very valuable.

If you have written the publication only with the resources and support of the former employer, then it is perfectly acceptable to do what you have written, and list the old address as your address for the "active" affiliations, and include a "present address" affiliation to show your updated physical location.

However, if your new employer does provide financial support, then you should list them accordingly. This is especially important if any of the actual research that makes its way into a publication has been performed while working for the new employer using their resources.


How should one maintain a relationship with a professor? So I am planning to apply to grad school sometime in the future and would need a letter of recommendation from an awesome professor who I took a time series class with.

I got an A- in the class, he liked my final project a lot and I know he remembers me but how do I maintain a good relationship with a professor after I've graduated?

If you don't plan to work with or take courses from this professor in the future, I advocate getting a letter of recommendation now instead of waiting. Services such as Interfolio allow your letter writers to upload a letter now that you can send out to any recipient at any time. This way, the professor still remembers you well; I can tell you from experience that after a couple of years of teaching large (>100 student) classes, even my better students start to fade together in my memory.


After my employment ends, can I keep working without pay at my current research center, on independent research? I have a bachelor degree in Computer Engineering. I worked as a Research Engineer in a Research Center. It was a fully paid Engineering position funded by European projects.

However, my contract ended, and because there are not any more projects available at the moment, I can't be re-contracted.

My question:

Is it possible for someone to work as a freelance researcher? I have an idea of a platform I would like to work on. The idea, I think, could easily even become a paper. Is it possible that I could continue to work in the research center without being paid, and try to perform some research of my own? Of course I could ask my supervisors about it, but the thing is, I don't know how to ask it.

What I was thinking was they could provide me tools like the computer, mobile devices and a working desk to develop my idea (things that I was provided while working there). In the end it would be something that the university could present, but I would get credit for it for my CV, and it could be especially helpful in getting a good candidate position next year, in a Masters program I am aiming for.

How could I present an idea like this to my supervisor? Is it something that actually happens?

Some notes in response to comments to clear things a bit: The problem is not that I need any kind of equipment to make my idea reality. At work I was provided a simple laptop and some mobile devices, that I can easily have access on my own, so nothing special there.

The reason why I would like to continue work there is as simple as that:

I want to propose an idea of a platform that I would like to create and according to my estimates would be 9-12 months of work. I could do that from my house or by going to work at the research center. However, I need my supervisor to draw public/scientific attention, make a paper with him out of it etc. I want to be able to write in my CV that the last 9-12 months I was working on a project at "that" research center in cooperation with "that" researcher and not that it was a "home" project that I developed.

I haven't made the proposition to my supervisor yet for the following reasons :

I am afraid that my supervisor could simply use my idea with the engineers that still have a contract there.
What I would like is to be the only one working on the project. Like a PhD thesis. I want to get credits of it. Not the research center. I want to get the credit as the main developer/author of this thing, and of course my supervisor be the one that would present it and his name next to mine. Is this even possible? I mean I don't want any other engineers sniffing their nose on it, I don't want my supervisor to demand things on the project. I am thinking of proposing  a complete solution of exactly what I have in mind, let me work on it with my time, without any funding, but the supervisor be the one to present it and draw attention on it.

In the end all I am saying is to have this project on my CV to open some doors on the future and my supervisor being the mentor of this thing.

Of course anyone can be an independent researcher.  Just do it.  But that's not what you're really asking.  The question you're really asking is this:

  How can I convince my former supervisor to let me continue using their equipment and resources after my current contract ends?

And the only reasonable answer that question is to turn in on its head.  What's in it for them?  How would they benefit from giving you an office and access to their equipment?  Is the payoff for them worth more to them than the resources that you would expend?  The fact that the project is good for you isn't enough.

There's an even more basic question: Do they have resources that they can give you access to?  The equipment that you want access to may be tied to the specific project.  They may not be able to give you access.  But the only person that can answer that question is your former supervisor.

Some updates in response to the updated question:

  However , i need my supervisor to draw public/scientific attention , make a paper with him out of it etc.

No, you don't.  You can write and submit a paper yourself.  You can publicize it yourself.  You can ask your former supervisor to help you publicize it; if your supervisor was your advisor and not just your boss, they'll be happy to help you, because your success makes them look good.

  I am afraid that he could simply use my idea with the engineers that still have a contract there.

You don't trust your supervisor.  So don't work with him.  Your mistrust is probably misplaced, but that's your call. To quote Howard Aiken: "Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats."

  of course my supervisor be the one that would present it and his name next to mine

Why "of course"?  Just do it yourself.

  i dont want my supervisor to demand things on the project.

No, that's not how it works. If you want your advisor to put his name on something, you must give him partial responsibility for that something.  That's what coauthorship means.

  I am thinking of proposing to him a complete solution of exactly what i have in mind , let me work on it with my time , without any fundings , but he ll be the one to present it and draw attention on it.

In other words, you want to do all the fun stuff, using your supervisor's resources, and leave the hard work of writing and presenting to your supervisor, but not allow them any actual input, and then claim credit for yourself.

That's just not going to happen.  If you want something from someone else — working space, laptops, Internet connection, help with writing and presentation, anything — you have to offer them something in return.  Either offer to make your supervisor a full partner, including veto power, or you do the work yourself, including all the writing and presentation, with your own equipment, on your own time.

Having the project on your CV will open more doors if you do it without your supervisor.


Do supervisors take a person as PhD students who abandoned his graduate program? As a professor, would you take a person as your Ph.D. student who abandoned his graduate CS program 3 years ago (hence incomplete), but has published 2 research papers per year  (total 6) in a peer-reviewed journal?

Why or why not?

I would consider it, but only after having a talk with the student. In addition to the usual about background and research interests, I'd want to know about why it was abandoned and how we can have some assurance it won't occur again.

But for many this might also depend on how much support the advisor was expected to give. In a situation in which a lot is required (such as a lab), the situation gets more difficult. In other situations, where the professor provides mostly feedback and a few ideas, it is less critical. In CS, it could go either way, depending on the topic of the dissertation research.

But your activity in the interim indicates some seriousness (assuming "a person" means yourself).


Are rejections usually quick for papers submitted to journals? When submitting papers to journals, I understand from experience that acceptance can take quite some time (on the order of several months), even when a reviewer is immediately assigned to the paper.  But can a referee usually tell fairly quickly if the article should be rejected?  Are there any horror stories of waiting several months after a reviewer agrees to look at your paper, only to get a rejection letter?

The answer depends on the journal, the paper, and the reviewer(s). You might hear relatively quickly if there is a trusted reviewer available quickly and he/she isn't too busy with other work and the paper is either especially good, or especially bad. Often the bad is easier to judge than the good, of course. The longest reviews are the intermediate papers, especially if different reviewers have different opinions about it. "We want to publish this. Do we have room in an upcoming issue? We have a lot of competing papers. I love it. I don't think it's quite ripe yet. Etc. Etc. Etc."

Note also that the reviews of intermediate papers (and even some judged to be quite good) may come with some advice for improvement that will, perhaps, lead to acceptance after additional review. This will depend on the journal, of course.

However, don't wait to hear the judgement of the reviewers. Continue work on the project, working to improve both the result and its presentation. Work to extend the result.


how to cite an equation that is common knowledge but I use others notation I am writing my masters thesis on an econometrics topic. It is very closely related to another paper by NW. Since our papers are very closely related, I am using their notation in order to draw comparisons (which I state before introducing my model).

NW motivate their model using known findings from their field. They demonstrate that the standard model does not behave well under their assumptions by (mathematically) decomposing the standard model's objective function. This approach is very common, however, every author formats their arguments to fit their purpose. In my paper, I want to build on NWs argument. I.e. I want to make the same point and extend it. Do I need to cite their equation (the decomposition of the objective function) in any special way?

To paraphrase what I currently have:

  ... NW illustrate this by deconstructing the expectation of the objective
  function into a signal term and a noise term

  $$E[Q(\beta)] = Eg(\beta)'Wg(\beta) + tr(W Omega(\beta))$$

  ...

(I copy their notation exactly.)

The reason I am unsure is that NWs argumentation is not unique to their paper but how they frame it is.

You seem to have a very mechanistic view of citation, as if there were a set of rules that tell you how to write a citation in every possible (or, at least, common) situation. That's not how it works. Think about what the purposes of citation are, and cite material in a way that is appropriate to those purposes.

Here, there are two intellectual contributions you might wish to cite: the underlying equation and the notation you've used to express it.  If the equation is common knowledge, do you need a citation for it at all? Or would a "see, e.g., [textbook]" or "as introduced by [original source]" citation be more appropriate? Given that you're using the notation throughout your paper, isn't it enough to say once that you use the notation of NW? That gives appropriate credit and informs the reader where they can find more information.


Include unrelated patent on publication list I am a PhD candidate (Statistics) starting to apply to academic jobs. I have no publications related to my research - besides my in-process dissertation.
One of my applications requires a publication list.

I have a patent awarded 7 years ago when I worked in a completely different field.  Should I include it in the publications list? I do plan on adding my in-process dissertation just so that I dont turn in a blank page.

Yes, you should list it. Even if you had an otherwise rich CV it would still be proper to list it.

Your application needs to make your best case for acceptance and any IP contributions show evidence of quality research. People understand that patents are hard to obtain.

Your application otherwise will show mostly work in progress, which is fine, but work completed is also a good indicator. You might want to explain your change of fields if that is relevant also, or, at least be prepared to discuss it.


When to answer and when not to answer a brief e-mail from a busy academic? I frequently receive brief, usually confirmatory e-mails (such as "Can do. Best" in response to a request for a letter of recommendation) from academics with considerably less time than myself.

Each time this happens, I am very indecisive about whether the nuisance caused by responding -- and adding an e-mail with essentially no information, such as "Many thanks; this means a lot to me! All the best" to their inbox -- really weighs more heavily than the risk of being perceived as ungrateful.

Any thoughts, ideally from the referee's perspective are greatly appreciated!

My own busy-person email triage has three tiers:

No response needed = near-zero cost
Minimal response needed = minimal cost
Response with significant thought and care needed = significant context-switching cost

A brief "thank you" email would go into category #1: no bother or burden, but noticed and appreciated all the same.  In other words, send the email: it's not a significant nuisance, and it's nice to be appreciated.


What is expected from a post-doc application? More clearly;

Is it possible to apply with a proposal like "I want to make international publications based on my PhD Thesis during my post-doc"

or

Does someone have to formulate an entirely new research question/proposal in the application?

Is it possible to apply with a proposal like "I want to make international publications based on my PhD Thesis during my post-doc"

This is appropriate if you want to pursue a post-doc with your PhD advisor, or you want to pursue a post-doc with an advisor that will allow you to do whatever you want. It is inappropriate if the advisor has their own research agenda.

  Does someone have to formulate an entirely new research question/proposal in the application?

This is appropriate if the advisor doesn't have their own agenda.


Getting credit/ownership for improved software I recently made some changes to a piece of (proprietary) code that my group uses which has made it two orders of magnitude faster.  The code I updated wasn't mine and the original algorithm IP was published a few decades ago so I can't claim I did anything other than some clever refactoring/parallelizing (which somehow everyone else said wasn't possible).  The impact of this update is such that work that would have taken months can now, in principle, be done in under a week (or from hours to minutes).

Unfortunately academia doesn't really reward 'enablers' for improving software so I'm not really sure what I can gain from this beyond some ideas in my own PhD that were not possible previously.

The critical point, compared to other questions I've seen on this topic, is that the code is now commercially viable.  Understandably my supervisor is very happy and wants to keep things under wraps for the time being.

I'm aware that the university probably owns every line of code I just wrote. Do I have any ground to request compensation if the software starts being licensed?  I don't want to sour the relationship I have with my supervisor which has up until now been very good (and I've just earned a lot of respect for this work).

If I was working in industry this is about the time I'd be going to my line manager and at asking for a salary bump or a promotion.  In academia it seems like this sort of work is relegated to a pat on the back and a footnote.  I suspect I'm being sour, but is this just the way it goes?

Am I allowed to ask that people cite the software even if it's not a publication (not that we have a website!)?  For instance one can cite R, Numpy, etc.

As a software developer it is hard to believe that improving a piece of (proprietary) code can made it two orders of magnitude faster. Although parallelization can make it 2-5 times faster on a modern workstation of 6-8 cores, unless the original code was notoriously bad it is hard to imagine that it can really be faster by two orders of magnitude (~100 times faster) just by improvement, without changing the original algorithm. So, are you 100% sure that the acceleration you get is legit? Sometimes (especially with parallelization) when things are too good to be true, there is some subtle condition which usually breaks by parallelization. So, first make 100% sure (compare results produced for a wide range of input data) by the two versions of the software (the old and your version). I assume you use some version of version control system (who does not?), so you still have the old version somewhere. It does not matter if this experiment takes a few days - 1-2 weeks it has to be done to be 100% sure that something did not break and you do get identical results between the two versions of the software for a wide range of input data and not just by a small test case.

If you are 100% sure that you really improved the software without breaking anything, the main question is did you actually improved the original algorithm or not. Simply adding an OpenMP directive and parallelizing a code which was parallelizable all along, is not a publishable result. In this case, your improvements do not merit a publication and therefore no publication => no citation, since you did not create the  original software. On the other hand, if you did more than refactoring / parallelizing the software and your contribution is significant you must publish these results on a technical-focused CS conference. Then everyone using your version of the software could cite this work and additionally could cite the online version of the software if it is publicly available.

On the legal version of your story, I really do not have the expertise to answer. In this case, I would search the IP policy of the university as @NateEldredge suggests and ask an experienced lawyer who knows about software patents. I do not think anyone of us here are really entitled here to give legal advice. Of course if your version of the software starts getting money for the university, you are probably entitled to a share and you must protect your rights as good as you can. It is just that right now, we do not know if this software is going to actually become a product for sale.

Also about your paragraph:

  If I was working in industry this is about the time I'd be going to my
  line manager and at asking for a salary bump or a promotion. In
  academia it seems like this sort of work is relegated to a pat on the
  back and a footnote. I suspect I'm being sour, but is this just the
  way it goes?

I do not know how much experience you have in the software industry, but be rest assured that you do not get a raise everytime you do a good job. After all, this is expected from you and it is a prerequisite for you keeping your job for a long time. You can always ask for a raise, but that does not mean you will get one.

On the other hand as I mentioned earlier, either you changed the software's algorithm and implementation so much that you deserve a separate publication or you bug-fixed a crappy code (which you will use on your PHD) which does not really say that much. Either case, this is probably the only credit you will get.


Is it true, that there are/can be associate professors, full professors and University provosts without doctorate in the Western Continental Europe? There is legislative proposal in our small country (Republic of Latvia, Baltic Country, European Union) that proposes to allow elected associate professors, full professors and provosts of the research universities to be without doctorate (e.g. PhD or MD or other doctorate). The authors of proposal are saying that anglo-saxon and Western European countries have tradition (even Stanford University) to have such positions filled with persons not having doctorate.
I can not believe this. Doctorate degree is so common in academia, I can understand that only junior lecturers and assistant professors can be without doctorate (with mandatory master degree). But starting from associate professors - degree should be a must in science and medical studies.
Is there clarification available under which circumstances the Continental Western European research universities allow associate, full professors and provosts to be without doctorate (e.g. PhD or MD) (I mean specifically doctorate in medicine, and no just the professional qualification).
My question applies specifically to the Continental Western Europe starting from Germany and Austria and going to the West. My question applies to the research and technical universities, not the Tertiary Art education (in which it is fair to have professional degrees). The previous version of this question applied to Anglo-Saxon countries as well but I was reminded about similar US specific question, as well as there were comments about distinct UK traditions. So - there are a lot of information on Academia site about US and UK, so, I narrowed this question to the laws and practices of Continental Western Europe.
I edited question once more - I replaced wording "PhD/MD" with "doctorate". Of course, my question is about doctorate generally, not about particular type of doctorate as PhD or MD.
If this question gathers enough proof that such legislative proposal is contrary to the traditions of the Western Universities, then I can bring this proof to the authors of the proposed legislation to question their true intentions.

It's pretty rare, but it looks like the University of Cambridge recently appointed someone without a doctorate to the Rouse Ball Professorship of English Law, and I've seen advertisements for associate-professor level vacancies in Engineering (in the UK) that call for either a Ph.D. or Chartered Engineer status, but not necessarily both.
The "Order of seniority of graduates" of the University of Cambridge (which primarily decides who's at the front and who's at the back in ceremonial processions) contains a special category for Professors who are not Doctors, which kind of implies that such people must exist.
ETA: I see the question has now been edited in such a way that this is no longer an answer to it.


Behavior with other grad students The University I joined as a new grad student treats grad students as both students and employees. So I am confused whether I should behave as a professional colleague or a fellow student with other grad students? I have noticed informal atmosphere within the department(people even use curses in  general while talking to professors) but again, sometimes they become very formal and rather act stiff. I am confused.

When in Rome, do as the Roman's do. Observe how your peers interact with their peers, superiors, and subordinates. Emulate them and you'll do fine. Note in what circumstances they are formal and when they are not. For instance, I addressed my professor by his first name in private but by his title in public. Also, don't be too shy to ask someone!


Is Scimago a good way to rank conference impact? I have seen that the Scimago Journal Rank make a rank of journals that cover different topics and classified them into quartiles. For what I know conferences also made their proceedings books, but I was dubious if they could be compared agains journals like Scimago does.

I say this because I believe that journals have most ot the time a higher impact than conferences, and compare them side to side (journals and conference proceedings) it is not such a good idea.

The question that I have is if Scimago could be a good way to rank a conference impact, and also if there is another computer science conference ranking that uses the same quartile calculus as Scimago?

Any help?

Thanks

Is Scimago a good way to rank conference impact?

No. It isn't.

At best, Scimago is a good way to obtain a modified "PageRank" of a publication in the graph of citations between Scopus-indexed publications in a three-year window, with each citation weighted by the similarity of the citing and cited publications, as measured by their common citation profiles.

Even if you accept that Scimago's abstruse formula is an accurate indicator of "impact"—which is debatable for numerous reasons—neither the raw citation data nor the precise definition of "cocitation profile" (on which the formula depends) are available to independently verify Scimago's rankings.

In particular, a few spot checks suggests that Scimago's coverage of major computer science conferences is spotty, and that the data it extracts from those conferences (even for relatively straightforward things like "number of citeable documents") is not particularly accurate.


License issue: publishing an image of famous person in the scientific paper A scientific paper to be published contains an image of someone famous. An image is just picked from the Internet.

My questions:

Is it a violation to publish such image without permission?
From whom a researcher needs to seek the right to this image: the famous individual or photographer?
Suppose the image is eventually published in the paper without permission while the journal did not ask for permissions.  When the paper is published the author grants the journal rights to publish this work. To best of my understanding, legally the author is not the owner of his paper anymore.  The paper is published under Creative Commons license. In such a case, who is legally responsible for the violation: the author or the journal? Who can be potentially sued?

Thanks!

Two follow-ups:

1) How can I know which image I can use without a permission? For example, an image in Wikipedia can be used? I know that  I can buy from stock images, but there is only limited number of images there.

2) For obtaining the permission, how I can know from whom to ask? For example, an image appear in some news article. But they could also obtain a permission to it.

Assuming the photograph is still under copyright, yes.

The copyright owner of the photograph. This will usually be the photographer.

You are probably liable, but they would probably complain directly to the journal who would then shout at you. Under a Creative Commons license, you are still the author and "owner", even if you have given permission to people to use it under the license.
(I say "probably" - it does occasionally happen that you transfer rights to the publisher, who then release it under a CC license with themselves as the owner, but this is pretty rare.)

Short answer: yes, you do need to get permission, and you can't just say "I found it on the internet and it's the journal's problem for not checking".


Are translation journals still a thing? In the second half of the 20th century there were a large number of English-language journals published in the West that carried only translations by Western academics of Russian-language articles.  The original versions of these articles were written by Soviet academics and had appeared in Russian-language journals published in the Soviet Union.  The English journals were commonly known as "translation journals" (not to be confused with translation studies journals, which are about the art and science of translation).  Perhaps the most famous translation journal was Soviet Physics Uspekhi, though Physics Today once listed sixteen further translation journals published by the American Institue of Physics and associated societies, and there may have been many many more in other scientific fields (and humanistic ones too, for all I know).

Were such translation journals unique to the Cold War, or do they still exist today?  A successor to Soviet Physics Uspekhi is still published today, under the name Physics-Uspekhi, but I think it operates quite differently and for quite different purposes nowadays.  In particular, its editorial office is in Russia, not in the USA, and it seems that it is Russian academics (possibly the authors, or someone working at their direction) who are supplying the English translations.  So rather than serving the interests of English-speaking academics who wish to discover or disseminate the work of their Russian-speaking counterparts, the journal today seems to be serving Russian-language academics who want to bring their work to a wider English audience.

Are there any scholarly fields today where a lot of research is being published in non-English journals, where these articles are being routinely translated into English by translators unconnected with the original authors, and where these translations are being published in dedicated journals?

In mathematics there are still regularly published English language translations of Russian language journals. Examples:

St. Petersburg Mathematical Journal
Functional Analysis and its
Applications
Russian Mathematical Surveys
Transactions of the Moscow Mathematical Society

There are quite a few others.

For most (if not all) of these journals it is often now the authors themselves who supply the translation (I believe this was sometimes the case long ago, although various US professional societies organized formal translation programs, sometimes with funding from agencies like the NSF; the issue is that translating research articles requires substantial understanding of the content, and this greatly limits the pool of potential translators).

Here is a Japanese source journal:
Sugaku Expositions


Should a marker TA handle students' marking issues by email? I am a university marker TA. The instructor requires TAs to meet students if they have marking issues. But I found most students just come to meet me for better grades, not to ask questions, and some are tough to handle; they just insist they should get better grades.

I feel that is annoying. Is it a better idea to handle the cases by email, and let them talk to the instructor if they have further questions?

Part of the rite of passage of being a graduate student is having to deal with insistent students in person.

If students ask for more marks, you can firmly but politely state that marks are not subject to negotiation, but that you'll gladly discuss the contents of the answer.

Aside: learn early to be firm for otherwise word will spread you are soft and you will invite more headaches.  Being firm can lead to awkward silences as you may rapidly reach a point when there is nothing more to say.  If you reach a dead end you can always close by firmly but politely ask if there are other topics to discuss.


What are good argument against strict attendance policy, and university making it harder for students to maintain attendance? My university have a very strict attendance policy, attendance affect the students marks a lot and if attendance is lower than 75% at the end of the semester, students are not allowed to sit in finals. Not only in the end of the year, if attendance get lower than 75% at any point of the semester Internal marks are lowered a lot.

Not only this, University administration keeps trying to make it harder for students to maintain students by adding more and more classes, sometimes by cutting the holidays or by adding more classes in already busy schedule of students.

I reached out to students, and almost all the students are finding it hard to give time to self study and for other stuff.

What are good arguments against this to be presented in front of higher authorities of the university.

thanks in advance.

A hard part of this is that it is not as easy as said. The vast majority of students are (while legally adult) not sufficiently mature, and particularly susceptible to peer pressure. Mandatory attendance (which our university doesn't have) attempts to address this. Fact is that students tend to be poor judges of the benefits of attendance (or prioritising the wrong parts - lectures over seminars or labs). With the right pressure many students can be taught more than if they are left to their own devices and from a student recruitment perspective it is seductive to put the protective measures into place so that the students will gain the relevant subject knowledge, understanding and skills (which are much more prominently assessed, and easier to assess than vague things like study attitude and independence).

Another problem is that when few students attend it is easier for other students to not attend. When students believe that they can pass the exam (that is due in 6/7 months) doing memorization a few days before the date you are fighting against a well established belief that has been reinforced through years of regurgitation exams in secondary (and primary) school. Anything helps.

At the same time, overworking students is also overkill, but in case that selection on entry is not feasible it may be a good way to quickly separate the wheat from the chaff. In many systems, withdrawals only count against the university after some months of study, so getting students who will quit (or are really not up to it) to quit early is quite important.


Journal employees offering free publication in return for co-authorship and citations: is it a scam? Some of my colleagues and I got offers from employees  of some reputed journal (not from journal itself), to publish our research paper for free, if:

We include their name as co-author
We use 60%+ citation of their journal (Doesn't it add up to IF??)

In return:

It will be published completely free
They will give us discount of some sort for next publication

Is it may be some kind of scam?

This is a scam.

You are not the ones being scammed, however.  The editors are proposing to scam your readers, with your assistance, making you scammers as well.  Walk away before you damage your reputation.


Oral Presentation Prize at a Conference Abstract was selected for 'oral abstracts' competition, in a shortlist of 5 presenters. I was announced winner at the end of the competition. Following the event I have been emailed to pass on my bank details as the beneficiary of the £1500 prize. My co-authors are all seniors/co-supervisors. What should I do? Should I email them all to discuss splitting up the share? Or should I not raise the matter at all, to avoid embarrassment. From reading responses to a similar post before, I get the impression that since the award is for best Oral Presentation, and I am the only 'student' it should probably just go to me. At the same time, I don't want to just keep it without mentioning it to anybody.

You should absolutely inform your co-authors

These people care about your career. They will be your recommenders, they will help you find jobs. People will ask them about your work. "Hey, I just won a big prize" is something I'd want to know if it was one of my students or postdocs - because I'd proceed to cheerfully show off the awesome work people in my lab are doing.

You can broach the subject of splitting the prize with them, but personally you did the presentation, and you won the award. If I was on the paper, I'd settle for a warm fuzzy feeling.


Renting a house to a graduate student in my department I am a professor at a US university, and I'll be away on a sabbatical for all of the coming academic year.  I would like to sublet my house while I am away, and I think that one or two of the graduate students in my department might be interested.  I'd prefer to do that instead of renting to a complete stranger.  However, since I would effectively be their landlord and they would be paying me rent, I am wondering if this raises ethical or conflict-of-interest concerns, since those students may be in my courses in the future.

(I have checked my university's regulations and they do not address this situation.  I would certainly check with my superiors before going ahead; this question is just to find out whether this seems okay in terms of general professional ethics, or presents the appearance of a conflict.)

Some possibly relevant notes:

My department's graduate program is not in my research area, so there would not be any chance of me becoming the dissertation advisor of any of these students.  However, I could serve on their dissertation committee.
The sublet would end before I would be teaching classes again, so I wouldn't simultaneously be a student's landlord and their instructor.  It is conceivable, though, if they fell behind on the rent, that they might still owe me money at that time.

At the time they sign the lease there is no conflict of interest. Further, there is no conflict of interest anticipated throughout the duration of the lease. There is of course the possibility that an unforeseen conflict arises, but this is always a possibility. You are putting yourself at an elevated risk of a conflict of interest, so it is probably worth mentioning it to you department chair. If an unforeseen conflict does arise, just let your department chair know and do what ever is needed at that point.


Rankings of the historic universities in Europe I am surprised that some of the most historic universities in continental Europe are ranked above 100 on an average. I specifically have in mind University of Gottingen and University of Vienna. I am assuming that at the peak of their fame, they were rubbing shoulders with the best in the anglo-sphere. What caused the slide in reputation? I have heard that in Germany, Nazism caused the emigration of a lot of talented people. Or is it just that the ranking methodology is biased towards universities in the UK and the US? As someone interested in the history of scientists and scientific institutions, it seems somewhat odd.

First: Rankings are just rankings and are, to a large degree, arbitrary. (Shameless plug: Here is an article (arxiv version here) that shows that for some specific database many players can get to the top rank just by fiddling around with some weights.)

Second: Just as some universities gain reputation, other lose some. That's pretty normal, isn't it?

Last, some trivia: You are probably even more surprised that some universities of some fame in the old days do not even exist anymore. Stupid example: Gauß got his PhD from the University of Helmstedt, a town that has nowaday less inhabitants than some German universities have students… Another example I know of is the University of Rinteln. However, it is hard to judge the standing of these universities at that times. Alas, university rankings did not exist some 300 years ago…


Where can I find statistics on the average number of papers published while working on a PhD? I'm interested in this, because I want to know if there is something like an average number that we might find.

I am looking for statistics on the number of papers published while working on a PhD, preferably by general field of study (e.g. Physics, History, etc., not "Quantum Electrodynamics") and the country where the PhD was completed. If possible, the duration of PhD and amount of course work should also be parameters.

Byrnes (2007) found that for tenured faculty in top departments of psychology in the US there was a correlation between the publication rate during the first 7 years following a PhD and the number of publications during the PhD.

  individuals in the bottom quartile published an average of 1.03 predoctoral articles, those in the middle 50% and top 25% published 2.00 and 3.03 predoctoral articles, respectively

Note that the quartiles refer tot he number of articles published during the 7 years following the awarding of the PhD and not the number of predoctoral articles.

This study obviously includes only a small subset of all Psychologists (those who have gotten tenure at top Psychology departments), but may provide a hook into relevant literature.


Should I cite the article that I am writing an opinion piece on? I am writing an opinion piece on a definite article. Should I cite that article whenever I write about the author's ideas in my opinion paper?

I couldn't find any helpful resources when I googled this query.

I agree with the comment saying that you should see other opinion papers in the same venue. I personally think you should - it seems logical. If someone wants to read the original paper, they need some way to be able to know where to find it.


What to do when you have small yet additional results to a submitted paper? Suppose I finished work on a manuscript and submitted it to a journal. After X weeks, I suddenly realized I can prove one of the conjectures I left open in the concluding section. It seems that X is small enough (e.g. 1) so that nothing visible has happened to my submission yet.

The proof is not long, and wouldn't be important enough to merit its own paper. Will it reflect badly on me if I contact the managing editor to have the current submitted version updated? The smaller X is, the less annoyed people would probably be. I could just submit to arxiv, but I would like to make the manuscript stronger, and don't have results scattered around giving a hasty impression either. Or is there another solution I'm overlooking?

As Marc says in his comment, the best thing to do is probably to incorporate the new proof into your revision, after you get reviewer feedback. A small extension not worth its own paper is unlikely to make a difference between reject and revise. If you send it now, it may annoy the editor and reviewers. Also, the reviewers will likely be just fine with more new material you add in revision.


Eleven reviewers invited but only one has accepted--is this a problem? I have a manuscript under review at Nature Scientific Reports. The editorial system shows eleven reviewers invited but only one has accepted.  Is this a problem? Is it normal?

I think it really depends on the field. Having published a lot of work in Systems Biology intersect biology, comp sci, math, modelling, ... I found it really hard to get reviewers for our papers. And once you have reviewers they often evaluate the paper very one sided (e.g. the math is trivial, no new concept in comp bio, limited biological novelty, ...). So yes, it is a problem, but you are asking the wrong question: I think you want to know what is the cause of it and can it be fixed?


Finishing the physics graduate curriculum as undergrad I am a year ahead of my physics curriculum, but I plan to stay as an undergrad for the 4th year to increase my chances at top graduate schools in physics. In this 4th year, I will take all the graduate courses in physics a typical 1st/2nd year PhD student would take: two semesters of quantum mechanics and a semester each of statistical physics and electrodynamics.

My question is: is it worth it taking all of these graduate courses as an undergrad? From what I know, most universities don't accept transfers in graduate courses and I would have to take them again.

I would still like to take them because I am eager to learn them, and also achieving good grades in them would help me demonstrate my readiness for graduate school.

Other option would be taking courses in other disciplines that would benefit me, such as math or electrical engineering.

Research experience is almost always better than additional classes, even graduate classes. Either graduating early so that you can work/volunteer full time in a research lab or taking the minimum number of credits to maintain your status as a student and work/volunteer part time in a research lab is likely going to increase your chances of admissions to a top graduate school much more than taking a full load of classes.

If you go with taking classes, classes that fulfil general graduate requirements are going to be less valuable than classes that will help prepare you for your research.


As a DACA student, am I eligible for PhD funding? I am a deferred action student, meaning that I apply for in-state resident tuition but I am not a US citizen (non-permanent resident).
I have a work card that allows me to work like any other citizen and pay taxes accordingly.
However, due to me being a non-citizen, I'm concerned that I may not be able to receive funding for PhD. My family does not have a lot of money and we spent a lot of money for my undergrad education (I don't qualify for FAFSA either) so without financial aid, I'm not able to attend graduate school. Even with my part-time job, most of my earnings went into paying for GRE and application fees.

Do university departments offer financial aid to non-citizens (but not international) as well? Most of the departments I saw state that they offer guaranteed funding through the 5th year of a student's PhD but do not explicitly say if it's available to students such as myself.

The most common kinds of funding for PhD students in the US are research assistantships and teaching assistantships.  Typically neither of these types of funding have rules about the citizenship status of the student.  These types of funding would provide a DACA PhD student with tuition and a stipend for living expenses.

Some prestigious, higher paying fellowships offered by the federal government would not be available to a DACA student.  For example, the NSF GRFP requires permanent residency.  The NDSEG, being funded by the military, requires citizenship or national status.

On a broader note, if you cannot get financial aid including a stipend, you should not get a PhD.  If the university thinks you will be a good PhD student, they will be willing to pay you.  This advice does not apply to professional degrees.


Can I publish an article or thesis about my research without supervisor? I am a bachelor student majoring on computer engineering and working on robotics. Last year as a part of my research, I worked together with a student and one teacher as a supervisor, so we published our article for conference together. But later we finished our research and all of us left the team. Now I am working on other research problem by myself and got some results and want to publish it. But this time I am alone, I have no supervisor on that research problem or any student partner. So I'd like to ask can I submit a paper for conference/journal by myself?
P.S. My current research project has no relationship with old one.

You definitely submit a paper by yourself and if you write a high quality submission, it will be accepted.

When I was early in my research career I found it very helpful to have a collaborator such as a teacher/professor or a postdoc student with publishing experience to collaborate on papers. This often helps catching points or issues that you may overlook within your research as well as providing advice and guidance.


My PhD went over time - advice for explaining this on a CV It is a concern to me that I may look unattractive to potential employers because I went so far beyond the original budgeted time for my PhD (50% over time). I am currently searching for a job in industry, where there may be no understanding of the difficulties of my research and I expect to recieve no sympathy from prospective employers.

I feel that on my CV I must somehow find a way to hide that it took me so much time to finish my PhD. However I will not blatantly lie on my CV. Does anyone have any advice? Or any suggestions as to how I could explain this extra time on a CV? I hope I am not the only one to have ever been in this mess?

The time I studied for my PhD went to 6.5 years, which is far beyond the typical 4 years for PhD studies in Europe (I study in London). In growing desperation (for applications to jobs based in Europe) I consider replacing the first two years of my PhD with a job, possibly titled "research assistant" or something similiar, and placing it under employment history. On the CV it would then appear my PhD took 4.5 years, a more typical length. Any thoughts on doing this? Is it correct that in the United States and Canada that 6.5 years is close to the typical length (or time required) for a PhD and therefore I would not be discriminated against?

Any advice and suggestions are appreciated.

PS it genuinely took 6.5 years to finish this PhD, it was impossible to finish in 4 years.

Whatever you do do not fabricate or conceal the truth. I am not sure someone would worry about finishing "on time" as much as looking at the quality of the work you have achieved. In my system there is also a 4-year research time limit (in terms of calendar time it can be extended by including teaching, maternity/paternity leave or whatever is applicable). Regardless of whether you apply for a job in academia or industry the criteria for the employment will be much more than finishing on time. So issues like quality, number of papers published, social skills, other relevant skills will be measured. If you have a reasonable explanation for the extended period of your PhD, just spell it out. Do not make a big story about it, just cleanly provide an explanation that makes the period understandable and reasonable.


Can studying in a good place hurt your application? I have the following situation in mind: consider two people A and B, who are roughly "equally good" in their field and do their bachelors in the same university - a small, not widely known insitution. Then student A stays there for his/her Master's, while student B chooses to do his Master's in a more prestigious place.

At the end, they both apply to a PhD at some competitive place. Coming from a "modest" university, where he easily stands high above the average, student A is highly regarded by his/her professors and so manages to get very good recommendation letters. On the other hand, student B studied in a place where students of his level are more common, and so he doesn't impress his professors as much, and they don't speak so highly about him in recommendation letters.

Do you think that scenarios like this could actually make student A seem a better candidate than student B in practice? In this sense, could studying at a good university hurt your career in the long run? Or would the prestige of the university where student B studied (as well as possibly the prestige of the professors who wrote recommendation letters about him) make up for the more modest recommendation letters?

As others have pointed out, anything can happen.  Of course if you are at the weaker M.S.  school, emphasize your class rank, etc.  But my Bayesian estimate is that you (one) are better off at the STRONGER school.  It will challenge you more, move you more etc.

Don't try to be a big fish in a small pond. Go out in the ocean and compete with the Great Whites.  Consider Arnold Schwarzenegger.  He didn't stay in the cowtowns of the Steiermark.  He went to Muscle Beach in California.  "New York, New York...if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere."  Be a playah.

Note:  if there are other reasons, family, weather, economics, pedagogy, etc. that you (one) prefers the easier school, fine.  Of course what matters most is the student, not the school.  If you have the goods, you can prevail anywhere.  But all else equal...go to the harder school.

Just a point of view, but hopefully explaining what is behind the pick.


Should I include my converted GPA/final semester GPA on my CV? I'm applying to graduate school and I'm contacting potential supervisors, as advised by the universities I'm applying to.

My GPA is 16.33/20. When I convert it to the 4.0 scale,according to WES, my overall GPA, GPA in the final 2 years, the final year and the final semester are 3.41, 3.34, 3.4 and 4.0 respectively.

Does 3.41 look better than 16.33? As I want to make a good first impression, should I include my final semester GPA or does it simply highlight my poor performance in the previous semester?

Provide a copy of the original transcript(s) detailing all the grades.

Any university will convert the values according to their "rules" and evaluate your application as necessary.


If the name I used on the publication is different from my legal name, which one should I use in the copyright form? If the name I used on the publication is different from my legal name, which one should I use in the copyright form?  Let's say the names are Joseph (legal name) and Joe (name in the paper), or even different last names.

Between name changes, use names, transliteration, etc., this is a rather common situation, and copyright forms are generally well designed to allow graceful handling of it. Most copyright forms that I have encountered include two separate places where you put a name:

A list of the authors, in which you should write all of the names exactly as they appear on the paper.
A signature line, in which an authorized signer (in this case, yourself) should place their usual signature, in the same form that you use it for other legal documents.

There is no actual requirement that these names be identical, just that the authorized signer take legal responsibility for the assertions of the document, including asserting that the list of author names is appropriate.  In fact, for some authors, their organization may not allow the author to be the person who signs the document!

Thus, if you write your name on the paper as "author" and you write your legal name for signature, this should be fine and appropriate. If, somehow, you encounter a form that does not make the distinction between the two names, then I would say it is highly likely that the organization issuing the form must be rather sloppy with regards to handling copyright in any case, and you should not worry about it.


How to find help when writing a master's thesis What methods could you recommend for attaining assistance when writing a master's thesis, in the particular case when one feels uncomfortable seeking any more help from the advisor, because of his own anxiety and the advisor's personality and busyness?

Is there an option available to get independent help? How would one go about finding help so that he can get the thesis finished?

At the end of the day, your advisor is the one who needs to accept your thesis. Seeking help from others may be useful for some types of questions, but you'll definitely want his feedback during the process to make sure you're developing the thesis to his standards.


Studying strategies for a full-time working mathematician I am currently a fixed income trader and I work 10 hours a day from 5 am - 3 pm. I am a mathematician by education but unfortunately I am not doing much math and programming at my job. So, I try to study an hour during lunch and three hours after work to keep up with my skills and learn more. Specifically, I focus a lot of time in C++, computational mathematics, stochastic calculus / differential equations, and machine/deep learning as a little hobby.

Until I find another job where I actually use my education I feel a bit frustrated with the little time I have during the week to study. On weekends I plan to devote more time to studying but I have to be realistic and relax a bit and have a life.

I guess this post is more for advice as to how I should study and gain as much time as I can to study because now I feel like I am kicking myself in the butt for not continuing my PhD and just walking away with a masters.

If you study 1+3=4 hours per day I believe this is enough. Do not worry about anything. Just keep studying like this and you will reach your goal.
(Which I suppose is to become an independent researcher)


I still don't know my exact research question but I know I don't like the ideas my advisor pushes me to work on an publish asap. What are my options? I'm three months into a fully-funded PhD programme, following on from an integrated Masters and two years in industry. I should also say upfront that after seeing more what academic research is around, I feel lukewarm at most about academia in general - which definitely contributes to any dissatisfaction I feel.

While I'm broadly interested in the subject matter of my advisor's field (I switched to work with him after my Masters), I don't feel too keen on exploring the exact research directions he pointed me towards. That being said I still haven't clarified to myself what my dream research question would be. I know what themes I'm interested in, but even though they reside in the same general field as my advisor's work, they don't match his desired themes (It's like we are both interested in cooking but I'm a vegetarian and he is keen on catering for this new hot bbq rib joint.)

So on one hand I have an advisor urging me to jump into this idea I'm not interested in, and putting pressure to find a conference to publish anything ASAP (because the idea involves a recently hot buzzword). On the other hand I'm three months into this and I still don't know what it is that I would like to research really and I'm questioning whether doing a PhD makes sense at all. Both of this sides of the problem are incredibly stressful and exert really negative effect on my mental health.

Is it abnormal / bad / embarrassing to still not know one's research question this far into the PhD programme? Would it be bad / embarrassing / disrespectful to turn down my advisor's idea even though I don't have my own to offer in exchange, and ask for more time for 'reading around'?

From an outside perspective, you are just getting started. Three months is just a warm up period. One part of me wants to advise that the doctoral study period is limited and you should do what you need to do to get through it and move on to other things. The other part wants to advise that it isn't fun to work on something you aren't interested in for a few years. Dilemma.

But, if you intend to stay with this advisor, I suggest, pretty strongly, that you take his advice. He has more experience and a wider view than you do. It would be fine, in my view, to ask for more time to find a mutually acceptable problem to work on, but if you get push-back, I think you either need to yield or find someone else to work with. But, it may be that you can come up with an idea that he has some interest and competence in quickly enough that it works out.

You will get the best help from your advisor, assuming you need it, if you work on a problem he is also invested in. It is possible, but harder, to work alone, but you still need his approval at the end of the day. If you can get by with minimal help and final approval, you can probably make a go of it, though it will likely take longer than if you have strong help.

But you should look, also, to see if there is another local advisor available who has more compatible interests. You also want an advisor who will support your future career. Fighting with him won't get you that.


Feedback for a student showing improvement One of the students whose work I'm grading has just handed in a piece of work which is much better than what I've come to expect of them after several classes. I was just about to write some rather positive comment on their work, along the lines of "Good job! You're doing much better than you used to.", when it struck me that perhaps this is not such a great idea after all.

The problem is that, even after the jump in performance, the student is by far not the brightest in the group (not that they're not bright; the group is simply very strong overall). This leaves me with a couple of possible concerns. Maybe that would be somewhat unfair to the other students, who usually perform at a consistent level. More importantly, this might come across as a backhanded compliment. Something along the lines of "Well done, you are now about average, which is very high, judging by your abilities." (which of course is very far from what I mean to convey). Are these legitimate concerns?

On the other hand, it feels slightly wrong not to acknowledge improvement. And I usually try to leave some kind word next to a particularly good solutions of people at the top of the group.

So, is it a good idea to comment on the fact that student is doing better? If so, how do I make sure I will not be misunderstood?

Just personal opinion + some experience.

First, if it's graded and the grade shows a large jump, then I'd just leave it as is.

Second, perhaps the first homework was not a true reflection of the student's ability (sickness, etc.) Just be mindful but I trust that you have gotten a clear impression of the class by now.

I feel that it's okay to remark on the improvement if the last homework was apparently bad (say, like a fail or near-fail.) Otherwise the student may not even realize it was bad all along, and this "better" comment can be a harsh blow of reality.

My desire to remark will grow stronger if I have written some suggested improvements in the last assignment or highlighted the common errors in class and the students actually followed my advices. My rule is to pair each good remark with a reason, and each bad remark with a suggestion. So, rather than "good job!" I'd suggest "good job on [whatever done right]" in order to reinforce such positive behaviors.

And lastly, just my thought and I expect not everyone would agree with me: I don't think giving customized remark or suggestion is a sign of being unfair. If someone struggles and wants to put in the effort to perform better, I wouldn't mind giving more detailed guidance in my feedback. The important thing I always remind myself is while past records are important, we should be prepared to evaluate our students with fresh eyes as well whenever possible. Don't give the impression that we had already given the final grades in our head after the first couple classes.


What are the benefits and drawbacks of fitting one's problem within an advisor's research? I am passionate about working on a particular problem and domain, and have an opportunity to complete a PhD that does not require department/university subsidy. However, the problem I am interested in is outside of the domain of the research faculty. I have been encouraged to find a small part of my problem space that fits with the research of available advisors. However, I feel like conducting my research at another institution, where the research faculty are actively working in the same domain as myself, may be a better choice.

What are the benefits and drawbacks may be to work with advisors directly related to one's own area of research, rather than trying to just fit one's research into the scope of available advisors' research interests?

There is some discussion of this regarding the master's thesis, but I feel that the doctoral level is a little different, in that the advisor/advisee relationship is perhaps more important.

With regard to choosing to do your PhD research with a group working in your field of interest:-

Benefits:

In-depth subject specific knowledge, meaning that:

You will get started faster.

Your early mistakes and false leads identified and corrected earlier.

You will get a faster entree into the best collaborative networks.

You will get noticed by the community faster.

You will be associated with experts in the field.

Disadvantages:

Depending on the supervisor, you might get rail-roaded into doing the science his/her "way", leaving less opportunity for you to strike out on your own path.

You are dealing with a new advisor, and that relationship takes time to cultivate.

For your situation, it seems that you will have to get a source of funding.


Using postdoc as a bridge to switch fields and transition from academia to industry I am finishing a Ph.D. in psychology, but my goal is to find an industry job in biomedical engineering. Would an academic postdoc in biomedical engineering improve my prospects for an industry job in that field?

A PhD is a very high level qualification but going from psychology to biomedical engineering is quite a big change. So anybody who wants to hire somebody to do biomedical engineering would need some pretty strong arguments why they should hire you as a psychology phd. This applies to the professor looking for a postdoc the same way as in industry.

In comments you said you already have a postdoc offer. This seems to change things a lot because after the postdoc you can apply to biomedical engineering jobs and show you are qualified for them with the postdoc. Currently it seems very hard to judge your qualifications in that field.


Funding during graduate study (phd, masters) in math in the US I have some questions and concerns in mind:

When somebody says a program is "funded", does that mean the money is conditional (whether he TAs or not) or unconditional? Or is it clarified in context?
Is there such a thing as entirely unconditional funding? If it's not tied to teaching, will it always be tied with progress (or something else)?
Are there programs that will ask you to take out loans? In other words, do (most) schools generally have some sort of funding available? How does this depend on rankings/tier? Is there a specific ranking, say 50, below which you'll mostly likely need money through loans? Does it depend on type (masters or phd)?
For the sake of avoiding confusion, what are different sources? Fellowships, scholarships, the department, "TAships" (what is an exhaustive list?)

My personal concern is whether or not I can depend on being funded, even if I'm not a very strong student (or if I'm a student coming from a different discipline).

When somebody says a program is "funded", does that mean the money is conditional (whether he TAs or not) or unconditional? Or is it clarified in context?

The vast majority of funding is conditional on some amount of teaching, TAing and/or grading.  The exact amount varies from program to program and, often, within a given program, both from student to student and from year to year.  Various government-sponsored fellowships will cut out all teaching obligations for entire years, but there will be other years in which teaching is required.  Most students spend five or six years in a math PhD program in the US, and most prestigious fellowships don't fund all of that time: e.g. the NSF graduate fellowship provides three (very highly paid) full years of support.  You should also be aware that some teaching experience is desirable bordering on mandatory for future career success, so even a candidate who needs to do no teaching whatsoever (e.g. a foreigner supported by their own government) usually does at least one or two classes.

  Is there such a thing as entirely unconditional funding? If it's not tied to teaching, will it always be tied with progress (or something else)?

NSF funding is not conditional on teaching (the above link makes this clear).  Yes, all funding is conditional on satisfactory progress.  It has to be, because continuation in a PhD program is conditional on satisfactory progress and funding is conditional on being in the program.

  Are there programs that will ask you to take out loans? In other words, do (most) schools generally have some sort of funding available? How does this depend on rankings/tier? Is there a specific ranking, say 50, below which you'll mostly likely need money through loans? Does it depend on type (masters or phd)?

The majority of PhD programs in mathematics only want to admit students who have (in some technical sense, anyway) full funding, through a combination of stipends and teaching.  Students who want to pay their own way are generally admitted in "non-degree programs" or in ad hoc temporary situations.  I don't know of a PhD program that advises students to take out loans.  In fact, I would advise the contrary: you should not attend a math PhD program unless you have full funding.  What constitutes full funding may be higher at a top program (but also depending upon the location of the program, the wealth of the institution and other factors) but so far as I know, less prestigious programs are no less likely to fund their students.

Master's programs are different: in many cases, it is harder to get funding for a master's program, though it is certainly still possible.  In some cases there is an across the board raise from the master's program to the PhD program: e.g. the same TA duties done by a master's student may earn less than if done by a PhD student.  Still I would not advise any student to pay tuition to enroll in a math master's program in the US.

  For the sake of avoiding confusion, what are different sources? Fellowships, scholarships, the department, "TAships" (what is an exhaustive list?)

There is external funding and then there is internal funding.  External funding comes from a variety of sources, especially the government, especially the NSF.  Internal funding comes from the department and/or the university.  It is usually divided into a stipend -- which is what you get paid just by being there -- and an instructorship, which is what you get paid for doing tutoring / grading / TAing / teaching.  For more precise information you should consult the individual department.

  My personal concern is whether or not I can depend on being funded, even if I'm not a very strong student (or if I'm a student coming from a different discipline).

The entire funding package should be given to you in detail when you are admitted.  It will not be a year-to-year deal: it will be guaranteed (conditional on satisfactory progress, which essentially means not getting kicked out of the program) for N years, where N is a number that will be given to you in advance and usually lies in [4,6].  Asking how often students get funded in years N+1, N+2, N+3 are good questions, by the way.


Are there reasons to revoke my degree if I shared old notes with a current student who was caught plagiarizing my work? I graduated university (UK University) a couple of years ago with a first. My friend is currently enrolled at the same university and was struggling with an assignment I had completed and still had a copy of. I let him have a look at it to help him but he ended up copying some of it and it was flagged by turnitin. The head of governance at the uni has emailed him and heavily implied that he knew that I gave him a copy of my assignment.
I spend the whole morning googling potential repercussions for a graduated student "colluding" and am now terrified that my degree might get revoked or my file will be tagged for misconduct.
Does anyone know what the repercussions could be??

I highly doubt that you will face any consequence more serious than being blacklisted from that university for future enrollment. You've already graduated; I'm sure they dislike you sharing answers with current students, but that hardly seems like justification to revoke a degree that you previously earned. If they do contact you about revoking a degree, lawyer up. Sharing answers to old homework problems does not seem like reasonable grounds for claiming that a degree was granted incorrectly.
On the other hand, your friend will probably face the standard consequences for plagiarism.


What category in my C.V. should I put papers where I've contributed but was not listed as an author, nor in acknowledgments? I performed a small set of experiments for a few published papers. The authors of these papers decided that my work was not significant enough to warrant my name on the papers. I am not mentioned in the acknowledgement section either, so my name isn't anywhere on the papers. (I left the group due to a lack of funding before they published the papers.)

I'm currently updating my CV and I'm wondering what category I should include these papers under. It should probably be separate from the "Publications" section where I am authors of those papers.

The field is in Biology and Biochemistry. Everything is done in the U.S., in a nationally-recognized lab.

Update: Thanks for all the answers and discussion. I am planning to just describe the experiments I did under "Work Experience" and add an author of the papers as a reference, in case there is a need for verification.

I don't think there's any good way to include these papers on your CV.

It's not conventional to list anyone else's papers on your CV, so by default everyone will assume you are one of the authors of each paper you list.  If you aren't exceptionally clear, so clear that nobody could possibly misunderstand even if they are just skimming and not reading carefully, then you could easily upset people and give the impression that you are misleadingly inflating your publication record.

I think you could probably write it clearly enough (e.g., a section called "Papers in which I am acknowledged but not an author" or something equally explicit, in a substantially different location in the CV from your own papers).  However, drawing too much attention to this unconventional choice would itself be a problem.  You want the most attention-getting part of your CV to be your own accomplishments.  If readers get distracted by something strange, then it will work against the primary purpose of the CV.

These papers would count for almost nothing on your CV anyway, so I see no purpose to including them.  In fact, including something like this could look bad, by suggested a desperation to list as much as possible, regardless of how meaningful or important it was.  The one case I can think of in which it might be a good idea is a student applying to grad school, with no publications yet but with acknowledgments in a paper or two.  Then highlighting these contributions would at least be better than saying nothing.  (But it's not worth it if you are an author on other papers.)

As I was finishing this answer, I noticed the comment that no mention is made of this contribution in the acknowledgments.  In this case, the CV is absolutely the wrong place to deal with this issue, since it doesn't give an opportunity to clarify.  Intentionally omitting someone who carried out experiments from the acknowledgments is unethical, and doing is accidentally is a serious oversight, but your CV is not a good place to accuse someone of poor ethics or sloppiness.  (Without an explanation, nobody would have any idea what to make of this section of your CV.)