What kinds of reference letters sound best to letter readers? Since I'm only starting my mathematical career, I've only ever requested letters from my advisers. So I was wondering what kinds of letters sound good to people reading reference letters? How does a neutral but good reference from a famous researcher compare against a strong letter from someone not-as-well-known?

This is admittedly very situation dependent and subjective. But I thought I'd solicit opinions anyway, since they're always interesting to read.

Edit: I'd appreciate it if you could share your personal experience too. When you were on a faculty hiring committee, PhD/postdoc admissions committee or anything else, what sort of letters had the most effect on you?

For the targets you mention, the perception of the letter is highly biased by prior familiarity with the letter writer. It's very common to say things like "Well Prof. X doesn't like anyone, so if they call this person 'decent' they must be pretty awesome", or "Prof. Y loves everyone, so this letter is more useful for what it doesn't say than what it does", and so on.

Having said that, some of the things that help me when I read a letter (for postdocs or faculty hiring)

(Caveat: I'm at a US university and am most experienced in reading letters from US-based researchers, so cultural differences are important)

Who writes the letter
the nature of involvement they have with the applicant: "was a student in my class" is barely adequate, "was my summer intern" is not terrible, "worked with as a colleague" is excellent, "was my Ph.D student" is important, but can also get downweighted.
The level of specificity in the letter: "We worked on problem X and Applicant came up with the key idea and did all the work" is good. "We were stumped on problem Y for ages and Applicant made the breakthrough" is even better. "We all worked on this problem and Applicant contributed ideas to it" is lukewarm.
Points of reference: "You've probably heard of Prof. Awesome who works in this area, and Applicant is awesome-er", or "there are 5 people on the market this year in this area, and Applicant is at least 2nd best".
Things not said, or said in code: "Applicant prefers to work alone" could sometimes mean "Applicant is an obnoxious lout" or "Applicant has no social skills", depending on the context. "Applicant works hard at their presentation skills" could mean "they give lousy talks". And so on. Here again, some prior familiarity with the letter writer helps.


Finishing incomplete degree after a decade to switch to industry I'm considering the possibility of completing a degree from which I dropped out almost a decade ago. In part because I feel I should, in part because I think it could be useful for switching to industry.

Context

Started a degree in Engineering in a non-US university with traditional system of long degree programs(five to six years), roughly equivalent to B.Sc.+M.Sc.
I dropped out from the Engineering degree to pursue a career in Physics, which I did to some extent. I'll be finishing a Ph.D. this year with published work, good academic records, TA experience and all the usual academic stuff.

Even though I don't regret having switched from Engineering to Physics, I have decided that I want to pursue a career in the industry and not in the academy. However, I'd like to keep in contact with the academic world through a part time position as a professor.

I'm 29 years old. Almost no real world work experience, apart from a short internship some years ago.

Questions

Is it advisable to finish the degree in Engineering? I still have all the credits previously earned. I'd take me a year and a half studying full time or three years doing it part time.

Asuming I finish the degree in Engineering, how should I present it in a CV? Just the graduation date? The entire time span from starting date to finishing date like "from 2008 to 2020"? The time spans of the two phases like "from 2008 to 2011 and from 2019 to 2020"?

In the event of having a good postdoctoral opportunity with connections to the industry and real world applications, should I take it or should I start working in the private sector as soon as possible?

If you want to be in industry, go to industry.  Stop taking new degrees.  At least stop for a while.  Go work.
If you are in the US, take the FE/EIT, now.  Start racking up time to get your PE.
"Engineering" is awfully vague.  Mechanical, electrical or what?


Publication error with ScholarOne? I am trying to publish a publication in the web site of a journal, and when I put my .tex file (also .png files) the website gives an error and says "File will not display in proof". I think it is treated by ScholarOne.
Do you have any solution for that or may I have to contact ScholarOne?

This happens with source files. For the .tex file that is OK: in fact, the .tex file should not appear in the proof. For the pictures, it probably means that ScholarOne doesn't process .png files: convert them to a supported file format, e.g. .pdf or .tiff.
In my experience, the above is usually enough to make the proof work, and if it's OK, submit, even if you still get that message for the .tex file.


Do researchers of deep learning understand the existing codes in detail? Now-a-days, literature in deep learning is increasing at a rapid rate.
One of the key difference with other domains is that almost all research papers in deep learning provide corresponding code in GitHub.
It is (relatively) easy for me to understand the (mathematical, analytical aspects of) research paper. But, I personally feel it difficult to understand existing codes.
in this context, I want to know the common practice among researchers regarding the existing codes. Do researchers in deep learning understand the existing codes in detail? Or they just use the code as a module to execute?
Is there any recommended approach towards complex existing codes?

Do researchers in deep learning understand the existing codes in detail? Or they just use the code as a module to execute?

A little bit of both. Some thoughts:

I only look at the code on a tiny fraction of the papers that I read. Most of the papers explain their "idea" well enough and have results on standardized tasks. So, there is no need to look at the code unless:

I cannot understand exactly what the "idea" is (and I am sufficiently motivated to continue trying to figure it out), or
I want to implement the idea myself.

In general, most of the codebase is the skeleton for ETL (extract, transform, and load), training, validation, tensorboard, etc. I ignore this. Instead, I look for the small part of the codebase where the new idea is implemented, and I study that in detail. Even if I want to run the code, I will generally add their new idea into one of my existing codebases, rather than running their entire codebase off-the-shelf.

Of course, new students will have different needs than more experienced people. After you've seen enough codebases, you can quickly distinguish between "the usual stuff" and "hmm, why did they do that?" When you are just starting out, everything will look unfamiliar, and you may need to go much more slowly to understand the different pieces. This is the same as any other discipline, really.

An added complication is that these papers come in a wide variety of languages. Recently, research papers have been converging on PyTorch, which I am very happy to see. But this is another difference: students generally get stuck on the software details of each language (which is reasonable, since their software engineering skills are less developed), while experts will only care about the underlying math.


Advice on choosing recommenders Currently applying for master programs in US and UK, in the track of media and communications / marketing. I don’t have many connections with Professors and here and my options:

The project coordinator, who is a graduate student in my lab. The lab is huge with 50+ people so I didn’t interact with the PI. But I have worked with this coordinator for 4 semesters.
The PI of the lab mentioned above - I also took her seminar class and was doing well, participating a lot. I’m thinking to have both 1 and 2 write my letters, the former detailing work ethic and latter detailing academic performance.
A part-time lecturer, who’s not a PhD, that taught a summer design class. Her class was very hands-on, project-based, and I really loved her class and went to a lot of office hours. A lot of group work and communication skills were involved in the class. I’m just not sure how her titles might impact the letter.
A professor who taught an exam-based class, no projects whatsoever. I sat in her front rows for the entire semester but didn’t go to her office hour or interact with her. I got an A+ in the class.

Basically I need three letters and was thinking to ask #1,#2,#3 but some people suggested that #3 might not be a good option. I’m wondering if I should go with #4 instead.

In your specific case, I would rank them 1, 3, 2, 4, with 4 not actually being a real option if you can avoid it.
My reasoning is that a truly good letter from an individual familiar with your work will always outweigh a mediocre letter from someone who doesn't.  Given that, it then becomes more important who exactly is writing the letter.  A letter from a famous faculty member with decades of experience and awards that just says "this person came to class and did their homework" is not going to help you stand out, even assuming that person would agree to write such a letter.
Number 4 doesn't know your work, and probably doesn't really know you either.  It doesn't matter how influential they might be; they simply can't write a letter recommending you in anything more than generic terms.
Number 2 sounds like it could be the most important writer, and while the degree of exposure you've had to them helps, the lack of a close working relationship probably hurts a bit, which is why I would rank them after number 1.
Number 3 lacks the prestige, if you will, of the others, but as one who worked closely with you and saw your work ethic up close, they should be able to write a very good, very specific, letter.


Are U.S. governmental reports a reliable source of information to cite? I am trying to cite this document but I found out that, apart from informal in-text citations such as 'according to x' (which I can cite as a secondary source because I was never successful in locating the original primary source), other information are not cited/referenced and there's no reference list. Can I rely on such information to cite the report? Why don't they provide references I can track for their claims? Do they consider such information as part of common knowledge?

There is no single such thing as "a US government report": the US government is a vast and complex organization with lots of different elements writing lots of different types of reports for lots of different reasons.  These reports range from absolutely standard peer-reviewed scientific papers to high-quality primary data to informational digests to purest propaganda.  As such, you really need to specifically attempt to understand the context of a particular report in order to know how to interpret it.

In the particular instance that you cite, for example, it appears that this is part of a yearly assessment prepared for Congress by the US State department as a digest of primary source material gathered by various US embassies.  Thus, I would recommend considering it as primary source material which attempts accuracy but not the results of a scientific study.  You will have to assess for yourself what credence to lend to particular elements thereof with respect to the use you wish to put it to.


Is it possible to get into graduate school for math with a non-math UG degree? I'm an undergraduate biology and chemical engineering dual major student. I recently got into pure math while I was researching patterns in biology which lead me down the rabbit hole of fractals and non-Euclidean geometry and eventually, lead me to number theory. I really enjoy the subjects. Is it possible for me to pursue my graduate studies in pure math? If so, what would be the necessary steps I should take to do the same? I am in my second year of studies and I do intend to take the GRE Math Subject test but I would really appreciate any other advice you could give me. Also, switching majors is not an option because my uni doesn't have a good math program. If you are reading this, I hope you have a nice day ahead.

Regarding graduate programs in the US: It is possible to get into graduate school for pure math with a non-math undergraduate, but it might not be the best idea if you have the option to change your undergraduate course of study.
In the US, graduate programs in pure math will typically expect you to have taken coursework in differential equations, linear algebra, real analysis, and abstract algebra. They may also expect you to have taken at least some coursework in other upper-division (third and fourth year) topics. Once you've taken all this coursework, you're well on your way to graduating with an undergraduate degree in math!
When reviewing applications, a program wants to make sure that their incoming graduate students have the potential to complete their studies in a timely manner and produce good work. (Graduating in a timely manner ensures that the program's budget stays balanced, and producing good work can help you get a job that reflects positively on your graduate program.)
Your coursework and GPA (and maybe your GRE scores to a lesser extent) reflect on your potential to graduate in a timely manner and produce good work. However, as many answers on this site will tell you, letters of recommendation are one of the most critical ways for graduate programs to get a sense of your preparation and potential. The people who are best suited to discuss your potential as a future mathematician are other mathematicians, so you want your letters of recommendation written by mathematicians if at all possible. This means you should be meeting with math professors and discussing math with them, which will be much easier to do if you are focusing your undergraduate studies on math.
I didn't become a math major until my third year of undergrad, although I did take a few math courses beyond calculus before then. However, the math professors that I spent time interacting with as a math major made all the difference in helping me get into graduate school. They gave me advice, worked with me on reading projects, and encouraged me to apply to schools that were a good fit for my interests and abilities.
I wouldn't worry too much about your university not having a good math program -- a top-ranked biology or engineering degree isn't going to be as helpful as expert advice and support from mathematicians, even if they work in a department that doesn't "rank highly." Even if you can't change your official course of study, I would encourage you to take more math classes before setting yourself on graduate school in math. You might find out that you don't like math enough to spend 5 years on it, or you may find out that you like applied math more than pure math.


In a CV, how do I list my status of a PhD if I completed the oral exam, but not awarded officialy? I have recently successfully completed my PhD Viva (oral exam) at a UK university. This means that my PhD project is formally over and I have a formal promise from the university that I will be awarded a PhD, under the condition that I submit a corrected version of my thesis, adding those corrections requested by the examiners, in due time.

How should I list this state in applications eg. for postdoc positions? Given how different university procedures are in different countries and faculties, will it be acceptable to state “viva passed with corrections” for applications elsewhere in Europe, or are there better and clearer ways to phrase this?

I was advised by my supervisor that on completion of the viva, I would be informed immediately (orally) of the outcome, and from that point I would 'officially' hold the PhD qualification.

The corrections/amendments and the committee/Senate meetings are effectively rubber stamps, providing you actually submit the corrected version.

And so in your position I would state that I have achieved my PhD on the date of the viva within my CV.


Asked to Provide a Submitted Manuscript that is not Published Yet A student of mine and I submitted a manuscript for publication. It is currently under review. My student applied for a postgraduate degree program. The advisor (professor) of this program asked her to provide him with the manuscript or pre-print in order to finally assess her qualifications.
As I mentioned, the manuscript is not published yet and is under review. What is the best way I can advise her to respond to the advisor? I don't want her to get rejected because we declined to provide him with the manuscript. This is somewhat new to me since no one, in principle, asks for a submitted manuscript that is under review!
Thanks a lot!

It's normal to show unpublished work to colleagues, sometimes for their input/advice/suggestions for edits, sometimes because they're working on similar work (whether collaborating or not), or, like in this situation, to demonstrate work for a job/grad school application.
I agree it's a little unusual to ask directly, but only a little, and in this situation it makes sense, especially if the publication is listed on a CV as "submitted". More typically it would come up if, say, you were having a conversation with someone at a conference or after a talk. You're discussing some topic, and Person A says: "Oh we have some recently submitted work on this! If you'd like, I can send you the manuscript."
If the field allows for preprints (that is, if journals will not consider preprints to be prior publication and accept them as original articles), it would be a good idea for someone applying for positions to make sure their latest work is out as a preprint if possible and to include these details with their application. (of course there are other benefits to preprints, as well) Since you say people use arXiv in your field, then assuming the specific journal doesn't have an unusual policy against preprints, that's how I would approach this: reply with "oh of course! the paper has been uploaded to arXiv here: ".
I think it would be a courtesy to other authors to make sure they don't have any issues with sending the paper to one outside person (and I'd double check with her advisor, just in case there are any weird politics - in that case it seems that advisor is you!), though I personally wouldn't be bothered at all if the first author of a paper I contributed to chose to share it with someone else. I think other authors should definitely agree before posting a preprint with their name on it (just like they would agree to a submission), but I wouldn't expect any opposition if the work is already in condition to submit to a journal.


How to change the idea that supervsiors got about you? In the beginning of a research program students (like me) may be lazy or find things hard and do things that make their supervisors get angry such as not completing specific job in the right time. They may be strongly criticized by their supervisors and their supervisors may get an idea that these students are not good enough. How can students change this idea that is in the head of their supervisors? What should they do?

The same way you would change anyone's perception of you for any other reason: Prove them wrong.

If you started out lazy, then kick yourself into high gear: Get tasks done ahead of time; predict future work, and get it done before it's asked for. Turn out quality work at a high pace. This sounds hard because it is. Unfortunately, you may have burned good-will at this point, and you need to rebuild it.

If you found things hard, or found that the supervisors expectations of velocity were unreasonable, discuss it with your supervisor. Discuss what background she may not know you have missed, discuss how you spent your time, and why things didn't get done fast enough.

Key here is the relationship. Your relationship sounds like it's on rocky ground, and if you're in it for another 3-5 years, then don't underestimate how much effort you're going to need to making sure that relationship doesn't break down.


How many papers should a Ph.D. student review for their professor per year? My professor asks us on a frequent basis to review papers and get together, discuss their merit and come up with a review. This happens in bursts, where I may do 2 one week 2 another and then go for 3 weeks with none and then back to having 2 or so a week to look at. There is never more than a 2 week notice given before we must have these reviews in. I would say at a minimum I review 6 papers a semester, with 10 being the max.

So my question is how much time should a Ph.D. candidate student be putting toward reviewing a paper? Also how many papers a semester or year would you consider an average having to review as a Ph.D. student?

Now realize I understand that I need to be reading papers and the state of the art in my field but that is not what we are asked. I feel it is more involved to come up with a metric of determining originality and such with each paper for a review.

There is no hard and fast rule here: some professors don't ask their students to help review at all, others pass all of their reviewing to their students.  I think the latter position is generally indefensible---the professor is being asked to review because of their expertise, not their ability to press-gang students into doing work for them.

In my own thinking, the driving principle should be the education of the student.  Every person who is aiming for a career in academia will be asked to review, and every person who authors papers should have a chance to experience the reviewing process from the other side as well.  To me, though, that calls for a few papers a year, not a paper every week.

From your description, I'm not quite sure how to judge the situation with your advisor.  At first reading, my thought is that your advisor is accepting more reviews than they can handle, and dealing with the situation by passing on the reviews to you and your fellow graduate students, which would be inappropriate.  If your advisor is actually spending a lot of time with the paper as well, and essentially co-reviewing with you, then perhaps they just have a very unusual perspective on how to learn about paper-writing and the state of the field.

I think it also depends a lot on the quality of papers you are getting asked to review: if you are being asked to read good papers sent to top journals, then it's more defensible, since you really are seeing the newest relevant literature before anybody else; if there's a lot of low-quality stuff to iffy venues, though, it's probably a waste of time for everybody involved.

Bottom line: you're being asked to do an unusually high amount of reviewing, and if it's interfering with your ability to pursue the rest of your program, then it would be reasonable to bring it up with your advisor and ask for a change.


Do graduate admissions follow links? Do graduate committees follow links, to personal websites, the applicant provides on his statement of purpose?

How common is this? If there are no visits one has to assume his application was not accepted / no one is taking a look?

For applications like the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, candidates are explicitly told not to include such links, because it creates an unequal playing field, and that these websites might be used as an "end-around" against page and length restrictions. Similar rules might also hold for other applications as a result.

On the other hand, some schools may ask you for such a link, in which case there's a good chance it will be seen if someone is interested in you. But if you're not specifically asked to include such a link in your application, there's no guarantee that anyone will look at whatever's posted.


How detailed should one be in writing the referee's report? When writing a referee's report for an editor of a journal, does one always aim and  try to be as brief as possible, saying yes or no to the publication (giving a couple of sentences in support of one's decision regarding the reasons for recommending/rejecting the paper)? Is it ever appropriate for the referee to write about finer details of the work they are reporting on, in their report to the editor?

After doing a fair bit of research to figure out whether to recommend a paper for publication or not, it can still be a hard decision to make. Is it then appropriate to share the finer details with the editor or does one have to make the decision and write only in support of that decision?

When I write a report I try to be as detailed as possible in my response to the authors. This is important as they will need my comments to improve the manuscript, and if the comments are vague they will fail to do so. However, many of the journals I have experience with in my field (life sciences and bioinformatics) ask referees to avoid including comments regarding the suitability for publication in the letter to the authors. For that purpose they provide the score sheet that needs to be filled when submitting the report (at least for journals using electronic systems).

However, those score sheets cannot convey all the information about the impressions of the referee after reading the paper. Therefore, there is always a section with comments to the editors. In this section you should add any relevant information that is not clearly represented in the score sheet. Personally, I always try to add specific comments to the editors. For example, I may have complained in my report about the poor description of the statistical methods. Then I will let know the editor that that is, in my opinion, a mandatory change for the suitability of the manuscript for publication. Finally, when writing my comments to the editor, I try to be as brief as possible (but never just 'yes' or 'no'), so that I do not overwhelm the editor's likely busy inbox with unnecessary comments.

In summary, the comments to the editor should include any information that is not properly represented in the score sheet, cannot go into the response to the authors, and may be relevant for the editor in order to make an appropriate decision on the manuscript.


Advisor getting married, should grad students chip in for gift? Our advisor is getting married over winter break.  None of us are super close to him and the wedding is going to be a very private event that none of us are invited to.

Should all of us (his graduate students) chip in for a wedding gift for him?

What is the etiquette for this?

I laughed here; can't imagine my supervisor getting married.  It is just nice to see the supervisor involving in life..

For the question, Why not? It is a big day for your supervisor. Just make sure the gift come from group of students not only one student. If you missed the first day after his return (assuming he's going on vacation for marriage), then no need for a gift. Either ways, a verbal congratulations is a must here :)


Citing papers in Statement of purpose I am citing papers in Statement of Purpose.
I am only using - "first author et al". instead of the recommend cite as per the paper's norms.
Would that be okay or should I just use the normal reference which goes into writing papers?

If your Statement of Purpose is self-contained (in particular, it includes a list of references), you're free to pick your own citation format. Otherwise, you need to pick a format that allows the reader to identify the work you're citing. Using first author et al. probably doesn't help, because that author will likely have written many papers, moreover, their name is not likely unique. Using

author et al. (venue, year)

should suffice.


How can I deal with a significant flaw I found in my previous supervisor’s paper? Suppose that I found a technical flaw in one of the papers coauthored by my previous advisor. This mistake will substantially change their major result, but their contribution will be still worthwhile after the correction. I am 90% sure about my findings. It is not a difference of ideologies or subjective beliefs, but a mistake in purely technical analysis.

My previous advisor is among the top-three worldwide in his narrow field, and that paper was published on the top journal. He was neither the corresponding nor the first author. The first and corresponding author was also his previous student. So here is my possible options (any other suggestions are also welcomed):

Write a short paper and submit to the same journal. The journal welcomes this specific type of submissions. Best case is, if my previous advisor is happy to see his previous students are still contributing to this field, then I will get a top publication. Worst case is, since many of the referees are also his previous students, they could possibly defend our teacher and deny my submission, and I lost all the precious time redoing the analysis and writing the paper.
Talk to my previous advisor. Since he keeps constant contact with the journal’s editor, he can definitely update that mistake, much faster than me; that way I will lose a worthy publication. He can also decide to ignore my findings or even try to prevent my findings to be published because they significantly challenge his result.

How can I choose between these, or is there a third way?

Update: I am preparing to send a friendly inquiry, politely say things like:

  Dear XX, It was a pleasure to read your exciting work titled XXX. Could you do me a favor by explaining your analysis in ABC? I was hoping to do analysis XYZ such that your results can be refined and here are my preliminary findings. Do you feel this approach promising? Would you like to help? Thanks for sharing thoughts, again.

How do you feel about the tone? Shall I be more explicit?

Two suggestions:

You found that someone was wrong in a good journal.  The fact that the error was published in a good journal does not mean that it is worth working on.  You should decide if this error is really worthy of your research efforts.  It might be better for you to work on something more important.
If you decide to pursue the error, you can choose to present your correction as a new idea.  If you tell people that you have found a new idea that advances the state of the art, that makes you look good.  If you tell people you have found someone else's error, that makes the other person look bad but may fail to make you look good.  The actual substance of the research can be the same, but the way you present it makes a world of difference in how it is viewed.


How to deal with the wealth of "help" available for programming assignments? I teach programming, and I myself learned mostly self-taught about 30-35 years ago (pre-internet). I learned mostly by thinking things through and trying out alternate solutions. It never occurred to me that students could, or would, just "grep" the solution to many textbook assignments off the 'net. It sometimes seems that they do not make much effort to solve the problem themselves.

Sometimes I see two students's solutions with the same weird anomalies in them and it makes me go, "Hmmm..." It seems that the students who do NOT come up with the obvious best solutions are the ones actually thinking for themselves and not doing "research". In one case I searched on a strange method name and found one and only one hit on the web: a PDF that exactly duplicated the student's submission, including a lot of concepts and methods I have not taught yet.

Is this a problem generally?
How do Instructors deal with the fact that there could be many possible solutions available (most of them flawed) to students who know how to type some words in their browser?

(I have seen this question, and I do not agree and my question is more about how to handle the situation.) The assignments at this point are simple decisions and loops, nothing that requires knowledge of frameworks, etc. Most people should require nothing more than the textbook and my lectures.

Addition: I think the real problem is - now that my naivete is shattered, I have two doubts:

Could anything they hand in potentially have been copied?
Am I teaching effectively?

Most people should require nothing more than the textbook and my lectures.

Probably most professional programmers today could do their jobs armed with nothing but the lectures from their programming coursework and the complete official reference material for the programming languages and libraries they are using. But why would they, when there are much more useful resources available online that allow them to do a better job, more quickly?

Your students (understandably) approach this the same way. Why would they do their homework with just the textbook and lecture notes, when this isn't the most efficient way (with respect to time, getting a good grade, and actually learning)? (Yes, the Internet can be a tremendously useful aid for learning and not just copying.)

In my experience, the best way to deal with students using online resources is:

Encourage students to use online resources. Recommend specific online resources to them that you consider most helpful and reliable.
Require students to cite all the online resources that they used. (And depending on the assignment, to also explain how they used it.)
Educate students who use online resources that are flawed about how to better evaluate the online resources they choose to use. ("This website seems useful at first glance, but it actually doesn't apply to the problem in the homework assignment. Here is how you could have known that...") If you do this successfully, this will probably be the most valuable thing they learn in your class.
Assign a mix of problems, including some that can't be answered immediately with a simple Google search.

If you want them to have some practice solving programming problems without the assistance of the Internet, you can occasionally give them a small (< 10 minute) problem to complete in class.


What percentage of PhD candidates drop out in computer science? I'd like to know what percentage of PhD candidates in Computer Science does not graduate with a PhD and thus drops out of their PhD program.

This number probably varies quite a bit for different countries (e.g., in Continental Europe one usually has to have a Master's degree before being eligible to start with a PhD, while in the US one can "drop out" with a Master's degree) and possibly also for different sub-fields; I'm mostly interested about German speaking countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) and PhD candidates with a focus in Algorithms and/or Theory, but any answer "x% in this subfield in that country/at that university" are also welcome.

Background story:
Currently thinking hard whether I should go for a PhD in Algorithms at a German speaking university and not a 100% sure if it is the right thing for me. A professor (not the one I'd do the PhD with) urged me to at least give it a try and said that there is always the possibility to drop out if it isn't working out.

The Times Higher Education looked at PhD completion rates in the UK. In the UK, PhD programs are nominally 3 years long, and the Times reported that, averaged across all fields, 70% of students obtain a PhD within 7 years. They predict that 80% of students who start a PhD in the UK will obtain one within 25 years. There are some data for MIT students which shows completion rates asymptote at around 80% after about 8-10 years. There is a fair amount of variability across fields in how quickly the asymptote is reached (e.g., the average PhD in Business is short compared to Medicine), but in all fields about 80% of students obtain a PhD. I was not able to find any numbers for German universities or CS specifically.

These numbers, however, leave out the substantial number of students who stick out grad school because they do not want to "fail". While trying out grad school might sound good in theory, just make sure you are the type of person willing to drop out if it is not right for you.


Putting verbal offer of PHD position on resume While I was studying abroad, I was offered a PHD position for having a very impressive project. I was actually only in 3rd year engineering at the time and I din't want to go into the professor's specific area of research, so I declined the offer. The only written confirmation I have of this is an e-mail exchange.

That course is important in the field that I'm going into, so I really want to mention that I did really well on it, but I'm afraid that a verbal conversation and an e-mail exchange isn't official enough. After all, if someone asks the professor, it's highly probable that he will have forgotten and he might claim I mis-understood the e-mail exchange. Should I:

Include the fact that I got an offer on the resume anyways.
E-mail the prof to get a written confirmation and only include his distinction in my resume if he replies. What type of written confirmation would this even involve?
Tone down the claim to say that I had the best project and leave out the offer.

I would not include such an offer on a CV. Saying you were offered a position is fine to include in a cover letter or statement of purpose or other such document, but a CV should be a listing of demonstrable accomplishments. Including something like this is potentially awkward—and declining a job offer is not normally what you want to "show off" on a CV anyways.


Top-down vs Bottom-up approaches in describing an algorithm in a research paper When writing a (computer science) research paper, I have to describe my method in term in pseudocode. Because of readability and reusability, I want to break my method into smaller pieces. However, I don't know how to present them in my paper. As far as I know, there are two approaches:

Top-down: first, present a main pseudocode which calls/invokes other smaller ones which will be explained later.
Bottom-up: present and explain all the smaller pieces first, then combine them together into a bigger one.

For example, in my paper, I'm presenting a method to solve to a problem, this method is describe by a funtion, named SOLVE_PROBLEM, as follow:

SOLVE_PROBLEM(input) {
    if CHECK(input) then:
        FUNCTION_1(input)
    else:
        FUNCTION_2(input)
}

As you can see, SOLVE_PROBLEM uses other functions (CHECK, FUNCTION_1 and FUNCTION_2) to find a solution. My question is to how to presents those functions in my paper. Should I present i) SOLVE_PROBLEM first (as it is the solution to the problem, which is the main point of the paper), or ii) other methods fisrt (as they are the building blocks to a solution)?

The answer depends on personal preferences, as well as on the algorithm itself. Consider the following two descriptions of SOLVE_PROBLEM:

Top-down: We want to solve problem A on input. Function SOLVE_PROBLEM solves the problem. There are two cases, depending on condition B, which we can check with function CHECK. If the condition holds, we solve the problem with FUNCTION_1. Otherwise we use FUNCTION_2.

Bottom-up: We want to solve problem A on input. In the general case, the problem can be solved with FUNCTION_1. The general solution assumes condition B, which we can check with function CHECK. If the condition does not hold, we can solve the special case with FUNCTION_2. This completes function SOLVE_PROBLEM.

I personally prefer the top-down approach, if the algorithm has multiple equally important parts. Bottom-up approach becomes preferable, if one part of the algorithm attacks the core of the problem, while the rest just deals with special cases and administrative stuff.


Completed a review article based on supervisor's request but then it cannot be published due to lack of funding Six months ago the PhD supervisor of a friend of mine asked him to write a review article. After a hard work of 4 months he finished an extensive review article. Another two months were wasted correcting the figures and text of the manuscript as the supervisor is a perfectionist and doesn't know where to stop... Well finally it's finished and now the supervisor is saying that he doesn't want to publish it as he does not have enough funds for it. Can anyone suggest what my friend could possibly do now.

Also my friend tried to find some free journals to which the supervisor didn't agree saying it not up to the standards of the group to publish in such small journal.

The supervisor of your friend is mistaken. Judging the quality of a journal by how much it charges authors* shows a blatant ignorance of how academia works in general. It makes me suspect he only publishes in expensive lower-tier OA journals.

I would recommend that your friend finds a reputable, subscription-based journal in the field and tries to bring her/his supervisor to reason.

Yet it might be that the supervisor is making an excuse I would then ask for the real reason why he doesn't want to publish the paper.

*I'm baffled that we have come to that. The author-pay open access scheme is hurting academic publishing more than I thought.


Sending M.Sc. dissertation to a big conference I am a very recent Ph.D. student (since October 2014), and the deadline date of the conference in which I want to participate is quite near.  I don't want to miss the conference, but as I am so new in my Ph.D. program, I don't have something really concrete for the moment.  For this conference, however, it is possible to revise the paper until 15 days before the conference.

Accordingly, I am thinking of submitting my M.Sc. dissertation to the conference. As I think I will have an improved version of my M.Sc. in 3-4 months (at least, I really hope), I suppose that it is worth doing this.

Is it really a bad idea to submit a M.Sc. dissertation to a conference? Are there some ethical issues to consider?

Typically a dissertation is not considered to be a peer reviewed publication.  This means that the material in it can be extracted and turned into conference or journal publications.  In some fields, this is a typical practice after completing a dissertation, where in others it goes the other way (the dissertation is assembled from peer-reviewed papers).

You cannot, however, just submit your thesis directly as is.  A dissertation is generally much longer than conference or journal papers.  A dissertation typically also has much more freedom in style, and does not have to be targeted at the biases of a particular community.  Thus, to make a credible conference submission, you will need to compress or extract a nugget of contribution of an appropriate size, and may also need to tailor its focus and language to better match that of the conference where it is being submitted.


Finding more recent review articles How can I find a more recent review article in a topic I am interested in? I have found a review article on biosynthesis of silver nanoparticles published in 2015. (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2015.03.015) How do I go about finding more recent work done on the same?

In addition to Google Scholar and searching for work by influential scholars, as suggested by GrotesqueSI's answer, it is often helpful to look at the works that have cited the reviews you have found already.

Frequently, new reviews will cite previous reviews of the topic, especially in fast-moving fields, so as not to waste space describing the same information. The review article you linked has 100+ citations, and maybe one of those is by a newer review.

Also, if you can find a landmark or high-impact article in the field, it is almost certainly cited by all good reviews, so looking at the "cited by" list of such an article is often helpful too.


Is citing data from a presentation not trustful? There is this investment bank specialized in the mining sector. I had access to one of their presentations where they have data regarding the production and end use of some chemical elements. They do not cite the data.

Do you think that is good or bad, trustful or not, to cite these data in my PhD thesis?

If the source has been used, it generally must be cited, otherwise you assign yourself results or conclusions obtained by other researchers.

Providing the source is not a question for its reputability. If you think the source is not reputable enough, do not use it in your work. It is not very common but I have even seen "personal communication" as a type of the reference.


Must bibliography entries match the original title's German orthography? I am writing a book, and in its bibliography I would like to include a paper whose title has the German word "Über" printed as "Ueber". As far as I know, this is an equivalent way of writing the word, but the former way is the normal way. It is definitely spelled as "Ueber" in the (nineteenth-century) journal in which it appeared - the body text uses umlauts so I assume there was some typographic obstacle with the title font.

I can see three options for me:

Ueber
Ueber [sic]
Über

I have a soft preference for (3), because I think it looks nicer. I do not like (2) because it carries the implication that Ueber is an error, which it isn't. But (1) is the original form. I could just about imagine somebody failing to find the paper because I wrote (3) instead of (1), but it seems unlikely - search services like Google "know" about the equivalence, and readers will have the volume/page/date information regardless.

The publisher has asked me to follow Chicago Manual of Style guidelines if in doubt. Unfortunately, I cannot find a definitive ruling there.

Am I bound to use the precise conventions of the original publication, or should I adapt to a more normal modern style?

I would always prefer the original title of the paper (only ignoring all-caps or similar), even if it contains spelling mistakes, as this is the most likely search term, somebody is going to use (and not all search tools do autocorrections). This in particular applies to titles in spelling conventions that readers might not be familiar with. A German paper from that time might use the spelling Oscillator instead of the modern Oszillator or Maasssystem instead of Maßsystem¹ – would you also change these?

As a sidenote:
Uppercase umlauts (such as Ü) only came up in German in the nineteenth century and were only fully established as a consequence of the spelling reform/establishment of 1901. Thus, it’s very unlikely that Ueber was used due to typographical restrictions and one could argue that it is the more correct spelling here. Also note that nowadays, substituting Ü with Ue is only allowed as a makeshift solution and the two are not regarded as equivalent.

¹ Taken straight from Max Planck – Ueber irreversible Strahlungsvorgänge.


After getting hired, department matter I am a new tenure-track faculty.  I did my phd in a very weird way -- my advisor was in a different dept.  So even for my committees, I did not have anyone from my department -- I even do not know anyone in my department.

I got hired for a tenure-track faculty.  I had a social meeting -- three people asked, "what department did you graduate?".  For many reasons, I said, my advisors department -- not mine....

However, now I am questioning it is ok...  May I get your advice?  Do I need to approach them to correct?

I feel panicky as a new kid here now

I seriously doubt that it matters, but you might want to develop the story with your new colleagues at some point. The story is interesting, not terrible. It is a bit unusual, that is all.

In fact, it is in a lot of ways the most honest answer rather than the most bureaucratic answer.

Relax. Develop a nice story and become a legend.


Are Masters' degrees in Sweden and Denmark free? Information on the internet is not clear, hence my question.

I have read that masters in Denmark and Sweden are free for Europeans. I am from Spain, so I could potentially apply.

My questions:

is there any contract where the student has to live/work in the country for a certain period before/after studying/applying for the masters?
If I don’t finish the master, do I have to pay for it?
It sounds too good to be true… if that’s the case, how come all Europeans don’t go to study to Denmark/Sweden? Why would any British, Italian, etc study outside Denmark/Sweden?

I finished my Master's in Sweden in 2009.  I am from The Netherlands.  Higher education is unconditionally free of charge in Sweden.  There used to be a mandatory student union membership with a fee of around 100 SEK/year (a little over €10) but this was abolished by the Reinfeldt government.  It does not matter whether you finish or whether you stay in the country afterwards.

EU does not permit tuition fee discrimination between native and EU students, so as long as higher education is free for Swedes it is free for EU students.  It is no longer free for non-EU students, who in fact pay some of the highest fees in the world.  I believe EEA students are free of charge as well.

However, you still need to finance your own cost of living, which may not be easy as finding a job without knowing Swedish will be difficult.  The Swedish government only provides grants to Swedish students.

To answer your last question, there are plenty of students from other European countries studying in Sweden.


How do I handle a colleague's gender change when citing their paper? We are currently working on a conference paper where we plan to cite and discuss a paper as a related work. It was written by a colleague at the same university who has kindly offered to help us understand its specifics.

After publishing said paper, the colleague has changed name and gender. For example, suppose that the paper is authored by George Smith and she now uses the name Mary Smith (not the real names). The problem is that she insists that her new name/gender is used everywhere, including our citation of her publication. She explicitly asked us to change the citation from G. Smith to M. Smith.

I’m not sure how to handle this. The publisher still lists George as name as do most citation data bases. Our scientific handbook demand that external sources should be cited as precisely as possible and should not be modified. (I asked about this specific case and got back a multi-page document that stresses the importance of respecting gender identity [no problem for me] but the document does not address this issue.) On the other hand, the paper has a distinct title, journal name, volume, number, pages and a DOI so everybody should be able to find it, even if one author is listed as M. Smith instead of G. Smith.

Do you have any advice on how to handle this situation? Would a change from G. Smith to M. Smith be acceptable/reasonable?

Is it an option to ask M Smith if she would be ok if the first citation were to read as the following?

  Smith, M. (published G.) 2014, recent advances in foo, international journal of foo sciences 12:56, 427-865

This would eliminate the only reason I can think of for misgendering the person, namely that readers might be unsure whether they are looking up the correct source. This would be a weak reason, though, since we have DOIs (Digital Object Identifiers) now.

Edited on second thought: What is the worst thing that could happen if you use the new name? Someone might find it more difficult to look up the paper; that's a minor inconvenience. Compare this to the frustration, if not anger and distress, that it would cause M. Smith to be referred to in cold print by a name that doesn't reflect her identity and that she is struggling to leave behind.


Does helping a PhD student with proofreading violate school policy in general? I am proofreading and editing a dissertation proposal for a student for whom English a fourth language--cleaning up the language for clarity and grammar, etc. The student has asked me to paraphrase the information of some articles so that s/he can use what is most relevant to her research. Is this commonly against school policy?

I am proofreading and editing a dissertation proposal for a student for whom English a fourth language--cleaning up the language for
  clarity and grammar, etc. The student has asked me to paraphrase the
  information of some articles so that s/he can use what is most
  relevant to her research.

That is fine.

  I am proofreading and editing a dissertation proposal for a student for whom English a fourth language--cleaning up the language for
  clarity and grammar, etc. The student has asked me to paraphrase the
  information of some articles so that s/he can use what is most
  relevant to her research.

That is abhorrent in two levels. First, the student had the guts to even ask. Second, the task itself involves significant amount of intellectual input that is not of the student's.

I understand you wish the student to do well, and the work would reflect on your mentoring ability. But this is just identical to parents helping children with art project the night before school. It can be a fun and educational experience for kids, but outlandish for a grown up PhD candidate.

At the very least, make the student do the major part of the work:

Highlight the parts that he/she feels relevant. The selection of articles and contents should never be done by you. Discuss with the student on the rationale of the selections, and use this as an educational opportunity.
Paraphrase 5-10 various statements and hand them to the student as a guideline/examples, ask him/her to replicate on a dozen or so, check and give comments.
Send him/her away with a complimentary copy of a thesaurus, or some URLs like  http://thesaurus.com
Identify the ESL center in your institute, and ask the student to work with the ESL staff along the way.
Recommend the student to identify an editor. His/her English standard will not become any better. Now you are helping with proposal, a couple years later you'll help with dissertation---vicious cycle.

Also, as how I define it, if English is my mother tongue, then all languages I would learn are my second languages. It'd only be a fourth language of this student if, say, he/she has Russian as mother tongue, then learned Chinese in Russian, then learned Thai in Chinese, then learn English in Thai. I don't think that is a very viable pathway, and you may want to hook the student up with a Russian English teacher/editor.

And lastly, where were you when I was working on my PhD?!


How to decide between submitting to a conference and a Journal? I have a work ready to publish with good results and proper mathematical arguments to justify it. I liked to try top conferences like ICML, IJCAI, CVPR, ICCV ... which are related to my field (machine learning and vision), but their deadlines are already passed or not reachable.

My supervisor has the idea of sending extended version of the paper (with extra mathematical proofs and experiments) to a top journal like JMLR or such.

But i'm not sure if it is a good idea, because it may take 6-8 months until i get the review and revise it and maybe 1 year until it gets published if they accept it, and my PhD will be finished before that!!

What if i send the paper (small version) to a medium conference which has a deadline in a month from now and also sending the extended version to a top JR? But i'm afraid by doing that i may undersell my work to medium quality expectations.

1- Is it allowed?

2- Is it a good plan?

It is allowed, and it is a good plan.

More specifically, sometimes, conferences and journals will state, on their website, what proportion of the work you submit must be "novel." (How this is quantified is usually vague but it should give you an idea.) As long as you observe their rules you should be fine. Do keep in mind that it is likely for the same people to be reviewing papers for different conferences or journals, and if you end up sending insufficiently original work to multiple venues you may upset them.

Presenting research at a conference and submitting an expanded version to a journal is done very often in many fields. There are also many cases of journals inviting authors to contribute papers based on a previous conference presentation.

Regarding your more general question of "how to decide between submitting to a conference and a journal," I can offer the following strategy:

Go to Google Scholar.
Find the Metrics section.
Go to the "top publications."
Pick your category (e.g. Engineering & Computer Science) and possibly subcategory (e.g. Computer Vision & Pattern Recognition or Artificial Intelligence).
Start from the top of the list and move down until you find a relevant venue with an appropriate deadline.


How to prepare for STEM graduate program while in industry? I recently graduated with my bachelor's in Electrical Engineering and started working in industry. During my undergraduate work, I had always planned on going back to school, but it wasn't until shortly before graduating that I realized that I really wanted to pursue academia and become a professor. I only applied for the graduate program at my own school during senior year, since I didn't have connections anywhere else at the time. I wasn't accepted, but I recognize now that I'm not quite ready for grad school.

Now that I'm in industry, I've been working on goals to help prepare me for grad school in 3-5 years from now. I've been going over my old math courses to crack down on the basics, reading academic journals in my area of interest, and using my remaining free time to study and work on projects in areas that will make me more knowledgeable.

This is something I’m really driven to reach, and willing to put in the hours to accomplish. What other things can I be doing in this time before reapplication to better prepare me and make me a more competitive candidate for grad school? (Besides the obvious, like a good GRE score)

If you haven't, reach out to your adviser and/or other professors at your undergraduate university for two questions. Can they give you any insights into why your application was unsuccessful? Do they have any suggestions? The second question could be expanded into--do they feel you have any particular weaknesses or strengths? What universities do they think would be a good fit for you?

Possibly taking programming/computer science classes might be useful. If there's a university close by, see if you can take a grad-level or senior-level ME course as a non-matriculating student. If you plan to apply there, make sure that it won't adversely affect your curriculum if you end up going there.


Listing professors' titles/ranks in CV In my CV's Education section, in particular, in its Ph.D. part, I listed, along with the full title of my dissertation and the date I defended it, titles and names of my dissertation committee members. Two of them are full professors and one is associate professor. I have decided to list them as such, but I am having some doubts about whether in this context "Professor AAA" should imply a full rank or just a title (so, no "Associate Professor BBB"). Your advice will be appreciated.

In general, a CV is not a place for innovation: your choices for what to put on it should be most heavily motivated by whatever is expected and most common in your field and especially among your peers.  If you are thinking of doing anything "nonstandard" on a CV you should get a few opinions on it, and in particular show it to your advisor.

Is it common in your field to list your entire thesis committee?  I have looked at thousands (no, really) of CV's in my field (mathematics) and I have never seen this.  In fact it is about 50-50 whether people even list their thesis advisor on their CV (I had to check just now to see that I do not).  I should say that the name of your thesis advisor is considered to be important information that would be provided elsewhere in a job application; it is part of the standard "AMS coversheet" that most job applicants in mathematics fill out.  Moreover, there is a wonderful website called the Mathematics Genealogy Project where you can sate yourself to your heart's content with information about professional lineages.  If you (a reader) are a recent math PhD, I would highly recommend that you add yourself to this page: you can be added by other people and if you wait long enough you will probably be added by someone else, but still it seems better not to chance it.

In the webpages I've seen where people include the name of their thesis advisor, they typically include just the name.  Unless your advisor is at a different institution from you (unusual but not unheard of; it is not so rare to see this at Harvard/MIT for instance), you do not need to list institutional affiliation.  Moreover, anyone who wants to look up information about your advisor can certainly do so.  I don't see why you need to include their academic rank on your CV; and by the way, if you got your PhD ten years ago, do you include their rank at the time or their current rank?

I don't really care about the thesis committee of even a recent PhD.  In my field, being on the thesis committee doesn't necessarily mean very much at all, and the people who are on the committee in an important or meaningful way are likely to be writing recommendation letters anyway.  I certainly don't care whether someone's thesis committee member is an associate professor or a full professor.  To be honest, a listing of the academic ranks of all the thesis committee members on a CV would make a somewhat negative impression on me: such a person would seem pretentious and without an understanding of what is actually important.


Almost everything we know is taken from someone else, so what do I cite in a paper? My professor commented that I should have cited more on my paper. I received 132 out of 140 points on the paper for the error. I'm studying history, so being a learned subject, isn't everything we know about it taken from someone else? How would I cite everything I have ever learned over the years dealing with history through conversations/ TV/ internet/ from childhood? I didn't know when I was a child that I needed to remember who told me that Rome was a global power back in the 1st century :) How far do we go with this?

I didn't know when I was a child that I needed to remember who told me that Rome was a global power back in the 1st century :)

You are broadly correct with this. If something can be deemed common knowledge in your field there should be no need to cite it.

MIT define common knowledge as(taken from my answer here);

  Broadly speaking, common knowledge refers to information that the average, educated reader would accept as reliable without having to look it up.

Other examples(not exhaustive) of where you should cite include;

When using a primary source to support an original thought or idea of your own then you should cite that primary source material
When using an idea to support your ideas that is contained in an secondary source/literature.
If you are taking something verbatim from a source you should cite it.
A caveat on common knowledge - When in doubt, cite your source.

Depending on what level you're writing at there may be university/department guides in relation to citations.

Finally I think in your case that you could ask your professor(as suggested by ff524 in their comment) to show you some of the area's in your paper where they thought lacked enough citations so you can use this knowledge going forward.


What does IPR mean on a grade report in Canada? I'm was doing some continuing education in a Canadian University this fall.  I was looking at my list of final grades on their website (none of them seem to be in so far), but one of them is marked IPR.

I did a bit of Googling, and found that IPR stands for (supposedly, anyhow) Inward Processing Relief.  Is this the case, and if so, what does it mean?  Does it mean that they haven't finished processing the grades yet?  If so, why do I only have it on one of my courses?

Screenshot for reference:

I am a former lecturer in Canada. As Nate has already answered, it (almost certainly) means In Progress.

I'll add (while this still falls under the "grades not yet available" scenario) that the student could see IPR for a course well after grades are normally available because they contested their grade and it's under review; some institutions may use a special notation for that (mine used GNA).

The professor may also have agreed to give the student an extension on some critical work to account for extenuating circumstances during the term, or delay the exam, while not forcing them to re-register in a following term.

My alma mater calls this IP, and it can be used for a myriad of other reasons:

  IP In Progress – a notation (IP) assigned to a course by a faculty
  member when:

  At the undergraduate level, an undergraduate thesis or
  course has not been completed by the end of the period of
  registration.

  At the graduate level, a graduate thesis, research
  essay, independent research project or comprehensive examination has
  not been completed by the end of the period of registration. The IP
  notation may also be used at the graduate level when a research
  seminar has not been completed by the end of the period of
  registration provided the research seminar has been approved by
  Graduate Faculty Board as being eligible for the use of this notation.

  In the case of re-registration in any of the above courses, the IP
  notation will remain; a final grade will normally be assigned in the
  final period of registration. Where there is no re-registration in any
  of the above courses, the IP notation must be replaced with an
  appropriate notation or grade within the prescribed time period, or be
  replaced by a notation of WDN.


MSc for experienced professional? I have 8 years of IT experience in India, I want to do a Master of Science in the US.
Would my already long professional experience hurt my chances to find a job after the MSc? I intend to settle in the US instead of coming back to India.

I would expect that it almost certainly does not hurt your chances. Many people proceed their academic education or career after professional experience. In our Master programme, this is treated as a significant plus, and I would be very surprised if companies wouldn't do the same.

But for the non-academic portion of the question (I infer you mean a job outside academia), you might want to ask at The Workplace and get opinions there.


Converting from and to British grading scheme I've tried googling around for this but I haven't really understood how the British grading scheme works. I am specifically interested in knowing the following things:

What is a 2:1?
What is a level A?
How can I convert from and to A, B, C grades to numerical grades?

The UK system uses the notation of 1st, 2.1, 2.2, 3rd as degree classifications. Most individual modules/classes are grade on either an A, B, C, ... scale or a percentage scale. I believe the conversion of A-=70=1st and B-=60=2.1 is pretty universal. At reasonable universities, approximately 10% of students get a first and 60% get a 2.1.

Under no circumstances would I advise converting your own marks on an application. State the marks you got and if it is a particularly bizarre system provide a link where they can get more information.


Writing a large part of a grant as a postdoc Background: I defended my PhD in 2018 and took a postdoc job with my same lab as a matter of convenience.  The job had a 3 year contract, funded via an R01 grant, for whom my dissertation advisor was the original PI. He has since retired and transferred PIship to a "research track" junior faculty who followed a similar path to mine (came up through the lab).  New PI is certainly capable but perhaps not the "titan" that the original was.
Fast forward to now, I am helping to write a renewal application for the grant, and have contributed 2 out of 4 Aims.  These aims contain a lot of (perhaps not all of) my "early career plans".  At first glance, this all sounds great, but in a recent email exchange, it was indicated that I would be designated "other personnel" in the grant application, implying perhaps that my position would remain postdoc if the grant was funded.
My question is the following: to what extent is it typical for a postdoc to contribute a large portion of a grant, or grant renewal, but have essentially no formal holding power on the resulting funding?  In my particular department, it is my understanding that postdocs cannot hold PI or co-PI on an R01-type grant.  My worry is that I'm tying up a bunch of (what I consider) good ideas in someone else's grant, with my only "reward" being another few years of postdoc funding and perhaps a half dozen papers.
Options are clearly: 1. Take whatever I can get, since I have little leverage apart from threatening to "take my ideas elsewhere".  2. Try to negotiate for a position that would allow for a co-PIship (seems difficult during C19 times because university budgets are shot to heck)  3. (semi-nuclear option) Jump ship at the end of my contract (May).  4. Your ideas are welcomed!
Thanks and cheers,

Appointments to more permanent positions (like tenure-track or research faculty) are typically made by the university, not by receiving a grant. In other words, I cannot pay myself more simply because I received a grant with available funds. Depending on the university rules, postdocs may not be eligible to be a project PI, which may limit your ability to submit those ideas as your own grant proposal.
In some fields, it is common for postdocs and even PhD students to write grant proposals for their PI as training for their later career. That could even be part of the job expectations for a postdoc. Although you may not have much leverage to receive more funding from this grant, having written a successful grant proposal is a good experience that should help you succeed as a tenure-track faculty and possibly in the job market as well.


Letter of Recommendation Coordination? I am currently applying for a research/study grant, and need three letters of reference. Would it be out of line to ask the recommenders to coordinate with one another so that they don't say anything conflicting, and don't double up on the same exact content? Not sure what the norms are.

It's certainly a good thought to make sure your letter writers don't double up on information to the detriment of their unique perspectives.

However, it certainly sends an odd vibe to ask that they three communicate with each other to do this ... They are doing you a favor writing the letter in the first place, but adding to that to try and make them coordinate with two other professors is a huge load, and plus, if you want three professors to work together, you might get your letters in a year, if they aren't too busy.

That said, it's absolutely normal to talk to one professor and ask her to write about your programming abilities in particular, and to ask a second to talk about how you are a quick study, etc., so that the letters are complementary.


Detailed navigator for UK Computer Science Master's? I'm trying to choose the best university in the UK for a computer science master's course, leaning in a more theoretical direction. But sites like prospects.ac.uk are too broad, I don't want to filter 350 results which consist of basically the same buzzwordy text about carreer opportunities manually.

My current approach is checking out universities I've heard of in the field, trying to find the actual course listing and guessing from that the actual direction teaching might take (currently Glasgow is my first choice because it's the only one to list a "functional programming" course, which is at least a first step into the direction I want); but even the course descriptions in the listing are quite fuzzy…

The problem of looking at publications from areas I would like to work in and choosing a university from that (hoping that a master's there might set me on a PhD route) is that, at least in undergrad studies, there's little connection between the researcher's work and teaching. But I haven't nailed down an exact direction to go in either, so directly finding research groups I'm interested in and working backwards from there would be hard, too, since there would probably be more than 350 of those as well.

So, is there a specialised computer science master's course ranking website with a column for “philosophical direction” or some kind of “business vs academic career” weighting?

So, is there a specialised computer science master's course ranking
  website with a column for “philosophical direction” or some kind of
  “business vs academic career” weighting?

No. While it would be nice if there was a system that you could enter your definition of "best" and it would spit out the school for you, it just doesn't exist. While it probably is not a fair system, if you want the "best" according to your grandmother's definition, you probably want to limit yourself to the Russell group. You could also look at the 2008 RAE for what HEFCE thinks is the "best". You can also use league tables. The best approach would be to actually define what you mean by "best". Factors you may want to include are location, course size, research component, course work, faculty, and reputation.


"Pushing" a search committee for an answer? I had a job interview (Skype) for a post-doc at university A last Thursday, which I think went well. They say they would take 1 week to 10 days to get back to me.

I had applied to other positions before, and got a much less attractive offer from  university B. I just received an email from university B saying that they'd really need to close the hiring process by the end of this week and would expect an answer from me in the next couple of days.

Would it be too aggressive to send an e-mail to University A to inquire about my chances when it's only been a few days after the interview? On the other hand, it is pretty late in the job hunting season so I feel it would be understandable?

No, it’s not too aggressive. A very common thing to do in your situation is to inform university A of your deadline with university B (and to mention to them that you prefer university A).


How difficult is it to get PhD funding for the Humanities (UK)? How difficult is it to get PhD funding for the Humanities in the UK? Specifically, let's say I am targeting top-tier universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, and UCL for the Humanities. I got a First and have already done some graduate work on a masters level. However, I am not exceptional, i.e. I do not have Firsts/A+ in every subject. Is there an approximate number of how many people who get admitted to Oxford then also receive funding? How many international students receive funding (in %), etc. as opposed to EEA (which I am)? Anything like this would be helpful.

In case it's relevant, assume that my PhD thesis topic is interesting, but not of exceptional value to society or exceptionally novel (novel enough for a PhD, but not revolutionizing the field say).

To be blunt and clear, if your PhD topic is neither particularly novel nor of exceptional value, you are almost certainly not going to be awarded PhD funding in the Humanities in the UK: not at Oxbridge, not anywhere. It simply will not happen. PhD funding in UK humanities is limited at best, cutthroat in reality, and non-existent at worst. We have to turn down scores of projects that are truly important and valuable due to lack of funding for students: a mediocre topic has no chance. This is the same at Oxbridge as it is the same for everywhere else in the UK.

If a prospective student has everything else in line (e.g. they have a first, they have UK/EU student status so they can go in for UKRI funding), they need to work on coming up with an exceptional project. Even if they are spectacular otherwise, an exceptional project is needed.


Should I take OSAP (student loans) even if I can pay for my tuition? This is something I have been pondering for a while. I am currently in my second year at University and my program comes with mandatory Co-op throughout the 4 years of study. I have completed 3 Co-op terms already and those have covered my expenses and tuition for each term at the university. I understand that not every Co-op will provide enough compensation every time but my parents are ready to support me where and when needed.

OSAP is a government program which funds students doing their post-secondary education in Ontario, more here. The loans are interests free until the student has completed his education. Then the interest rate is as follows:

  On the provincial part of your OSAP loan, the rate is the prime rate
  of interest plus 1%. On the federal portion interest rate can be the
  prime rate of interest plus 2.5%.

So my question is, should I apply for OSAP and receive their funding and save what I earn from Co-op? Or is it better to not receive any OSAP funding?

I also considered doing this, though I didn't (more from sloth than anything else).

As I understand it, from other students in Ontario, you can pay back the entire OSAP loan in a lump sum at any time. Since the loan is interest free, a rational investor would take out the maximum amount allowed, put it in a risk free asset, and pay it back as late as possible, pocketing the interest.

Now, interest rates are low right now, and OSAP needs a lot of paper work. Being in debt can also be stressful for some people. If you are sure that you won't need any OSAP money, then perhaps the $100 or so you'd make per year in interest is not worth your time.

Also, note that borrowing money now, and then paying it back early will often cause the provincial government to lower your future OSAP payments - since you clearly didn't need the whole amount.


How to react when a team of colleagues obviously made up some results? In a recent paper, a team of colleagues published results that are clearly made up. I am 100 % sure of that because my position at the university involves the management of the animals they used in the study, which grants me access to the native data.

Actually, the statistics were so poorly handled you have hints something is definitely wrong just by reading the abstract.
My name doesn't appear on the paper, but I could be indirectly associated with that team through my position.

So how to properly react? Close my eyes and move on? Write to the journal they published in?

my position at the university involves the management of the animals they used in the study

If your immediate supervisor is to be trusted, go to him or her.  If not, pick someone higher up in the university hierarchy.  You are looking for someone who will

protect your identity as a whistleblower

investigate discreetly

have enough influence within the university to be able to trigger effective action

Edit (in response to some comments): I should really have suggested that you look up your university's policy and procedures.  Let's look at what MIT has to say about "Research Misconduct" as an example.

Unethical behavior in research and scholarship strikes at the heart of the scholarly and educational enterprise. [...] Supervisors must enforce the highest standards for conducting research and creating and maintaining records of the research [...] specifically, laboratory and center directors....
Definitions: [...] Fabrication is making up data or results and recording or reporting them.
Duty To Report: Each member of the MIT community has a responsibility to report any conduct that he or she believes in good faith to be Research Misconduct at MIT. Ordinarily it is appropriate in the first instance for a Complainant to report his or her concerns to the supervisor of the prospective Respondent. [...] Consultation and guidance is always available from the Office of the Vice President for Research or from senior academic officers (deans, department heads, laboratory directors)....
A supervisor who becomes aware of possible Research Misconduct, either from his or her own observations or because of reports, has a responsibility to bring allegations of Research Misconduct directly to the Vice President for Research in order to ensure that proper procedures are followed.


How to deal with a labmate using my method without credit? So, I have made a presentation on my thesis at my workplace (a lab where I am a postdoc at), people make presentations on their current work so it is meant to be a meeting where we know each other's work and can collaborate etc.

So this person takes my method and idea (as in application relating dataset and on exactly what problem to solve) and he announces he will basically do the same for his work (on the same and a similar dataset) only a week after. I gave him hints that the work is identically the same and I could lend the code if he wants to and we could work together, he warded off all attempts, I have given hints to our advisor too but he is like Idk.

Today he announces that he has good results (though he still needs to implement another part).

Meanwhile I did send my paper to a journal and it said I needed more testing (major revision) but since it is a different affiliation I can not do an extensive testing on my own using the new lab resources, besides my code is not well optimized, so I was thinking on using another framework to re-implement it.

MY POINT is, shouldn't HE offer to work with me in this case? Shouldn't our advisor meddle and put us to work together? It is true that anyone, anywhere in the world could do the same thing and publish -but- we are in the same lab and he clearly just snitched off my idea. If I were in his place, I would definitely offer to work together.

How can I deal with this, especially since I feel I will look like I am the "difficult" person. In my previous lab, people were really ethical about this, once you use someone's idea, especially if it is a whole paper kind of work, you include them in paper.

Speak to your advisor. You write that you've already done so but he's like "idk". Well, make sure he knows. Don't "give hints" and speak clearly. If you're assuming that by giving hints he will understand you, don't! This assumption is dangerous, and much more often the other party is not really sure what you mean. Here's an example of giving hints gone bad. The other members of the lab were giving hints to RH88 not to come, but RH88 did not get it, went anyway, and then after he's moved he finds out they were giving hints.

If your advisor is clearly aware of the situation, knows what your grievance is, and is still "idk solve it yourself", then it might be time to re-evaluate your time in the lab.


Does your supervisor have to be able to understand your thesis? I am currently writing my master thesis in mathematics and for those who are more familiar with the subject, I am more into analysis whereas my supervisor is more into computational sciences. My project is on an application of analysis and there is also a numerical component.

I will soon submit my first draft to my supervisor but I am slightly anxious about how he will react.

To describe it quite generally: my background is very much in the theory of mathematics and I am a relative novice in the computational sciences, thus I am treating that component as an end-goal of my thesis while building up to it rigorously with the theory that I have become acquainted with over the years. Incidentally, in our meetings, my supervisor focuses most of his attention on the "results" of my thesis rather than the technicalities in between.

You could argue that there is a "mismatch" in some sense. However, I am very much interested in this application which my supervisor does, but I would like to do it in my own style. This brings me to my question: do I have to write my thesis in such a way that he is able to read it, or is it quite common for them to seek the assistance of other professors who are better acquainted with the theory?

YES most definitely. Obviously, if you supervisor cannot comprehend your project, they cannot supervise it.

This should only very rarely occur. I can only think of a situation in which the student has, from prior qualifications, superior knowledge about certain aspects of the project than their supervisor. In this case, perhaps supervision in the traditional sense is not really necessary, but merely some guidance and feedback.

In any case, if you want to publish your research in the field of your supervisor, then you should speak a language and use conventions that people like your supervisor can comprehend. If you cannot express your project in such a way, then how can you hope that anybody relevant can understand it?


Changing a mathematical field once one has a tenure I have heard that, in mathematics, there might be several difficulties in changing one's field once one has a tenured position. I am wondering what those difficulties are. Is it possible at all?
Let me mention two difficulties I heard about.

Obviously, one has to learn a new area of math on a professional level, which is not easy.

These days, there is a strong pressure to get grants and, hence, to publish regularly. If one does not yet have a reputation of a serious expert in the new field it will be difficult to get a grant. This pressure is weaker if one has a tenure, but it still exists.

I found changing fields after tenure to be not much of a problem as a tenured mathematics professor.  The threat of losing some funding for a while is a serious issue if one has an expensive lab.  If one is doing theory, then grant funding is not so critical.  A sabbatical is a great time to study up on a new field.
I should add I am talking about moving to fields that have some connection with the old.  If there is no overlap in people or background theory, then this might be more challenging.
The greatest difficulty is the bruising of the ego.  The new field may not be open to your ideas, and you are essentially heading in as if you are a graduate student without an advisor to make the introductions.  You need to realize that it might be years before you get invited to the right conferences or get referees who really read your papers.
It can take a few years to really switch fields, but if one has tenure and a decent sabbatical program, it can be worth the effort.  One can keep some side projects in the old area to keep some papers coming in and to get excuses to meet your old friends at conferences at exotic locales (someday).  Coauthors are great for this.


Can I ask a lecturer for letter of recommendation I wonder can I ask a lecturer who I took his course and I did amazing in his class for a letter of recommendation?
The reason why I am asking is because lecturers are not usually doing research and might be permanent faculty member.

If you're applying for a research-based position, it is almost always better to have letters of recommendation from people who know you and can comment on your research skills.

However, if you do not have enough letters of recommendation that can come from such people, then a letter of recommendation from someone who knows your work well and can comment on your strengths and weaknesses is also acceptable—even if it is not a "permanent faculty member."


How to negotiate with collaborators on adjusting procedures to interdisciplinary projects? This is an issue I frequently face. As a biologist I like doing interdisciplinary science. In fact I believe interdisciplinarity is the key to producing any truly insightful observation, at least in my field of work.
Typically I deal with arthropod morphology, allied to some biochemistry, with some conclusions relevant for general biology, ecology, evolution. Since recently I've added some molecular biology (i.e. DNA analyses) to this.

Now my problem is that my main expertise lies in morphology and natural history – because I have seen and read a lot on my bugs. But because of my interdisciplinary approach, I have some insights into what’s happening around. I just don’t know their protocols, don’t have their reagents, lack the experience and background know-how to plan and analyse their results.

However frequently I run into (minor) conflicts over interpreting their results in face of the bigger picture. Usually they get upset when I come up with a different final conclusion, and instead of trying to logically convince me, they get all evasive repeating I am not qualified enough to discuss their work.

It will try to illustrate some typical situations:

A group of collaborators do some proteomic analysis of an organ, and come up with exciting compounds therein reported for the first time. But I do not understand why, out of a 15-lines-long list of potential candidates, the most exciting one is surely the correct identification. (I do have superficial understanding of database identification scores, but likely not as much as they [must] have, and would be delighted to learn more).
Some skilful biochemist isolates a compound as I suggested and starts on further bioassays but while using solvents and plastic labware. From my general experience around GC-MS machines and organic solvents, there will be an uncontrolled amount of phthalate esters released in the extracts which may account for significant effects. Even when alerted of this problem prior to procedures, plastic and solvents are used because “this is how we do it”. Some guy protested “ethanol isn’t exactly a solvent” when shutting his ears and going all offended.
A chemist will use antibiotics solutions which did not really solubilise, categorically stating “suspensions of medicines work”.

There are countless such cases. I try as best to be always prepared to receive their questions and skepticism around my own specialities as I feel confident enough to explain the rationale. And alas, they may be seeing something I did not. However I feel almost everyone else is unwilling to discuss and question routine protocols, and this makes doing interdisciplinary science very hard!

How can I avoid such conflicts, adjust procedures, and at the same time reach an agreement with collaborators?

It seems to me that the problem lies on a psychological aspect of their lives and your way of questioning is triggering this response on them. Maybe they're insecure about their academic formation or have been challenged in the past in a way that made them develop a very defensive stance when questioned. My suggestion is that you change your way of obtaining this info to a more friendly one. usually lowering your guard creates the same behavior on others. You could go for something like "I have no knowledge about this. Could you please teach me X? I feel it's important for my formation."


Can I negotiate an acceptance to print delay, post acceptance? Update: My withdrawal request was accepted and I was also offered to be published in the immediate issue of the Journal. I took back my withdrawal request.

Edit : Mentioning Journal

I have an accepted paper. But it is slated to appear in 2021. And both print and online versions appear around same time. I was hoping online would appear much faster than that, but its not the case. According to copyright I cannot host it on my website also for an embargo period of 12 months. So it's not even sharable, let alone citable. I have a followup paper already being written, and more ideas in pipeline that are built on top of this. This publication wait period defeats my whole purpose of publishing as I cannot share it with others and I cannot cite in furthur works. I cannot use it for advancing my career too. I also have plans to seek research positions or phd fellowships. I am kind of stuck. I cannot withdraw it now as it is already accepted. Is there anyway I can negotiate to get it out much before than the slated time?

Edit:

An excerpt from the copyright.

    Retention of Rights

  The Author/Editor may deposit an Author-created version of the Article
  on Author’s/Editor’s funder’s or funder’s designated repository at the
  funder’s request or as a result of a legal obligation, provided it is
  not made publicly available until 12 months after official
  publication. Author/Editor may not use the Publisher’s PDF version,
  which is posted on www.publisher.com, for the purpose of that deposit.
  Additionally, the Author/Editor may deposit the Publisher’s PDF
  version of the Article on Author’s/Editor’s own website or
  Author’s/Editor’s institute’s designated repository, provided it is
  not made publicly available until 12 months after official
  publication. Furthermore, the Author/Editor may only post the Article
  provided acknowledgement is given to the original source of
  publication and a link is inserted to the published Article on
  Publisher’s website. The link must be accompanied by the following
  text: “The final publication is available at www.publisher.com”. The
  Author/Editor is requested to use the appropriate DOI for the Article.

Update : I have made a gentle and polite withdrawal request citing delay as reason, to which I got a one line reply, "Thank you for your message". I don't know how to interpret this one line  reply. Does it mean that they will get back to me on this? or I should assume that it's been withdrawn?

It's hard to tell from the outside why they aren't posting online versions of your accepted paper now. If the publisher is the root cause, you could conceivably change their mind by negotiation. I would not be hopeful because they're likely to keep to the status quo purely out of inertia, but your objection would probably be filed away as a data point for when they finally decide to modernize.

On the other hand if the editor-in-chief is the root cause, the publisher is not likely to overrule the editor-in-chief, and you'll have to convince the EiC. Chances are the EiC has entrenched views of this (as opposed to the publisher who's more likely to simply be doing what they've always been doing), which makes convincing him/her harder. Still, you could try. Be sure to mention you have follow-up work already lined up.

It's unlikely that there'll be negative consequences for trying and failing. Your paper's already accepted; they're not going to rescind it for non-academic reasons.

One thing I would definitely check is whether you are permitted to upload preprints. You mention there's an embargo, but quite often the embargo is only on the accepted manuscript. You can still post preprints. Some publishers (e.g. Elsevier) allow you to post the accepted manuscript as well, on a non-commercial personal homepage or blog.

Edit: based on that paragraph, negotiation is the only way out, because they're preventing you from making anything else publicly available. If you have transferred your copyright then they can actually publish without your consent now (still, they might let you withdraw anyway as a gesture of goodwill). You say you haven't signed any copyright transfer, but that's not sufficient; the journal might have policies that say the copyright is automatically transferred upon acceptance or even upon submission. You'll have to check. If you haven't transferred the copyright, then you could withdraw and submit elsewhere. It's a decision you'll have to make.


How can I pre-register my study of little importance? I am writing an undergraduate dissertation on behavioural economics. I am looking to run an experiment. As nobody apart from my course convenor will read my paper, the stakes are not particularly high. Nonetheless, I want to i) follow best practices and ii) prove to the examiner that I have not done any p-hacking or HARKing, in the hope that I will get a higher mark.

I am therefore looking for some way to pre-register my study and hypotheses, or otherwise prove that I did not amend my hypotheses. This previous question on Academia.SE did not have a good answer. I have also thought of writing down my hypotheses in a public blockchain to have a proof of existence, but this seems far too esoteric and I doubt my examiner will be impressed.

If you have the time for it, you could blog the entire process from initial idea through the final writing of the paper. A public blog might not be the same as a, audit but the public nature of it would provide assurance. A research notebook open to the public, so to speak.

But I suggest this since a blog of a research "journey", including all attempts and all setbacks would be, perhaps, useful for others starting out in research. The fact that, you say, it isn't very deep might be an advantage, making it more accessible to readers.

It might even make you a better writer; valuable in itself.

There are a lot of blogging platforms, of course. And I realize this isn't exactly what you were asking for.