Is it more difficult to publish a paper that demands reviewers with knowledge from many different areas of mathematics? I have got an article the making, and presented it to my PhD advisor one month ago. The article emerged from my master thesis at a different university.

A week ago, he told me the draft is good, albeit difficult to understand, but he remarked that it contained too many new ideas to be published at once. The problem is that no journal will be able to find a reviewer. Furthermore, I am just some unknown PhD student to them, so there won't be a "rubber-stamp" for me.

The draft contributes to an active mathematical research area which leads previously unrelated topics together - in particular, very different mathematical communities. My draft contributes by another bridge between communities. I am convinced that people will find the result noteworthy and interesting, but I also agree that the combination demands (basic) knowledge from many different mathematical areas.

It is a disturbing but possibly realistic perspective that researchers keep the same old soup at low temperature on the cooker. But isn't that too pessimistic? There are so many mini results published, why should I cut down on at least trying?

Are the concerns of my advisor well-founded in practices of the mathematical community?

No, in my opinion as a (midcareer verging on senior) mathematician, there is no such thing as "too many new ideas to be published at once".  This is a curious reaction.

Whenever a student asks a "My advisor said....[something strange]" question here (or elsewhere), I have to wonder how deeply to engage in the possibility that the student somehow misunderstood the advisor.  Unfortunately misunderstandings between students and advisors are amazingly common...even when both parties are "good people" in every sense of the word.  More than a decade after graduating, I still remember spending several weeks of hard work on certain things my advisor asked me to do.  When at last I would go back explaining how hopeless it seemed, it most often turned out that there was some miscommunication: I didn't work on the problem that he had intended, or I hadn't read the right paper. [I remember wading through Katz's Rigid Local Systems because of a suggestion made by my postdoctoral supervisor.  Being a postdoc I was more savvy than a PhD student, so I probably spent at most a week before I went back to say "Really?  This is relevant to what I'm doing??" only to learn that, no, that was not the book of Katz he was talking about.  Still, I'd like to have that week back...]

I would encourage you to consider the comment "the draft is good, albeit difficult to understand".  I'm guessing that is meant to be independent information from the remark that your paper contains "too many new ideas".  Some key questions:

Was the draft prohibitively difficult for your advisor to understand?  People [students, advisors, referees...] say that writing is hard to understand in two very different circumstances: they may literally be criticizing the writing style.  But it is also quite likely that they are trying to say -- in a way which saves face for them and for you, but is in fact rather unhelpful because of that -- that they gave up before they could tell whether your arguments were correct, and they would only be willing to put more time into a better-written draft.  You deserve to know whether your advisor vouches for your work.

Related:

Does your advisor have the expertise in the disparate areas you are pulling together?  If not, he is really not the right person to be asking about this.  People sometimes seem to think (or more likely, to hope) that if they have a paper on "number theory" then I will understand it, and that if the paper references some work or lecture notes of mine then I will really understand it.  No way.  I often receive papers to referee which are about several things at once, one of which is part of my expertise but one or more isn't.  I like to learn new things, so I'll stretch to a certain point, but beyond that I just decline to referee the paper on the grounds that I'm not qualified.  If I can, I direct the editor to someone who is qualified; if I can't, I apologize for not doing that, but in no case do I intimate that no one is qualified to referee the paper.  How could I know that?!?

The idea that your paper is simply too ambitious is really a poor one.  At most it means it is too ambitious for your local mathematical community, and if you hear that as a reaction to your work which is otherwise said to be "good", it's a sign that you need to find a larger pond.

  I am convinced that people will find the result noteworthy and interesting, but I also agree that the combination demands (basic) knowledge from many different mathematical areas.

Then you should find people who feel that the result is noteworthy and interesting, ideally those who understand all of it, but even those who understand some of it and can be supportive could be helpful.  If you think your paper is correct and reasonably (even if not perfectly) well-written, why not submit it to the arxiv?  If your paper draws together several different things, then try showing it -- via emails, for instance -- to people wom you know to be experts in at least one of those things.  They can tell you whether they are qualified to understand the entire paper, and if not they can (perhaps) tell you who is.

  It is a disturbing but possibly realistic perspective that researchers keep the same old soup at low temperature on the cooker. But isn't that too pessimistic? There are so many mini results published, why should I cut down on at least trying?

Yes, that is too pessimistic.  If you've done something valuable and technically difficult, it will be publishable.  The level of technical difficulty may make the reviewing process more lengthy (it should; you are aware that you don't want rubber stamp reviews of your math papers, right?).  On the other hand, in mathematics "technical difficulty" can be a selling point: if you have done something that is broadly valuable but that few people (or no one but you) would have had the acumen to pull off, then you have done something very impressive and valuable indeed.

Good luck.


What should someone who has been rejected from all PhD programs do to improve their application for later admissions cycles? I tried asking this question in cstheory.stackexchange.com but it was closed and it seems like this question is more appropriate here.

I am an undergraduate and an American citizen who recently applied to Computer Science PhD programs in the US. Based on conversations with friends and posts on gradcafe I am very likely to be rejected from all the programs I applied to (I haven't heard anything while others have gotten acceptances and interview requests from all the schools I have applied to).  I am now trying to brainstorm ideas for what to do after my graduation in order to improve my chances of getting into a PhD program when I try to apply again next year.

One option that seems to be brought up a lot is to attend a master's program.  However, unless I can get funding, or transfer credit will lower my tuition significantly (I'll have 6 or 7 graduate level cs courses that will not count towards graduation requirements by the time I graduate), I'm not sure if I can afford such a program.

Another popular option is to be a lab technician or something similar.  I'm not sure if such positions are available in theoretical computer science.

Is there anything else I can do?

It's difficult to really answer your question without actually seeing your application, but here's some general advice.

Remember that the admissions process is random. — There is nothing you can do to absolutely guarantee admission anywhere.  The most you can do is maximize your expected return.
Calibrate your expectations. — Are you really a good candidate for a top-5 department?  (Hint: Do you have a STOC/FOCS/SODA paper?)  For a top-10 department?  For a top-25 department?  Really?  Be respectful but brutally honest with yourself.  Ask your letter-writers or other faculty mentors to be brutally honest with you as well.  Listen to them.
Identify potential advisors. — Every department you apply to should have at least two faculty, preferably more, whose specific research interests closely match yours.  Your research statement should not only name those faculty but explain why you think they'd be a good match.  Ask your references (or other mentors) for feedback and advice.  Listen to them.
Spread your applications. — The rule of thumb I heard when I was applying was apply for four schools where you have a reasonable chance of being admitted, one or two backup schools, and one dream school.  Do not let the backup schools know that they are backup schools!
Get good letters. — Your letters must address your potential for research in personal, specific, and credible terms.  A letter that only describes your performance in class is worthless.  Your letters must come from research faculty — not PhD students, not postdocs, not lecturers, not managers.  If possible, your references should have direct experience with strong PhD students (either as a reference or as an advisor) to make direct comparisons.  If possible, your references should be well-known active researchers, but this is actually less important than experience with students.  Since you've taken half a dozen graduate classes, you should be in good shape here.
Write a good statement. — Your research statement (or "statement of purpose" as everyone bizarrely insists on calling it) must address your potential for research in specific and credible terms.  Do not start with an inspiring quotation.  Do not write about how computers are changing the world.  Do not write about how you've been programming since you were in the womb; nobody cares.  Write about your research.  Describe your experience.  Describe your specific interests (not just "theoretical computer science").  Describe a problem that you might want to work on, with enough background and technical language to convince the reader you know what you're talking about and that you actually care.  Bonus points if you correctly cite one of your potential advisor's recent papers, but don't force it.
Get feedback. — Send the final version of your research statement to your letter-writers (or other faculty mentors) and ask for their brutally honest feedback.  Give them plenty of time.  Expect to get your statement back soaked in red ink.  Expect different people to give you conflicting advice.  Listen to all of them.  Lather, revise, repeat.
But this is all about the form of the application.  The best way to improve the content of your application is DO RESEARCH.  Get paid to do research if you can, but do research anyway if you can't.  Find a mentor (at your undergrad institution?) if you can, but do research anyway if you can't.  Post technical questions and answers to cstheory.stackexchange.  Follow CS theory blogs and read the papers that they write about.  Keep a copy of the most recent STOC or SODA proceedings nearby to read while you're compiling, or waiting for the laundry, or riding the bus, or whatever.  Talk regularly with your letter-writers about your progress.  Write, write, write.


Being a co-supervisior of a branch proposed for Master thesis from my PhD thesis I'm a PhD student, writing my project proposal and also a junior teacher in the same university. An ex-student asked me if i would like to co-supervise him in his master thesis and perhaps suggest him a topic of research. It comes in my mind to include him in a task of my PhD project, which might be further explored by him, being also helpful for me. The other supervisor would be my own supervisor.
Would this be ethical?

I'd consider that an excellent opportunity to get further into research, and gaining a pair of hands in your job (even more, as the advisor will also chip in). As long as everybody is happy with this, particularly the master's student (who clearly is on board, as you were approached in the first place), I don't see any possible ethical problems.

But you'd have to check carefully that this doesn't run against any local regulations.


How to convert an engineering project into a PhD research title? I am curious and also want to clear my understanding about the nature of research which students undertake in a PhD program.

Take this product as an example.

What is the difference between the research behind the development of this product, and a PhD research which is able to earn a degree?
Does a 4-5 years' PhD research degree program allow developing a product like this?
Does the student need to mask his product development as a PhD thesis by selecting a cryptic title which sounds "wise", or would he be allowed to use a plain title like "A desktop sweater knitter"?

What is the difference between the research behind the development of this product, and a PhD research which is able to earn a degree?

Products are typically developed from known results (including existing research), whereas research (during a PhD) produces new results.

  Does a 4-5 years' PhD research degree program allow developing a product like this?

Not typically: Research is time consuming and there typically isn't time to develop products.

  Does the student need to mask his product development as a PhD thesis by selecting a cryptic title which sounds "wise", or would he be allowed to use a plain title like "A desktop sweater knitter"?

I think you're (discretely) trying to ask: How can I develop a product during my PhD? Don't do that. If you do, the IP will (most) likely be owned by your university, not you. You'll need a less common approach: Work for a company (possibly your own) and enrol with a university under non-standard terms which ensure the company retains (all or most) IP rights.


4th year phd in BiomedEngineering - How do I maximize my chances of getting an assistant professorship in my hometown? Preface: I know

how how difficult is to get any professorship
that i should write really good research papers etc...
that its not smart to plan on this and only this

My hometown is middle of the country, only 2 universities in my field.
Help me out, how do I maximize my chances of being near my family and getting my ideal job?

Take a good, hard look at the research being done in the department, and the specialties of the professors. Are there any subfields where the department is weak? Are there cross-field collaborations that could be done, but aren't? Is there an emeritus or soon-to-be emeritus professor that will leave a gap in coverage?

What you're looking for is a niche that you can fill.


In dilemma of choosing supervisor for postdoctoral research I don't know whether this question has been posted previously or not. I just successfully defended my PhD thesis and right now I am unofficially a PhD holder. I have applied to several institutions for postdoctoral research and so far I have been received two offers. One of the offers was from my current PhD supervisor and another one was from a reputable senior professor in my field. Although I really enjoyed working with my current supervisor, I don't think I have challenged myself enough in research. The research I conducted during my PhD study was a "safe" research and nothing groundbreaking was coming from it. My current supervisor is a nice professor who always listens to my problems, understands my plight as a researcher and always acts as a good boss to me. However, she's not a very good expert in my field and sometime she was clueless with what I was talking and she didn't encourage me to go for risky research during my PhD time. She also doesn't open to ideas of collaboration with experts from other countries as she likes to control everything. However, she has been a very pleasant person throughout my PhD journey.

On the other hand, another senior professor from other institution is a very respected professor from my field. He has a very big lab with many PhD students and postdoctoral researchers. However I have heard a lot of nasty things regarding his treatment to his students. I don't know whether I'll be ready to work with.

So right now I am in a dilemma to choose between these two as my postdoctoral supervisor. What should I do?

However I have heard a lot of nasty things regarding his treatment to his students.

If you think these rumors are true, do not go work for him.  If you work for him, you are endorsing his behavior and his reputation will impact your reputation.

  One of the offers was from my current PhD supervisor

There is a general expectation that a postdoctoral job should broaden your range of experience.  If your postdoc supervisor is the same as your PhD supervisor, there will be a perception* that you did not acquire new skills.  There may also be a perception that you did not move because you could not find a position that would broaden your skills.  It also makes it look like your adviser could not help you find a job elsewhere.

In summary, I recommend you keep applying for postdoc positions.  However, if you are one of the most famous institutions in your field, it would be acceptable to stay put, as relocation is less expected in this case.

*I do not endorse this view because it discriminates against people who are unable to move.  But I think it is a widely held belief.


Academia's view on body modification I'm a young undergraduate student currently finishing my next-to-last year as a math bachelor. I plan to apply for a Masters as soon as I finish, and I look forward to a job as an academic researcher.

I'm also deeply involved with the culture of body modification, hosting myself a few tattoos, piercings and one scarification (as of today, all of which could be covered by wearing a dress shirt and pants). I also look forward to further modify my body, including face/hand tattoos, scarifications and piercings.

I know that, in general, this means that I will find barriers to land a job given my future undeniable ``strange" appearance. Now, in the context of academic jobs, how is this culture viewed upon? I've never seen a member of our faculty with any form of extreme body mod, just one or another mild, easily hidden tattoo.

I would like to add that both body modification and mathematics had (and still have) a huge impact in my life, both are my driving force and my passion for them will make me purse my dreams of being a (heavily modified) mathematician, no matter what. I would just like to know what type of obstacles I should be ready to face, when the time comes. Though I repeat to myself everyday that "if I'm good enough at my job, people will need to accept my looks", I would also appreciate a less faith-dependent advice. You know, for the hard days.

To further clarify how is this different from other related questions on tattoos, I'm talking about extreme body modification, while the question linked states: "Of course, if I did get one, it would be discrete and innocent." These images show what sort of looks I aim to achieve: photo 1, photo 2.

You will likely be judged differently in any situation, where you have to be present in person - that is, all kind of interviews (actually even via skype and similar).

Your skills become more important later in your academic life, but the documented skills of say a master student who applies for a PhD position are very limited - personal judgement plays the major role here.

Therefore, you might want to wait until you do a PhD, or even after that. By that time your publications and achievements may speak for themselves and all you need to do is to find a PI that is okay with your looks.


How appropriate is to make multiple submissions of research findings to same venue/conference? Assuming the following scenario:

Person A is a recognized senior researcher, and Person B is an enthusiastic junior researcher. Both of them have been working more or less equally on a research project and are interested in  submit the results of the project to a particular venue. Based on the report written by Person B, Person A has written a paper (PA) to be submitted to the venue. Person B doesn’t like the style and some contents of PA, so he makes comments to Person A, who them modifies PA. Person B still doesn’t like PA, so writes a separate paper PB. Since PA and PB haven’t been published, there are citations between them.

At this point, Person A submits PA, which list authors as "Person A & Person B", and Person B submits PB, which list authors as "Person B & Person A."

Is it appropriate to submit PA and PB?
What would be your impression if you were part of the venue’s committee?
As reviewer, what would be your impression about reviewing two different papers about the same work for the same venue?
Any additional consideration?

You cannot submit both papers.  As others have pointed out, most venues explicitly forbid simultaneous submission of substantially overlapping papers.  The answer to your first three questions is the same: Immediate rejection.

In fact, I would go further: Neither PA nor PB can be submitted alone.  It is unethical to submit a paper without the explicit consent of all authors, because authorship implies endorsement of and responsibility for the content of the paper.  On the other hand, it is unethical to revoke authorship from someone who has made a substantial intellectual contribution to the work.  The two authors must work out their editorial differences, like grown-up professional adults, before they can submit anything.

If they can't agree on what to submit, then tough noogies — no paper.


Sending an e-mail with multiple attachments? This is probably a silly question, but I really need some advice.
I'm an undergraduate student and I want to take a different major in grad school. Luckily, my university offers you a possibility to take a different major in grad school provided that you pass certain exams and show that you'll be able to follow the program. Now, I've sent an e-mail to a professor that's in charge of all that at the department that I want to get into, and he said that for a start I should send him the list of all the courses I've taken with corresponding grades.

Now I don't know if I should write it manually (so it's going to be a really really long e-mail) or if I should take screenshots from this "program" we use at university that contains all the information about my academic success? For this second option, I'm worried it might seem impolite to just send multiple attachments and I know some people don't even open attachments because they're afraid of malware...

Thanks in advance for your help.

If you really are stuck in this dilemma and there is no technical solution, then you can do both. Provide your own typed summary and attach the evidence as attachments. But give a warning that the attachments are just the proof and add no additional content.

Then the person can look at the attachments or not.

But commenters have suggested other, technical, solutions that might be better.


Recommendation letter has slightly wrong info – should I mention it in my cover letter? When I asked for the letter, last semester’s grades hadn’t been fully uploaded to the system so among the things my professor wrote, they said I was a top-5% student. This week, grades were updated and now I’m the top student in my cohort.

I don’t want to bother my professor again, and they might not respond in time for the deadline (Feb 1st). Would it be okay to add a small note at the end of my cover letter indicating my new standing?

If I was writing the letter, it wouldn't matter to me if you were the top student in your cohort; I still might list you as a Top 5% (or Top 10%) student.

I've been asked to fill out similar references before, and I'm often asked if the person I'm evaluating would be considered Top 5%, Top 10%, Top 25%, etc. In my mind (unless stated otherwise), I am not being solicited for a precise numerical calculation based entirely on GPA or class performance; rather, I'm considering a myriad of other factors as well, such as reliability, attitude, professionalism, integrity, etc.

You don't say what your letter is for (employment or graduate school), but, either way, the student who is top of my class academically (that is, the one with the highest average) isn't necessarily the first student I'd recommend for hiring – and I answer the "Top X%" questions accordingly.

Moreover, your professor may not be evaluating you among the classmates in your cohort, but taking a more historical look at all the students he's ever had who have taken the class(es) you took. So, for example, if you took BWV 201 with me, and asked for a reference, I am going to evaluate you as compared to all the students I've ever had who ever took BWV 201 – not just the handful of students who happened to take that class with you last year, or the students you are graduating with on graduation day.

Bottom line: I'd recommend that you be happy with the high rating you got, and stick with that.


How can unaffilitated individuals sign up for Web of Knowledge / Science? I am conducting a meta-analysis of literature and several individuals recommended that I use Web of Knowledge, instead of just Google Scholar. The specific part of it I would need would be Web of Science.

I am not affiliated with any institution; I'm just an independent researcher. I don't see any option to sign up?

On the sign-in page it says:

  NOT REGISTERED?

  Take advantage of many great features when you register.

Access Web of Science from outside your institution using **roaming** capabilities
Set up citation alerts whereby you are notified by email when an article on your Alerts list has been cited

  Learn more about the benefits of registering for an account

However, when I follow the "Learn more" link I don't see any option to sign up and there are no further mentions of this "roaming" option.

First, as @Anyon suggested in a comment, email their contact form to see if they have a practical solution for you.

If that doesn't help, then I don't have a definitive solution to your very real problem, but I can point you to some possibilities that come from the fantastic article, "You’re a Researcher Without a Library: What Do You Do?":

Go to your closest local university library. Their onsite wifi network might give you the online access you need. (I suspect from your related question [Meta-analysis using Google Scholar - are all years equally complete? that you might want to scrape the site, so you might need wifi guest access within the building to do that.)
If there is no nearby university library, try the largest nearby local library and see if they have access.
Try to get some sort of research affiliate status with a university, perhaps by finding an academic coauthor.

Sorry, but I cannot recommend the options in that article of questionable legality.

Best wishes; I feel your pain and hope you work something out! Please update your question with an epilogue if you do find a solution; I'm sure it will help a lot of people in your situation!


Acknowledgements in an industry-sponsored dissertation I am a doing a dissertation funded by a company and my dissertation is basically a report of my progress on the problem they have given me. I have an academic supervisor, an industry contact who has given me occasional guidance and basically the company itself who sponsored it, to acknowledge.

Should I acknowledge the industrial sponsorship the same way one would acknowledge a government grant?
Also, Since this is a mathematics dissertation, It is written in First person plural: "We do this we do that". For the acknowledgements section, should I use 3rd person to keep it formal: "The author would like to..." or first person singular: "I would like to thank"
Finally, I think the order should be sponsorship, academic adviser, and lastly the industry contact. Is that the right order?

I would say generally there are no perfect settings for acknowledgements. It all depends to your university dissertation rules. If the thesis/dissertation booklet does not cover the way acknowledgement should be stated then its up to you.


Recommendation letters choices : is diversity an advantage? I am currently in the process of asking people for recommendation letters for a Ph.D. program application. I need specifically 3 letters. I am lucky enough to have multiple people that I think could provide me good recommendations. My dilemma is therefore how to choose between these persons. One thing that complicates my choice is the fact that I am switching from one scientific field to another, let's say from physics to neuroscience. I also did my undergrad at university A and my masters at B.

I know that I will almost surely send recommendation letters from :

Masters supervisor in physics at B
Previous internship supervisor in neuroscience now a professor at C

Now for the third letter, I have to choose from :

Physics professor for whom I was a TA at B
Physics professor that I was on a committee with at A
Philosophy professor at A (he would probably write a very good letter)
Previous employer in a relevant industry (work with them for a year between masters and Ph.D.)

I am asking about advice for my particular choice, but also more generally: for this kind of application, is it better to prioritize recommendation letters from different universities, different sorts of work within academia (teaching, administrative, etc.), different fields or to consider people outside academia?

I am currently applying for a PhD and had the same dilemma as you, so maybe I can tell you what reasoning I followed as it might help you as well.

What field are you applying in? If it is a very academic field with few industrial applications, surely recommendations letters from professors or research supervisors rather than previous employers are more adequate.
You should choose recommenders that know different parts of your knowledge or skillset - e.g. if they all say how good you are at one specific software or problem type it will just be repetitive.
In my opinion, recommenders that have worked with you more recently come across more convincingly than older professors or supervisors, as your skill and your interests have developed since they last worked with you.
If you are changing fields, a recommender from that same new field who thinks you are capable of achieving success in the PhD is a big advantage (your 2nd recommender in this case).

If I were you, I would probably go for the "Previous employer in a relevant industry (work with them for a year between masters and Ph.D.)" or "Physics professor for whom I was a TA at B", depending on how academia- or industry-focused you want your application to be. All in all, it has to suit your profile and statement of purpose.

Hope my answer was helpful. Good luck!


Is it possible to outsource some tasks of thesis writing? How and what kind of tasks? I think that thesis writing is a big project which can be divided into several small-scale tasks. The contribution of the thesis must be done with student himself/herself, but other tasks such as figure preparation, writing in LaTex, editing, training, advising, etc. can be outsourced. Am I right?
In your opinion what kind of tasks can be outsourced and how?

In my opinion, the most ethical and legal answer to someone who is unethically and illegally asks others for writing his thesis (some parts or the whole) in any form (from doing research to typesetting and etc.) is a big NO!

By hearing NO!s from others, that person will understand that he is the only person who is responsible in writing his academic manuscript and he has social responsibility as a student to do his own research.

Thesis research is not something like procurement or construction project to be outsourced.

Help such person and help your society by saying NO to such requests!


Can a PhD student write recommendation letter for me under whom I worked? A few years ago I did a month lab rotation in a lab. At that time I was doing my masters and I was directly supervised by the Ph.D. student (X) of that lab. He taught me all the techniques and corrected my lab report. Then I sent it to the group leader. So basically I worked closely with the Ph.D. student and also the work I did during this one month, X used them in his further test and analysis. So that year, he published the paper and acknowledged me in that article.
Now I want to apply for a Ph.D. position and I wrote to that group leader who did not reply to me. So is it ok if I ask X to write one for me? (He completed his Ph.D. that year and I think he's a postdoc somewhere). we were not connected after that lab rotation but I got no choice except to ask X or that group leader who did not reply to me yet.

Everyone can write a recommendation letter for you. So the answer is an absolute yes. Nevertheless, the question now becomes: how strong can a recommendation letter written by a Ph.D. student be in order to have a strong application in order to get accepted? But this is a different story.
You may want to send it in addition to the other recommendation letters.


Do universities mind study delay when reviewing your application? I have been getting good grades for the last 1.5 years for my bachelor (physics), therefore I have been considering applying to a more renowned university for my masters.

Lately, I have also put more work in my honours programme because I really, really enjoy it - and I want to keep putting my time in it. However, the last couple of months I have noticed that is quite stressful to maintain my standards for grades while also putting time in honours, friends, fraternity, girlfriend, ... - it is so stressful I get really bad headaches when I do not relax enough.

Therefore, I am considering to follow one course less per quartile so I have more time to do other stuff, but can still maintain the grades. This means I will take 3.5 years to complete my bachelor, compared to the normal 3 years it takes.

Thus, my question; do universities take into account your study delay when reviewing your application?

Admissions committees care primarily about your grades and only to a very small degree do they care about how long it takes you to graduate. People have all sorts of reasons to not graduate in the fastest possible time -- most importantly having financial needs many students need to satisfy by working while being a student.

So no, there is really no need to worry about a semester more or less. Worry about your grades :-)


What is the difference between graphical abstract and graphical table of contents? I was curious about Wiley's manuscript submission process. It says to upload an image and graphical abstract for the graphical table of contents. In the drop-down menu of file uploads, there are three options- image, graphical abstract, and graphical table of contents.

Can anyone clarify what exactly are these three things that need to be uploaded? I quote the instructions from the publishers themselves:

  you must upload a graphic to be included in the online table of
  contents and a statement outlining the paper’s novelty with the
  original manuscript. The graphic should be .tiff or .eps format and be
  uploaded to the Graphical Table of Content. The novelty statement should include the paper title, the authors’ names (with the corresponding author indicated by an asterisk), and no more than 80 words or 3 sentences of text summarizing the paper’s novelty.

If you upload the required image and text, the journal staff will figure it out and it will be fine.

Image:  This is the TIFF or EPS file.
Graphical abstract:  This is the text.
Graphical table of contents:  This appears to be an error.  Perhaps you can upload a file containing both the image and text in this category, but there is no need to do that.


Is it possible to cite from an abstract in a scientific paper I was wondering whether it is possible to cite information from the abstract part of another scientific paper.

Let's say that you read something interesting in the abstract of a scientific paper and that you want to cite that information.

Is it normal to use that specific research paper as a reference source?

The question arises because normally the abstracts of scientific papers don't contain references, but still the abstract would reflect what the authors of that paper conclude/claim.

EDIT

To further ellaborate:

My question is relating to scientific papers in general.

I know that the abstract normally does not contain any citations like: [1].

The abstract is like a summary of the scientific paper.

When I quote or cite from the abstract of a certain scientific paper, I would be citing as if that scientific paper is the source.

As a result if assuming that the abstract of a scientific paper contains the conclusions of authors that wrote the abstract. Even though these authors partly or not partly based those conclusions on external sources.
So my question is whether that specific abstract/conclusion would be a valid source to cite from, making the scientific paper containing the abstract the source of citation.

As a general rule, I would advise against it. It can be tricky to separate what constitutes original work of the authors and what they themselves cite from elsewhere.


About multiple applications for graduate programs to the same school Suppose I applied to a Master's Degree Program when I was at my last year in undergraduate. I got accepted but I couldn't enroll at this school because I failed to finish the undergraduate on time, and I need to spend one more semester in undergraduate.

I want to apply again when I'm finished so what I want ask is how my previous application will affect my next one? Will it affect positively since I got accepted last time, will it affect negatively because I rejected the previous one or will it have no affect at all and they will consider my next application independent than previous one?

This is a very good, but very difficult question. The problem is that there's no definitive answer here.

What we do know:

You turned down a previous offer. This is never helpful for future admissions at a given school.
You were not able to accept because you weren't qualified to start. So long as you clarified this with the school in question, this may be a mitigating factor.

What we don't know:

How the school evaluates candidates. Is it a "rolling" admissions process, in which candidates are considered year round, or is it done on an annual basis?

The last point is probably the most important. If it's a rolling admissions, and you were a high-quality candidate in the previous cycle, you'd probably have a good chance of getting admitted, provided you explain what happened and why you couldn't get in.

On the other hand, if the admissions process is done once a year, then you will have to compete against all of the other candidates in this year's pool. Then, it's not necessarily a given that you would get in having gotten in previously. If you were a "bubble" applicant last time, You may be below the "cutoff" given a different pool of candidates—or you could be a clear admit.


Does announcing the submission of a paper on social networks violate the double-blind review? I sometimes see researchers who announce the submission of a paper to a conference on social networks, often tagging the post with the conference name and year, and from time to time mentioning the format and the topic of the paper. Does that violate the double-blind review, as through these networks reviewers can see the names of some submitting authors?

Example:

In the example case, I'd say no. These Twitter posts fail to connect the Twitter user name (which isn't necessarily traceable to a specific human publicly, anyway) to the NAACL2016 submission. There is no title or submission numbers here and only one reference to a sub-specialty ("morphology") and a length ("long"). It'd be hard for a reviewer to break the blinding based just on that.

Also, the whole point of double-blind review is to reduce the (hopefully) unconscious bias against underrepresented groups through connecting names to gender, race, national origin, etc, and the unconscious bias in favor of well-represented, well-known luminaries in the field. A reviewer who breaks the blinding on purpose is working against this purpose and should be summarily dropped by the Program Chair from the Program Committee if discovered.  Unless you think you're a big name with a mediocre paper, it's rarely going to be worth trying to use alternative means to make it easy to unblind the paper. Everyone seems to agree that enough Googling is enough for any bright reviewer to unblind almost any paper they want (even though they shouldn't be trying).

I don't think there's much of a concern in cases like this. I'd be more concerned if someone with a lot of followers and an open Twitter pseudonym tweeted that they had just submitted paper "1234!" to NAACL2016.


Peer assessments critical of nervous speakers: better to redact or send as-is? In the projects of one of my courses, I have asked the students to provide peer assessments of the presentations (recorded as videos) of other groups. Peer evaluations is something I have introduced recently: with classes online I wanted to find a way to encourage students to watch the presentations of other groups. Groups have 4–5 members. The evaluations are anonymous and are shared with the evaluated group in full. In general the system has worked well, with perhaps one exception ...
As part of the peer assessment, a number of categories were provided. One of these related to the quality of the presentation. I've noted that in a number of cases, the students have commented about the lack of confidence of a specific speaker affecting the overall presentation quality. In certain cases there are several comments about the lack of confidence of a particular speaker affecting the quality of the presentation; in some cases the comment clearly indicates which speaker is referred to.
As the professor of the course, I personally would not comment on such issues as I also have (had) my own demons regarding public speaking, and I think such a comment might be counterproductive in terms of knocking a student's confidence; in general I would try to be positive in such situations based on the personal experience that generous comments helped my own confidence.
I'm wondering if I should edit these peer assessments to "censor" such comments about students who are nervous when speaking. On the one hand, it feels a bit harsh to criticise someone for something they find difficult to control, and I worry about a student being troubled by such comments. On the other hand, I dislike the idea of censoring honest feedback; the categories are associated with grades, and removing such comments might make the grade seem unfair; also perhaps I also misjudge the situation and such feedback can be constructive in a way?
My question is about whether or not such comments are constructive, and if not, would it be justifiable and/or wise to remove or censor them in the peer assessments?
(I have also thought about changing the comment so that it is not clear which speaker is being spoken about, but with such small groups I think it will be clear in any case.)

Don't confuse peer assessment, which affect grades, with peer feedback, which needn't. The comments are useful as feedback and, since your students are probably inexperienced at such presentations need a lot more practice to become skilled at it. "You seem nervous" is useful to hear, but nervousness shouldn't affect grading. In fact, being effective in spite of it is a good thing.
I once had a student who stuttered so badly that he was difficult to understand. One of the requirements in the course was that each team member had to be part of the project presentation. He did what was necessary.
And, I think that peer assessment should be filtered through the professor rather than applied in a mechanical way. If a grading related assessment is unfair, the professor needs to moderate it. And students should also get feedback on their feedback so that they learn how to do it better. Your students are probably inexperienced in presentations, but they are also probably inexperienced in giving constructive feedback.
And when possible, feedback as well needs to be filtered as necessary. Some happens outside the professor's view of course, but the feedback needs to support learning both for the giver and the receiver.


What should I do if I accepted a review request based on paper title, but then found out it touches on topics I don't know? I am a Phd student from Algeria, and I received an invitation to Review for the International Journal of Adaptive Control and Signal Processing. My Phd supervisor advised me to accept the invitation to review the paper, so I accepted the invitation.

Now from the title of the paper, it looks to be in the field that I am working in. However, when I accepted the invitation and they sent the manuscript to me, it is much more complicated than it looks from its title and touches on topics that I do not know.

What are the best responses should I give in the reply?

You have two choices, each of which I have done at different times:

You can tell your advisor and the editors that now that you've seen the paper, you no longer think you could do a good job reviewing it.
You can review it to the best of your ability and state clearly in the review that you have low confidence in your review. (Often, this can be indicated numerically.)


Can I upload other peoples old tech reports to ResearchGate? I have a bunch of old tech reports I copied when a grad student written by other people.  I want to throw them out but would rather scan them into ResearchGate first.  For example, INRIA tech reports on various unification methods.  Is this OK or should only an author of a report scan it in?  I'm not claiming it as my own, I would tag it to the authors.   I just think they are a shame to throw away completely.

No, it's not OK. You are not legally allowed to distribute these reports if you don't hold the copyright and haven't been granted the right to distribute by the copyright holder.

To add a non-legal reason: You don't know if the authors would like to see these reports on ResearchGate. They might be embarrassed by what they wrote in them, they might want to update them, they might want to publish them as a journal article, they might boycott ResearchGate, ... It would not be polite to upload them without their permission.


Why is an academic CV not the place to sell? In a comment, ff524 said this (and got confirmed by scaahu, Nate Eldredge below (not to mention the number of votes)):

  Actually, academic CVs are typically not as sales-pitch-y as non-academic CVs. They are usually a very formulaic listing of all the academic things the candidate has done, with no editorializing or embellishment [...]. The "sell" is reserved for other parts of the application.

Why? I know that there are some differences in academia than other environments, but I can't think of a reason why a CV shouldn't be a sale pitch. Sure, we have other metrics to evaluate that, like h-index, but what is so wrong that putting other things (like about me, objectives, other courses, English certification, class standing, etc)? I am asking this question in general, but I also ask it from the new young student standing point in specifically. I know that if you are a novice, LOR are very important. You can say that a CV should be concise and into the point, but a half-page long CV may show that beside that point, you have nothing.

I just wonder what is the harm of making the CV like a sales pitch?

In academia, the traditional CV format is exactly what people care about, i.e. it already is the sell. Other academics care about stuff like your papers, presentations, and teaching experiences. In general, very little weight is given to the other topics that you mentioned, so including them is a waste of space. The few places that they do have weight (primarily graduate admissions), the relevant parts are better suited to other areas of the application (e.g. official transcripts, TOEFL and GRE score reports) where they are more likely to be seen when needed.

Note that graduate admissions are slightly different from the rest of academia. CVs that are submitted here are often more of a hybrid between traditional resumes and academic CVs, in large part because prospective graduate students don't have the academic experiences and achievements to fill up the latter (somewhat field-dependent). But many of the same cultural norms apply. By and large, academics are not interested or swayed by unverifiable "fluff," so you should limit what you include to specific, concrete, verifiable achievements.


How much does having published in high IF journals as an undergrad counts in the masters admissions process? I expect to have at least 3 publications (2 as co-author and 1 as first author) at respected venues by the time I apply to grad school (Mechanical Engineering) and want to know how much can that impact positively my application to top schools (MIT, Princeton, Cornell etc).

This can only be answered by the faculty and admissions committee of the institutions you actually apply to. It depends on how they see the relevance of your work and also on the competition you face from other candidates.

However, it certainly isn't a negative factor. I'm not in the same field, and so don't know how common it is for undergrads to produce such papers. I suspect it is pretty rare. In this case, since you have an unusually positive application it would help you a lot - especially for a doctoral level application. How much it helps for a masters level depends on how research oriented the particular MS is.

But the only way to know is to make the application. But note that these publications won't be the only thing that affects your chances.


What is the affiliation of an industry author that works for a consulting company? If I am correct, (co)authors from industry are mentioned with their current employer as compared to PhD students that mention their university.
I know a case of an engineer that just started working in a certain company, as consultant of an external consulting company. He is (co)author of a paper based on his thesis. I wondered what he should mention on the paper:

His university. He wrote the thesis itself as a student, but is currently no longer working there.
The consulting company. This is his official employer, but has no link with his daily job as to its content.
The company in which he works. No, because it is not his official employer.
Both the consulting company as the company in which he works.
Nothing. Is this possible?

He should just use his official employer.  There are lots of scientific papers from people with affiliations in industry.  Most of the time, these authors are working for companies in technical fields that are at least somewhat related to the research, but not always.  (I knew of somebody who was still working with his doctoral advisor doing research in theoretical particle physics, while he was employed at a company making speech recognition software, and the software company was his listed affiliation.)  Especially if most of the other authors have more conventional affiliations, listing a consulting company for one authors is not going to raise any eyebrows.

If the manuscript was completely written while he was a student, he could use his university affiliation, with a footnote indicating his current position.  However, I would imagine in this case that the text was not finalized until after the author moved into industry, in which case the university affiliation is not appropriate.


Submission to arXiv of PAMS submitted paper I've recently submitted a paper to Proceedings of American Mathematical Society (PAMS) and it is being handled by an editor. I also want to have it on arXiv.

PAMS allows this if you put it on arXiv with a licence no less restrictive than CC-BY-NC-ND (see for example item 4a here), but arXiv offers less restrictive licences (at least in my understanding). The options are:

arXiv.org perpetual, non-exclusive license to distribute this article
Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY 4.0)
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Creative Commons Public Domain Declaration (CC0 1.0)

Which of the licenses above is compatible with PAMS policy?

Thanks.

Only the first option (the default) is no less restrictive than CC BY-NC-ND.  You can always choose it, but you cannot choose the others unless you get special permission from the AMS.  I have no idea whether they would grant such permission, but it can't hurt to ask if you care.

However, it doesn't matter which licenses are listed as options, since you are by no means limited to these choices.  This list just consists of options the arXiv offers you with one click, but you can add a footnote to your paper specifying whichever license you like.  In particular, if you want to use a CC BY-NC-ND license, then you can do so despite the fact that the arXiv's list doesn't include it.  (You also have to choose one of their options, presumably the default, but that's not a problem.  If a paper is available under two licenses, then users can choose to use either license to justify their use of it.)


I submitted my paper in a hijacked journal I encountered a huge problem, I submited my paper in a faked journal. I sent them several times about the result of reviewing process. The email answer was:

  Dear Author
  Please clarify what exactly is your problem regarding your paper.
  We are at your service and ready to assist.

  Regards
  Ciencia e Tecnica Vitivinicola Journal Editorial

They told me also if I have submitted successfully I will get the review answer at most after 2 weeks, but I have the proof of a successful submitted paper. Now what should I do? I want to resubmit it in another journal, I have an examination in the summer and I need a published paper in my resume.

If I understand correctly from your link, the journal exists and is legitimate, but you submitted your manuscript to a fake website falsely claiming to be the journal's website.

In this case, the proper things to do in my view are:

E-mail the editor in chief. Do not simply resubmit with a cover letter explaining what happened: you don't know if and when they are going to read it. You want them to know immediately, and take action quickly.
if you have the opportunity, publish a preprint. You should consider your manuscript as leaked and no longer private, and it is very likely that it is being sold or submitted somewhere else by the hackers. If the journal normally wouldn't allow a preprint, discuss it with the editor and see if they are willing to make an exception.
If you paid something for the submission, go through the usual procedure for getting your money back: block the credit card payment and inquire with your bank, and contact the authorities to report theft.


Infrastructure Expectation of University Some grants limit spending of funds, for example, on buying a computer. Others are a little more open.

I have heard from colleagues that some funding agencies want to see that the university supports the researcher, so offering grant matching or access to facilities is a way to demonstrate this.

At least in the U.S., are there any written expectations from agencies of support for researchers (otherwise, are there standard practices)?

For example, is it expected that researchers buy chairs and desks through their grant?  I can see an argument for large equipment, then possibly computer components, etc., and at some point it moves to furniture, light bulbs, window shades.

It is common practice in the US for grants to be managed by the university itself, usually through a special "Grants Office". The grant is charged a fraction of the grant, sometimes quite substantial, for something called "overhead". This is about keeping the lights on and providing space and maybe general clerical assistance. But it is unlikely that you would see "light bulbs" as a listed expense unless the grant accounting is extremely detailed.

But, you can normally expect that if you are awarded a billion dollars (we wish) that you will only, really, have any control over a part of that. Your own such office can probably provide guidance on their expectations and what they provide for the "charge" against the grant.

And, the funding agencies have something to say about the amount of the charge and have their own expectations. See, for example, https://www.nsf.gov/bfa/dias/caar/indirect.jsp


Access to best PhD thesis? I hear that many universities (at least in my country) award best thesis award every in every department. I want to review such thesis in mathematics to get updated with current levels of research going on in different field of mathematics. Is there a way I can get access to it.

I suspect that learning about "current levels of research" in mathematics won't be well represented if you only look at the award winners. I think you will need a much broader sort of search to get an idea about what is really going on and what is generally accepted in current doctoral research.

And not all "current levels of research" is even represented in doctoral theses in the first place. Among the awards, you are more likely to see only theses in relatively "hot" areas of research, and miss the overall picture.

Note that research in really hard areas of mathematics isn't the best candidate for a dissertation problem as the probability of success in a limited time frame is much lower.

If you are asking the question because you are looking to choose your own topic, then you should also note that research in a "hot" area is a bit risky as others are also working there feverishly, and you have a higher probability of getting scooped.


Should I take a student loan now, if I intend to become a mathematician? I intend to pursue my degree in Mathematics and Physics at Ecole Polytechnique in France. The institution has offered me an interest free loan of 18,000 euros, which has to be repaid three years after I complete my bachelor's degree.

Since I am passionate about basic sciences, I hope to join a five year PhD programme after my degree and this usually comes with a decent scholarship/stipend. Approximate salary for PhD scholars in Europe is about 1300 euros, though this might vary from institution. Right now, I am not sure whether this salary and the one received during Post-Doc might be enough for me to repay these loans and therefore, I wish seek advice on this matter from the Academia Stack Exchange community which, I believe, will be in a better position to answer  this question since most members are pursuing a career in Academia.

Before answering whether you should take the loan you need to ask yourself some basic questions.

Would I go to the school if there was no loan available?
How would I pay for the school without the loan?
Are you good at budgeting your money?

If you would not go to the school without the loan, the answer to the big question depends on why the loan influence's your decision. The answer is almost always that debt is bad. If you would go to the school without the loan, have a means of paying for school and are good at budgeting, then take the loan and put it in a secure investment. At the end of the 3 years, cash out the investment, pay off the loan and pocket the interest. If you are bad at budgeting, you want to be careful about taking on debt and the answer is almost always debt is bad.


Do Mathematics Grad schools in the US expect a research paper from a Masters Student for admission into a PhD Program? I have recently joined a Masters program in Pure Mathematics in an Asian University.

My course does not have a research component, only coursework like - Field Theory, Algebraic Topology, Topology-I,II, Differential geometry, Module Theory, Fourier Analysis, Computational Differential Equations, Measure Theory , Complex Analysis, Algebraic Number Theory, Homology Theory etc.

Though, I would love to do research and publish a paper, however, some of the topics above would be new to me. So, I am not sure, if I would even get time to do research and do well in the coursework as well.

I plan to apply to the US for a PhD after my masters. So, would the school expect a research publication towards the end of my masters? Will not doing so affect my application for a PhD?

As mentioned in the comments, no.  In the US, there are typically 2 master's tracks one can take: a thesis option (with some coursework) or a non-thesis option (more coursework + exams).  Most students I know who do master's degrees in the US (many of whome go on to PhD programs) do the non-thesis option.  In fact, many undergrads do a non-thesis masters (or something like Cambridge's Part III) to help them get into good PhD programs.  So in the US, in contrast to some countries like Japan, it is not expected.


How to present a review paper at a conference? I sent an abstract of a review paper for oral presentation to a conference, and it was accepted. The presentation will be about the most important developments and contributions made in the last decade on my specific area of research. Now I am preparing the speech, but I am not sure how to give a 12-minutes speech about all the work that has been done (it's a lot). Can someone give some suggestions on how to do a nice presentation about a review paper?

In 12 minutes, the best you can do for your audience is highlight four to six broad observations or conclusions about the state of research. Here are some questions you might address with your observations:

Are the lines of research diverging and multiplying, or converging and consolidating?
Has it divided into "factions" or "schools" that define problems, methods, and solutions differently?  Or is all research operating under a single paradigm?
What's the influence and interaction with other fields and disciplines?
Where has research made progress addressing fundamental questions?  Where has research made no meaningful progress?
Where should researchers look for the most promising research directions and under-explored areas?

Don't try to make more than six observations in 12 minutes. By trying to say more, you are actually communicating less effectively.  Any one who wants the full story can read your paper.


How can I make my thesis supervisor be more responsive? This question is related to this one and this one. My Masters' thesis supervisor is incredibly superficial as in he doesn't respond to messages in a timely manner; I am not talking about understandable delays such as a few days or perhaps even a week but 15 weeks all in all.

What I have tried up to now is to have a professional discussion about my progress so far, feedback and future directions. All seemed well, I received feedback regularly (for two weeks) and then I had to redo the discussion. This wouldn't normally count as an issue but he is incredibly inconsistent in his feedback. For example, the suggestions I have received this week are inconsistent with what he requested the week before, but consistent with what was needed two weeks back. There is always this back and forth between what I should modify within my thesis (he doesn't keep any records of what he suggested and always ends up in giving advice that contradicts what he mentioned previously). I've resorted to taking pictures of the sheets (sometimes feedback contains figures and tables) and actually including them in my thesis draft prior to sending it to him. Another issue is related to his organization of these drafts. Somehow, he never seems to read the latest submitted version the thesis draft, doesn't sort files by date, etc.. As a solution, I am now prefixing the thesis name (the name of the .pdf file) with the date in which I submit it. Unfortunately, it didn't help (I'm still at square one).

Sometimes feedback is lackluster, he regularly takes a week to read two pages and give advice on them. The problem is that they are from a chapter that has long passed review (and was agreed upon by him that it is correct, both theoretically and grammatically).

Any help as to how I may actually complete this thesis? It's pretty infuriating because I've finished with moderately high grades and am now stuck because of this supervisor at the end.

First of all, any relationship is a two way street. You can not blame everything on your supervisor, you are the one who chose him/her; and you are the one that should have request regular meeting with him/her in the past. You have two options:

Managing the Situation: You can start managing the situation and start requesting regular meeting with him/her. He/she is not responsive on email? Well, you can see him/her on his/her weekly office hours. Doesn't have office hours? Well you have to pop in into his/her office and see if he/she is there and kindly ask him/her to respond to your email. You see what I'm trying to say here?
Find Another Supervisor: You did take classes, and you saw the lecturers. You can always find a supervisor that does have the "common sense" part and kindly ask/her to do the master thesis with him/her instead. There are always young and talented lecturers (and not yet popular) that do take such cases at least because to gain some experience and also help such students.

Note: At the end of the day, you need to write your own thesis, and you are the one that present/defend your thesis at the end. So also pay attention to your own work and try to finish it ASAP as any supervisor has some limitation to help you figure out your own path.


PhD in Quantum information science/ quantum physics without intensive formal education My undergraduate degree is in B.E electronics and electrical engineering. My undergraduate gpa is kind of pathetic because I was never interested in engineering but rather B.S physics. Unfortunately I was forced into engineering. Later I went on to pursue M.S in nanoscience with really good gpa. Except that it was not focused on quantum dynamics or quantum physics intensively. I had a course of nanophysics but it covered only fundamentals ( the textbook used was ' introduction to quantum mechanics ' by Griffiths ). That's about the maximum quantum physics I could get from my MS since there was no applied physics department in my institute, only nanobiophysics. I have 2 papers published as conference proceedings and a poster presentation but not related to quantum theory.  Nevertheless I did not give up hope. I am really trying hard to get a PhD position in Quantum physics/ condensed matter physics/ quantum information science. I am pretty much an autodidact I.e I self educated myself in advanced quantum physics by going through books like ' quantum computing and quantum information science ' by Nielson and Chuang. Also learning through open source lectures from professors like Dr. Sergey Frolov in Quantum Transport and Dr. Leonard susskind in Quantum theory/ quantum mechanics/ quantum entanglement.

I somehow don't want to apply within the US because I am more attracted to the European research philosophy or the research carried out in Asian countries like Singapore or even Australia. The problem I face is that professors think I don't have the sufficient formal education in the field which is true. Professors reject my requests just because of this. I consider myself to be extremely motivated and determined to pursue a PhD in Quantum physics with a goal to get into academia. My motivation is not monetory but more of intellectual pursuits and curiosity to learn. I have also offered professors that I will work during my PhD without a stipend. It is a dream I'm fighting for and am willing to go to any lengths to achieve my goals. Lately, I have been feeling scared and taking blows to my self esteem due to the rejections. Self doubt is creeping in where I have begun questioning my intellectual prowess. But I'm still trying hard to learn on my own and carrying out research as an independent scholar staying up for days and nights straight.

I feel lost and am not sure what do I do next. Hoping to get responses from veterans and achievers In the field.

If the professors you have spoken to (who presumably know you better than we do) believe you need more formal education in the field to be successful, you should pursue more formal education in the field (such as a masters.)

  I consider myself to be extremely motivated and determined to pursue a PhD in Quantum physics with a goal to get into academia.

If you really want to do quantum physics and you're told that you need some formal background to be taken seriously as a PhD applicant, then get that background.

Given that you are, in fact, passionate about doing quantum physics, you should presumably even enjoy that masters, especially if it is a research-based program and not just taught coursework.

  I somehow don't want to apply within the US because I am more attracted to the European research philosophy or the research carried out in Asian countries like Singapore or even Australia.

In many places in Europe, a master's degree in the field is a requirement for starting a PhD. In the US, however, many PhD programs do not expect prospective students to have a master's. So if you're really set on not getting another master's, you should strongly reconsider this attitude.

You wrote in a comment:

  Let's say I do go for masters. Spend a huge sum of money from my parents pocket or perhaps take a loan. So then I would have three degrees. What's the point. Is there any respect for people who have spent so much time, devoted their years to science. What respect do people have for intellectuals unless you are an Einstein or Feynman; what I mean is unless you are from some top notch university who's going to notice you.

I don't know what "respect" has to do with anything. There is no number of degrees that is sufficient to guarantee that people will "respect" you.

If you, personally, would find it extremely distressing to devote years - decades, even - to science and still not be respected as an Einstein or Feynman, then you should probably look for another career.
A significant portion of people who seek to become professional scientists do not succeed in this goal. Of the ones who do succeed, the vast majority never reach the level of influence of Einstein or Feynman. If the overwhelming probability that you will not become a "famous" scientist makes this path seem less appealing, you should probably find another.

("A man must love the thing very much if he not only practices it without any hope of fame or money, but even practices it without any hope of doing it well." --G.K. Chesterton)


Ask a professor to attend a conference I am an undergraduate student.
In about a month, there will be a conference a professor of mine suggested that I go to. The subject of the conference is part of his research field and I am interested in doing a MSc with him later on.
I was wondering whether there is a way of asking him to join me (or me to join him) while attending the conference without creating an awkward situation. What I mean to say is that I really think that being around him at the conference, sitting somewhere close to him will benefit myself in many ways (for example hear some comments during a speech, share thoughts etc.). Is there anyway I could ask him so we meet there and sit together or something? In no way, do I want him to take that in a wrong way.

I would really appreciate it if you could help me.
Thank you.

Probably the faculty person's plans are already made, months in advance, so your asking will have no impact on their actual plans. Possible, but not likely.

That is, if they'd not already planned to attend, they had reasons to not do so, or insufficient reasons to do so, and these reasons will probably not be changed by your own attendance... especially when the faculty person has made a recommendation.

Yes, as often, there is some risk of accidental misunderstanding about motivations, personal versus professional. The usual irony is that only the scrupulous, honorable people worry about such things... :)  But, in any case, I'd think that the on-the-mark question would be "are you yourself going to be there... for me to bounce questions off?"

As in many situations, asking the actual operational question, rather than any sort of circumlocutious persiflage, is ... good. In fact, the tone of many circumlocutions can accidentally/inappropriately suggest unintended intentions... of course.

This is yet-another one of those situations where worrying about "coded" communication is not productive. Be forthright.


Using a software screenshot in a paper When writing a paper which, as an aside, talks about the design of a user interface on a particular piece of software, can one insert a (correctly labeled and referenced) screenshot of the software to help readers understand - or does that cause copyright issues?

For example, I wouldn't use a photo unless I held the copyright, or a diagram - but I'm unsure of the legal position of a screenshot...

If you're displaying the screenshot as part of a paper on user interface, the use of the screenshot will almost certainly fall under "fair use."  Make sure you cite the software properly, and you should be all set.


Is it appropriate to use acronyms when citing a source in MLA? I'm writing an MLA research paper for a school assignment. When citing a source in-text, is it appropriate to use an acronym? For example, I'm citing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Would it be acceptable to cite the source as (CDC)? If I'm citing the source at multiple points in the paper, could I cite it with the full name the first time and with the acronym for any subsequent citations?

From the 7th edition of the MLA handbook.

  Abbreviations are used regularly in the list of works cited and in
  tables but rarely in the text of a research paper (except within
  parentheses). In choosing abbreviations, keep your audience in mind.
  While economy of space is important, clarity is more so. Spell out a
  term if the abbreviation may puzzle your readers.... The trend in
  abbreviation is to use neither periods after letters nor spaces between
  letters, especially for abbreviations made up of all capital letters.

The following points are from a MLA style guide on the doc scribe site.

If an acronym is commonly used as a word, it does not require explanation (IQ, LSD, FBI, ESP).
A term must be fully written the first time it is used, thereafter just the acronym is used.
If an acronym is not familiar use an expanded abbreviation; for MLA write Mod. Lang. Assn

Also from the same source (Page 8)

  The common practice in research writing to spell out the name or
  phrase to be abbreviated followed by the acronym in parentheses.
  Thereafter, just the acronym is used. For example, the Modern Language
  Association (MLA) publishes a journal. The reverse is also works—the
  MLA (Modern Language Association) publishes a journal.

So in your case Centers for Disease Control (CDC) or CDC (Centers for Disease Control) for your first citation and CDC afterwards should be fine.


What are the biggest changes when transitioning from graduate student to professor? I often hear the adage that graduate school never actually trains you to be a professor. I would be curious to know what were some of the biggest hurdles assistant professors had to overcome when they first obtained their jobs. Were these mainly interpersonal and managerial skills? If so how did you sharpen your skills in those areas?

Are professors as overworked as graduate students? It is a common fact that graduate students frequently suffer from mental illness and depression. Is this the same for professors? If professors are even busier than graduate students, how do they avoid burning out? How is the stress different?

Your question can be answered partly by the different time sharing:

link

Other bigger changes for a professor:

Much stronger independence and responsibility and expected to be successful, while balancing all of this correctly. With all its implications. Being an academic role model within and outside of your group, leading your team, but also leaving room for creativity and self-development to your group members. And this is sometimes still difficult for full professors, some apparently suffering under this pressure or trying to bypass it by shifting responsibility to co-workers, wrong managing of division of labour, scientific misconduct... without this correct balancing probably much less questions would be asked on academia.se?!

Though, in my opinion the most important and inobvious and maybe most argued change is that you are expected to give back to the society and public. It's not like you have won in the job lottery and can lean back more like for industry or civil servants positions and stick to your 40 hour contract. There is a reason why most professors work many more hours a week, it's a lifelong commitment to their job and its duties and privileges. And therefore it is a important life decision one should make before starting to pursue an academic career ending within professorhip.

On the other side, coming up, defining and realizing good/competitive research ideas over decades can be mentally exhausting, also a sabbatical nowadays has become an off-academia phenomenon and in academia typically meant having really time for finding and outlining new research ideas and questions apart from the other time-consuming task above in the graphic.

Soft skills are necessary and helpful like in every other job, but not sufficient. Many universities offer such courses specially designed for students and postdocs and getting such certificates is helpful (project management, academic english,...)

Professors are typically not taught to teach, they learn this themselves and in my opinion every student has experienced this result in a better or worse way. But evaluation of teaching of a applicant for proffesorship is often a crucial criterion to become full professor. Therefore, a proficient language level (if no native speaker) is often necessary and good feedback/evaluations by the students, if the professor is not outstanding in acquired funding and publication track.

This article on a "A year in the life of a new professor" on jumping from lab to classroom is also a good read to get a up to date impression of young professors

Disclaimer: I'm no professor, postdoc on the road maybe to become one...


How to Establish a Community-Scope Means of Sharing Code/Knowledge Across Labs? In my field there has been a growing interest in establishing a means of sharing resources (i.e. software and technical knowledge) across labs. Currently, these resources are shared ad hoc, and as such it can be difficult for researchers, particularly students and junior faculty, to find out how to do particular things or avoid reinventing the wheel.  I'm working with a few other people in my field to attempt to establish a centralized, public (within the field) means for sharing these resources across the research community, but have no prior experience setting up anything like this.  We're considering setting up a Google Group for facilitating discussion and announcements, but I am concerned we may have difficulty engaging and growing the user base to the point where the group can sustain itself.  Therefore, my questions are:

Are there community wide resource sharing methods in other fields that might serve as an example for us? How were they established?
What are the critical factors that determine the success or failure of this sort of community level collaboration?  How do successful collaborations handle these factors?

Perhaps the closest one I ever came to know is the PROMISE Repository. It is dedicated to store Software Engineering research artifacts. You can check about their history and some management policies on their "about" page.

I feel that this repository has been quite useful to the Software Engineering research community or, at least, it has been cited.


Master's thesis - lack of evidence, possibly poor topic choice I'm working on a social science master's thesis based on a discourse analysis of documents. I finished a proposal a few months ago, which my committee approved. But as I continue to scan my sources, I am getting worried that there isn't as much significant evidence available as I had thought when I started doing research. I've done everything I can to find new leads but there is very little academic work written about the topic. I am starting to believe that the topic is a dud, and that maybe there's little written about because it just isn't that interesting...

Aside from meeting with my supervisor, which I am doing soon, has anyone else had to deal with a similar situation, and how did you deal with it? I want to finish within eight months, nine max, so I do not think I would be able to change topics...

Don't panic. It's quite normal for the direction of the research to shift a bit after the initial proposal. It's common to find out that for one reason or another it's not feasible to do exactly what was proposed. After all, if you knew exactly how to do it in a way that's guaranteed to work, then it wouldn't be research!

Unless your funding is tied to a specific project, you can probably broaden the scope or make other adjustments. I'm sure your advisors will have some specific suggestions for you, but in the meantime, think about what you could do with the types of materials that you have been able to find.


May a man attend a workshop entitled “Young women in [domain]”? The Max Planck Institute for Mathematics at the University of Bonn hosts workshops such as 'Young Women in Harmonic Analysis', 'Young Women in Geometry' and 'Young Women in Mathematical Physics' biannually, I think.

I am very interested in attending such a workshop as they are seldom found within the topics I am interested in. However, the title of the workshop begins with "Young Women". Moreover, the description on their page states that "the workshop provides a platform for female graduate students and postdocs in mathematical physics..."

Now, before you lambast me for even considering it, note that they also write "everybody is welcome to attend the workshop. We encourage all participants - male and female".

My worry is that male participants are technically permitted so that they do not break any discrimination laws and that if I were to attend such a workshop, I may find myself in the awkward situation of being the only male there facing the scowling looks of my female contemporaries.

Thus, my question is: can I apply (from a common sense, ethical, moral, situational point of view...because technically, I obviously can)?

Yes, you should attend if you want to.

From their site, the point of the workshops is giving women a "platform...to present their research".

In other words, the point is that the speakers are women, not that everyone present is female.  I would expect there to be plenty of men in the audience (And if the point is to empower women, surely they are more empowered when they can share their work with everyone, not just other women).


How can a graduate school applicant improve his application for next year's season? It seems I'm about to have a bad application season, as all schools I'm waiting to hear from have given out offers of admissions to other applicants. I'm trying to come up with a viable plan to turn my application into a successful one for next year's season.

Here are some important things to note:

I come from an unknown school, but my reference writers earned their Ph.Ds from well-known schools in the U.S. (top 25 via NRC ranking). They all encouraged me to apply to top 30 programs in the US.
I am an international applicant.
I am interested in pure mathematics.

Some fall-back plans I have is to actually get involved in research during the summer and fall, and I'm hoping I can get a serious publication out of doing this.

So for the people who have served on admissions committees in the past, what else can I do? Should I not bother to apply to the same programs I applied to this year?

Publish.  I have seen the following pattern more than once.  (1) Applicant X applies to my department's PhD program and is rejected, not for any major flaws, but just for not standing out from the crowd.  (2) X joins a MS program at a different university.  (3) As a master's student, X publishes one paper and has two more in submission (or at least preparation).  (4) X reapplies to my department's PhD program, with a detailed technical discussion of his results in his statement of purpose and stellar letters from his new department.  (5) X is admitted in the first round, with a fellowship.

If you haven't done so already, show your complete application to the people who wrote your rec letters, and ask for their brutally honest feedback, especially on your statement.  Often students who write statements without some faculty feedback write them to the wrong audience. ("I'm smart; hire me." makes a bad statement of purpose.   "Here is the mathematics I've worked on and what I'm interested in looking at next." is much better.)

It's a long shot, but if your recommenders know faculty at the schools you applied to, you might be able to get some second-hand feedback through them.  Maybe.


Interrogated for cheating based on discrimination a potential lawsuit? I have been taking a couple online classes. I also had a baby a week before the classes started. It has been an incredibly stressful 10 weeks. Anyway, I had a project I had to complete for a business class. It was a business plan. I have extensive experience in the restaurant industry and decided to go to college later on so I did a restaurant plan for my business project. The project was so good and detailed, that I got called to a meeting for interrogation on cheating, to see if I had anyone do the project for me, etc. With the way the meeting went, it really seemed as if the professor and the directer were discriminating against me for having a baby and thus not having the ability to complete such a detailed project. What kind of steps can I take to express my feelings of being stereotyped or discriminated against?

As in the comments, there is important ambiguity in your question.
Granting your account of the situation, you were certainly treated prejudicially and unfairly. Even if you'd not been a recent-mom, doing a wonderful project does often trigger suspicion in any case, and, yes, all the worse if the people in charge have negative expectations of recent moms, or women in general, or...
As in the comments: what do you want out of this situation? Did the people in that interview concede that you did not cheat? And at that point did they apologize? Is this on-going?
For example, in my own experience, never in a million years will people in power who behave badly acknowledge this. Endless rationalizations about how it's either no one's fault, or society's fault, or maybe your own fault.
Still, yes, I agree, anger is justified. Such situations are grotesque, and have a big impact on people.
And, still, what would be the goal of a lawsuit? An apology? Monetary compensation? (The latter would probably cost more in lawyer fees than what you'd get...)
Again, as in the comments, think what you want out of this situation, apart from being justifiably angry with idiots. Taking idiots to court is an expensive and unrewarding hobby... even if sometimes historically necessary.


Should I ask a reference letter from someone working where I am applying to use it for another application? I am applying to a PhD program. I worked in the past with researcher A from research team T who was my bachelor thesis supervisor. Now, I am applying to a PhD progam within the research team T and also to another universities.

Researcher A would be a perfect candidate to ask for a reference letter, since my internship under his supervision went really well. However, I am wondering whether or not it would be appropriate to ask him, since I would use it to apply to other universities (he would know that of course).

Details:

I already applied at team T and am waiting for news.
A is not the team director but the team is quite small and A knows I applied there.
A is not the one who would supervise the PhD I applied to.

I am afraid that asking him for a reference letter could make him think that I am not that much interested in that lab L and that this could have a negative impact on my application at this lab.

I understand your hesitation and there may be situations in which your concerns are spot on. That said, people in the position of researcher A exist to support and further the successful outcomes of their students. Outside specific research contributions, this is their legacy. One of the most rewarding aspects of leadership is helping people succeed.

Based on your question, I recommend immediately asking researcher A for a recommendation letter. Discuss any concerns with them directly and save yourself the worrying. You can always draft the letter for them and let them make revisions as they see fit.

Good luck!


What is meant by “research visit”? I am a Ph.D. student of computer science and just have started working on a research problem. Some fellow Ph.D. students have mentioned the term research visit. For a professor, these things make sense, but as a Ph.D. student I am not getting what it means. There are some precise questions related to this below:

What does research visit mean?
What is the significance of it in Ph.D.?
What is the typical duration of a research visit?

You can be referring to two things, a visit to another institution (usually to give an invited talk) or you could mean a visiting student/researcher role:

Someone who visits a different institution for some prolonged period of time, usually to do research. You may even be able to register for classes.
It gives you the opportunity to work onsite with a different research group. You can think of it like an internship. Working onsite has a lot of benefits over working with a group remotely, such as direct access to lab equipment, data, participants, and your collaborators.
It can vary greatly, but I've seen it range from a summer to an entire year.

UC Berkeley has a page describing some benefits of visiting student researchers.


Should a young professor avoid using dating apps? I am a recent PhD graduate in mathematics, and I will be starting a tenure-track position this fall at a small liberal arts college in a northern US city.

My graduate degree was completed at a large university in a college town, and I made occasional use of dating apps during my time there.  They were only mildly useful at best, but they facilitated interaction with people outside my normal social circle, which I enjoyed.

My instinct tells me that I should avoid such apps in my new position, but I'd like to seek outside opinions.  I already have some of my own ideas, but what are some potential pitfalls of maintaining dating app profiles?  Should I simply refrain from using them?  Would anyone in my department or administration have a problem with me using them if they knew?

Since it might matter, I am a 27-year-old male, and my new city is home to about 100,000 people.

Note: I am well-aware that dating students at my university is a bad idea.  (For what it's worth, I am not interested in meeting people more than three or four years younger than me anyway.)  I'm looking for advice that goes beyond some of the more obvious points.

Professors both young and old are known to use dating apps. So do students, doctors, engineers, lawyers, dental hygienists, and any other kind of person. In other words, there is nothing about being a professor that disqualifies one from using dating apps (or that makes one a special kind of human being in any other way, contrary to what seems to be the popular belief on this site at least).

The only pitfall I can think of is mild embarrassment, but that's true for everyone using these apps whether they are a professor or not. My advice is, go out there and have fun, worry about yourself and don't care too much what other people think. And if you want to date students too, personally I don't see a problem either (especially considering your age) as long as they are not your students and you otherwise behave ethically and responsibly.

(Edit: in certain U.S. institutions there is a general prohibition on faculty dating undergraduates - thanks to @EllenSpertus for the reference in the comments. Given your stated age preference this is not very relevant to your question since students in that age range would typically be graduate students, but it's worth at least checking the policy at your institution to make sure you are aware of the rules.)


What types of administrative jobs can a faculty member get? I am a professor of physics and just moved to the UK with my wife, who is British. I anticipate that it will take a year or so to find a faculty position matching my field of expertise. To avoid being idle during this period, I would like to apply for any possible job to be in academia.

As I checked, many administrative jobs are available in the UK universities, and the process seems quick (the interviews are normally scheduled for 2 weeks after the deadline).

Since I have worked as a department head for years with many industry collaborations, I thought I might have a chance at administrative jobs like director of small units such as enterprise, partnership, academic excellence, etc.

I understand that people with the same line of experience are rationally preferred, but I wonder if there are specific administrative jobs for which faculty experience is an advantage and the committee will be happy to consider such applications.

I feel this is a question that's almost better suited for The Workplace. My fear in your case would be that you, having been a department head previously, are seen as vastly overqualified for almost every non-leadership administrative position (and leadership positions tend to not be filled as quickly as you mention). It may appear surprising to meritocracy-oriented academics, but people are generally not prone to hire overqualified staff - motivation and job satisfaction can become issues, and they are expected to not stay on long (as you yourself also don't intend to do).

That being said, I can't help but wonder whether you have any contacts in the UK that you can activate. Maybe there is some temporary administrative role that would suit your skill set, or a temporary teaching position in courses related to your experience. To me, that seems like a more promising shot than blindly applying to regular administrative posts, and hoping that the hiring team sees your very unconventional background as a positive.

As a sidenote, I also wonder why you are confident that you will find a faculty position in a year unless you already have one lined up. As I understand it, senior-level hires in the UK are a pretty rare and long-running processes, and hoping for one within a year, which you then also need to win, seems to be putting a lot of eggs into a very specific basket. If you already have one lined up, talk to the people there about some temporary contract in the meantime.


Is it acceptable to ask a professor who is not your supervisor to provide comments on your thesis draft? I want my thesis to be the best it possibly can be. My supervisor is away for one month right before my thesis submission. Is it inappropriate or poor etiquette to ask another professor in the field who has shown interest in the topic to read the paper and offer any suggestions? This other professor teaches at a different institution, and will not be part of the panel or defence process.

If you have an existing relationship with this professor, you could ask, but be prepared to hear "sorry, I don't have time".

If this professor is a stranger to you, this is probably an unreasonable request.