Phd application procedure in European universities, specifically in Scandinavia and the Netherlands For Phd application in Europe, we often directly apply to the interested group, a little bit like application to a job. I would like to know in general, will they send you a email if they reject you? or only the successful candidate will receive email? (Just like job application) How long does it take for their consideration? I would like to hear some of the experience or general cases because I cannot find enough information on this. (No reply from HR etc)

I have some issues with the formulation of this question; first of there is a contradiction between the question title and the first sentence. The OP first asks for the application procedure in the question title, then goes on to describe it in the first sentence as if to answer his/her own question...
Then there is the issue of seeing Europe as one big consistent body. Anyone who has dealt with academic bureaucracy in Europe would likely laugh at the notion. I would personally give the ECTS system as a beautiful example of how little collaboration and consistency there is in higher education system in Europe.

According to the Swedish "Law of Higher Education" (Högskoleförordningen) Ch. 12 par 2 employment on a PhD position can not be appealed by other applicants. Text in "[]" is a attempt to translate the Swedish text.

12 kap. Överklagande [Appeal]
...
2 § Till Överklagandenämnden för högskolan får följande beslut av en högskola överklagas: [The following decisions made at a University/College may be appealed to the appeals board]

beslut om anställning vid en högskola, med undantag av anställning som doktorand, [Decisions on employment ata university/college, with the exception of PhD positions]

Since this is the law that dictates higher education in Sweden it matters not whether the University(/College) is state or private.

I have a couple of additions and clarifications:

there are two schools that are not state-owned, Chalmers University and Jönköping Business School. These schools have their own regulations which I suspect is very similar to all the other universities but slight differences might exist.

the statement that you apply directly to research groups (i.e. group leaders) is simply not true. It is praxis (and actually good manners) to get in contact with the group leader prior to application but it is in no way compulsory, neither does it have any formal meaning.

Like all other state-owned organisations, the universities in Sweden have to have a transparent recruitment process that is open for general public. Universities have HR departments and centralised recruitment applications (typically on the university homepage) where positions (for instance PhD or post-doc positions) are posted.

At Lund University (and I am pretty confident this applies to other major universities in Sweden) applications are then collected and directed to the person responsible for recruitment of that particular position in question (often the group leader) who then does an assessment of the applicants based on the job description and qualifications. If necessary one or more steps of filtering is done, and top N candidates are typically invited to some sort of interview (in person or via skype).

Once a single candidate is chosen out of all applicants the group leader then needs to write a formal letter where the decision is motivated; i.e. why was the chosen applicant better than the other ones.

The applicants are then informed whether they are accepted or not.

I cannot swear for all Danish universities, but I know that DTU has a similar procedure to the one described possibly differing in, if anything, being even more formal and controlled.


Is it worth trying to get into a decent PhD programme with subpar BSc grades? (UK) I am currently a final-year student on a BSc Mathematics programme in the UK. For the first two years of my degree I've mostly adopted a '2:1 will do' approach and didn't focus on my studies all too much, sometimes even cramming in an entire course the night before the exam. As a result, my grade distribution is extremely uneven: for example, last semester, my lowest grade was 40% and the highest was 89%. I'm not sure about other degrees, but from my experience people tend to score fairly consistently in maths. Overall, I currently have a 60% average.

Last semester, however, I took an introductory logic class and was really intrigued by the subject. The 89% referred to earlier was for that logic course, which was otherwise considered fairly demanding. It may sound somewhat cliche, but I believe I've found my academic 'passion', however niche it may be. Over the summer I've worked my way through a couple of mathematical logic books, and am currently in the process of writing my bachelors thesis which is on a fairly advanced topic in model theory. With that my attendance has improved and I've found other maths classes more enjoyable, too. I'm rambling here, but the point is that my interest in this particular area is pretty serious.

Now, to my question: with this in mind, I've started thinking of possibly going on to do a PhD in the future. Problem is, I'm afraid the first two years of my Bachelors will drag me down to the point of not being able to gain acceptance into a decent programme. I will most likely end up getting a First Class degree in the end, and the university I go to is in the Top-100 across all major rankings, but then again I know people who have close to a 95% average. Would you say it's still worth trying, or should I just take the safe route and re-orientate my studies towards something more practical?

Ask your university, though undergraduate grades probably won’t matter because you’ll probably need to complete a Master’s Degree first.
Generally, there are two different methods for PhDs to be structured- ones that take 5-6 years to complete and include a coursework component and can be entered directly after finishing a Bachelor Degree, and ones that don’t include a coursework component, take 3-4 years to complete, and require you to have completed a Master’s Degree first.
The latter structure is more common in Europe, though I admit I’m not completely familiar with the system used in the UK; I do know that it is used in some Commonwealth countries like Australia, though. As a result, when applying for this sort of PhD, it’s likely that the admissions office will put a lot more weight on the results you got from your Master’ Degree than the ones from your Bachelor’s.


Is it appropriate or acceptable to thank a professor for their dissenting public opinion? This is a question mainly in case I haven't foreseen any potential repercussions.
The pandemic is a contentious issue, and a particular academic in my country has been outspoken with the same view as me. I'm currently a PhD student, and would just like to send an e-mail in support to said academic, especially considering that I imagine they would be the victim of many negative and/or abusive communications, again given the contentious nature of the topic.
Their field is also an application of mine, so I would be interested in discussing some of their research in that vein.

Yes.  Telling someone you appreciate their taking a public stand you agree with, thanking them for it, is always appropriate and appreciated, especially when you suspect they've taken some heat for doing so.


What are the opportunities to do research under good professors/organisations? I am an electronics and communication engineering final year student. I have a 6.5/10 GPA. I do not have an exceptional academic record, or any finished research papers in my name to boast about. But I always wanted to be a researcher and problem-solver. I love computers and electronics.

This is why I took up engineering. But being taught lots of theory without being provided with practical implications for the same killed my interest. I tried to find out things myself, but after the first year, workload caught up.

But now I am doing my final year project and it has rekindled my interest in applying what I learn. I feel stupid for not having done anything productive for the past 3 years, but I want to change that. I want to learn about embedded systems and HPC, from a practical point of view.

I wish to pursue M.S, but I am afraid I do not have enough understanding of the subject, or grades to get into a good university.

Is there any way I can work as an intern/research assistant under a good professor/organisation with my average academic grades, so that I can gain experience and learn the subject more thoroughly?

This is a common scenario for many students. The answer really depends on your flexibility and any networking you have done. If you are willing to live in any country and gain the appropriate visas and work for nothing, then you will have more opportunities than if you restrict yourself to a single university and require to be paid competitively. Ideally you will have some professors who can help you find a lab that might be interested in your services. Otherwise you will need to do a lot of work to find someone who is willing to look at your CV.

Another option is to simply set your sights on a lower ranked MS program and do well in that.


How to cite a github repository that I used for data collection (research paper) I am working on a research paper where I work with large amounts of data. The data was collected using a python code that I found on someone's Github repository. I was wondering how I would go about citing the repository in an apa style.

First of all: Contact the creator of the software and ask if he or she has some citable publication.
If not or in addition fork the repo. Use zenodo to get a DOI for a version of the forked repository (check the license of the original repository if this is allowed).
The APA-style reference would then look like:

Name (Date). Title [Type]. doi:10.5281/zenodo.XXXX

Name: owner of the original repo, if no real name known then github uid
Date: date of last commit to the original repo before your fork
Title: title of repo (heading of README.md)
Type: suggestion: "electronic resource: python source code"

If you take it serious: You needed to archive and reference exactly that version of the repo that you used for processing your data (later versions could lead to different results due to (fixed) bugs). If you have a snapshot of the software that you actually used it would be better to archive that through zenodo.
Would it not be better to archive and to get a doi for your data set instead of the toolset? AFAIK zenodo provides 50GB space per doi for datasets. I would try to contact the zenodo people if you exceed that.
To make it maximum reproducible you could create a new combined repo with your primary data, tool set, and secondary data. If there is just one "parent" repo (the python code as the basis of your tool set) you should fork that and add your data on top of it.


About opportunities for international student in China? Are international PhD students offered Teaching Assistant (TA) positions during their research programme in China?

tl;dr: It strongly depends on the relative perceived status of where you are coming from vs. where you're working at. If you're from a top-300 university (especially from the US) taking your PhD at a mid-tier Chinese university, you're likely to get offers. If you're from a low-status country/department in a large institution, expect empty promises.

I have accepted a postdoctoral contract in a mid-tier Chinese university, which was not a pleasant experience. One of the main conditions by which I accepted their postdoc offer was precisely a declared prospect of ultimately hired getting as a TA. Eventually I've learnt from other postdoc colleagues that they were all told the same story, but only the first foreign PhD that ever came from abroad got hired. Others worked hard towards pleasing local staff until they would burn out and leave. First they're told they can get a TA offer if they publish many papers, then if they publish higher impact, and after achieving that, if they can earn a top competitive grant. I've a friend who just went through all steps involving >20 papers and 2 big grants, and all he got out of it was a 6-month agreement to teach a single topic in exchange for a low pay.

We are all postdocs coming from 3rd world countries. I eventually met an English professor who got hired straight away from abroad. I've also heard from European and American colleagues from other institutions in China who had no trouble getting local contracts. I have nonetheless met dozens of Pakistani, Middle-Eastern, Indian fellows who were jumping from one institution to other without getting ever getting anything solid.

Chinese culture is strongly conscious over status. Abiding to very local standards. My general advice is, if you're not a US-passport holder neither coming from some US university, if you're not caucasian fully-fluent speaker of English, if you haven't published in top-prestige journals, or at least not from some top-300 [national rank] university or 1st-world citizen, don't nurture high hopes of being offered a staff position in China. And beware of empty promises.


Why does arXiv not have an impact factor? Are there any "un-offocial" estimates of arXiv's impact factor? I am interested to know where arXiv stands against the journals. Not being peer-reviewed, and being so huge, certainly could contribute to arXiv having a very low impact factor, but since ultra-high-quality work also gets published there, it might still have a higher impact factor than some journals that only contain rather poor quality work that couldn't get published anywhere else.

Of course the "whole of arXiv" could have a different impact factor than specific arXiv channels, such as "astro-ph" or "quant-ph".

arXiv does not have an impact factor because it is not indexed by Clarivate Analytics (for good reason, since not everything on arXiv is sensible).

I'm not aware of any unofficial estimates of arXiv's impact factor, but presumably you can get one by adding up all the citations that are generated in the field (multiply the impact factor of all journals by the number of articles if you have to) and dividing by the number of articles on arXiv.


Citing a Video Game in Harvard Format Format I have to write an Extended Essay as part of my IB diploma, and I'm writing mine on the episodic adventure game of Life is Strange as an English EE. One of the issues I've encountered during the writing process was citing the game correctly.

After consulting online sources, these are the two citations I ended up with for two versions/episodes of the same video game (it has 5 episodes in total):

Square Enix 2015, Life Is Strange: Chrysalis, video game, PlayStation 4, Square Enix.

Square Enix 2015, Life Is Strange: Out of Time, video game, PlayStation 4, Square Enix.

Are these correct? I looked at how the cited it in Wikipedia, and looks quite different:

Dontnod Entertainment (30 January 2015). Life Is Strange. Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360. Square Enix. Level/area: Chrysalis.

Dontnod Entertainment (24 March 2015). Life Is Strange. Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360. Square Enix. Level/area: Out of Time.

The guideline I followed, however, was the one I found from the Harvard citation site, which states that I should include: Publisher year of publication, Title of game, video game, Console type, Publisher or Distributor in Australia if different to publisher, Place of publication if known. Any special credits and other information that might be useful can be noted after the citation.

I still have several issues that I can't find the answer to from the site though.

Firstly, should I include the developers in the citation? Dontnod entertainment was the developer of the game, but I'm not sure if it fits within the category of "special credits or other useful information".

Second, how do I go about making an in-text citation for a specific chapter/part of the game? Would it be acceptable to have something like (Square Enix 2015, ch. 4)?

Third, if the year of publication is the same for all episodes, how do I make their in-text citation so that a person could differentiate between the two? For example, if I wanted to make an in-text citation for the two games cited above, they would both be (Square Enix 2015) would it not? What should I do so that a person would know that I'm citing two separate episodes? My guess is that I should add a letter after the year i.e. (Square Enix 2015a) similar to how a letter should be added when someone is citing two different books from the same author and with the same publication year, but I'm still uncertain.

And... that's about it. Hopefully. But yeah, I would really appreciation it if someone miraculously has some of the answers to the questions, because the librarian at my school isn't experienced with referencing a video game, and I really want to have all my citations done correctly : I.

Thank you for your attention!

First, figure out what citation style you're supposed to be using in your Extended Essay, or if there is no particular recommendation, select one of the major ones and be consistent with it. That is, if you decide to use the Harvard style, use Harvard throughout your WHOLE essay and with every source you cite. Wikipedia doesn't have a house citation style, so what you're seeing there is going to vary from article to article.

You're spot-on with your research for the bibliography entry in Harvard style. You're also close with the in-line citation - just note that Harvard style doesn't use "chapters" there. Your reader doesn't need that information to locate the resource, so it isn't included. In your case, the in-line citation would simply be (Square Enix 2015a) or (Square Enix 2016b) if you end up citing 2 Square Enix titles. See here for another example.

If your teacher recommends that you use a different citation style, here are a few resources to get you started with citing video games:

MLA
APA
Chicago

Final thought: don't worry too much about the particulars of the citation for something as unconventional as a video game. If the answer isn't immediately apparent to you with a simple Google search, it won't be to your outside grader either. They're likely no more experienced in academic referencing than your school librarian. And no matter how much time you put into your essay, they're still only paid to spend the absolute minimum time possible reviewing it... The last thing they're going to notice is a misplaced comma in your bibliography.

So focus your energy on the good stuff - the content - and just keep the rest consistent.


How do "scientific couples" (from different fields) find positions? When two people in a couple are both in science, but specialised in different fields, how can they both find relevant positions but still be geographically reasonably proximate?

Compromise and change fields? Work part-time from a distance if employers' permit it (do they usually?)? Travel both quite far each day? One person leaves science?

Are there other ways to resolve this? Any personal experiences around here?

Many universities (like the one where my wife and I work) have dual-career hiring programs explicitly to address this issue.  It's definitely worth asking—carefully—whether the universities you are considering have such a program.

Here's how our system works.  Suppose Department X offers a faculty position to Partner A, and later department Y offers a faculty position to Partner B.  Then Partner B's salary is paid 1/3 by department Y, 1/3 by department X, and 1/3 from a general campus fund.*  (Note that X and Y may be the same department.)

So Department Y has a significant financial incentive to hire Partner B.  On the other hand, Department X must be willing to pay extra for Partner A; in practice, however, once an faculty offer to A is actually on the table, most department chairs find it hard to refuse to help hire B.

This is why you have to be careful how and when you ask.  It's illegal in the US to discriminate against a job candidate because they're married—we're not even allowed to ask—but it is completely legal to hire a cheaper candidate over a more expensive one.  If department X already knows that you have a two-body problem, they also know that hiring you will be more expensive.  The safest strategy is not to mention that your partner needs a position (or even that your partner is another academic) until an offer is on the table.

*When I originally posted this answer in 2012, this financial arrangement was de-facto permanent, but my university has recently refined its policies.  As of June 2018, the joint funding arrangement is permanent (“recurring”) if Partner B has a tenure-track faculty position, and limited to three years otherwise.


Does putting poor performing students on academic probation improve student performance? As we enter a new school year, I'm wondering if the is any evidence to support or contradict the idea that putting a poor-performing students on academic probation improves their performance. Does anyone know of any such evidence?

I can imagine that schools are naturally concerned about eliminating students whose tuition keeps the doors open and my school does not have any formal rules on academic probation. I'm thinking of proposing some, but only if there is evidence that it will actually improve performance. If it demotivates students (for example creating a stigma which is a very serious issue here in Asia) and bounces students who might otherwise just pass then it does not seem so appealing.

This is only a part answer

University of California Berkeley applies a probation when the cumulative GPA goes below 2.0 and are within grounds for dismissal.  But, they give a semester and advise the student to:

  The College of Letters and Science encourages students who have been placed on term probation to seek advising at the Office of Undergraduate Advising for help with schedule planning and to discuss any issues that may have caused poor results in the first place. Although this web site may be helpful to you, it is primarily designed to assist probationary students whose cumulative grade point average has fallen below a 2.0.

An example from Australia, Brisbane's Griffith University, it seems that a similar constraint may be applied:

  The minimum standard for academic performance is a Grade Point
  Average (GPA) of at least 3.0 for undergraduate students and at least
  3.5 for postgraduate students. Students who meet this GPA standard
  are said to be in ‘good academic standing’. If a student’s GPA is below
  this level their performance is ‘unsatisfactory’.
  The first time a student’s performance is below the required
  standard, the student is placed on probation for the next semester.
  The second time a student’s performance is below the required
  standard, the student will normally be excluded.

In the Princeton article "The Effects of Academic Probation on College Success: Lending Students a Hand or Kicking Them While They Are Down?" (Fletcher and Tokmouline, 2010), found that often there is an improvement, but then their

  findings also suggest that this short term boost in performance fades out over time and students who are on academic probation following their first semesters of college do not have higher rates of persistence or graduation.

They also found that an overall model (indeed a definitive answer) is hard to come by due to inconsistency of heterogeneous effects, particularly

  pre-determined student characteristics as well as high school of origin.


Building a workshop website I am organizing a one day workshop as a part of a major conference in my field.
I would like to have a website to

introductory text (static html)
announce things (some content management)
keep everybody up to date (mailing list)
maintain a pre-workshop and post-workshop online discussion forum

Is there a web service that would implement these things easily?

Also, I don't want the visitors to register accounts. Perhaps a mailing list accessible via web would be sufficient, since I do not expect anybody to regularly visit just to check the forum (except for myself). Is there a mailing list/forum service suitable for such purpose?

Free would be best. I am capable of building such website myself, but I do not want to host it nor spend too much time setting it up. In the past, I used wordpress.com, google sites, google groups and such...

Some large institutions maintain platforms for such tasks: some of them are restricted to their members, others have a more liberal policy. For example, the French CNRS (largest national research institute) has developed SciencesConf.org. It fulfills your requirements, except for the forum (which, as far as I can tell, is rather unusual for conferences to have).


What's arxiv “endorsement” policy? arxiv has an endorsement system, where

  during the submission process, we may require authors who are submitting papers to an archive or subject class for the first time to get an endorsement from another arXiv author

However, I submitted a paper to arxiv for the first time, and I was not asked for an endorsement. The relevant help page says:

  During the initial deployment of the system, we may also give automatic endorsements to submitters from known academic institutions.

So this may be what happened to me (I have a verified email address from an academic institution), but this seems weird, because it says “during the initial deployment of the system”, and this is dated 2004.

So: does someone know what is the current endorsement policy for arxiv?

I believe the help page describes the current endorsement policy.  You may also have fallen into the category described by "We may give some people automatic endorsements based on topic, previous submissions, and academic affiliation."

As I understand it, most people are in that category and never see the endorsement system in action.  In practice, it seems to get applied to cranks and to people who look like they might possibly be cranks (e.g., people with no academic affiliation, or who are writing on controversial topics).


Is making non-culture-related exam questions culture-specific ever a good idea? So far I maintain the position that an exam question for a subject that is not related to culture should not be culture-specific. By that I mean a question should not contain any "jargon" only known mostly to the Americans. But I am not sure if it is just I am too cautious about such a topic that may possibly touch some discrimination issues.

Assuming that the class is not on American culture, you are essentially asking if it is ever a good idea to evaluate students on the basis of knowledge that was not taught in class and that they could not have any reasonable expectation of needing to know.

(Example: I wouldn't expect to need to know how american football scoring works when I went to sit an electronic engineering exam. At minimum, for a question that uses the setting of a score counting machine, someone who's watched football games in the past would need much less time to understand the prerequisites, and likely notice discrepancies in the machine's behaviour more easily. For fields like sociology, a cultural context might be unavoidable. In that case, the class should also contain this cultural context, so students can know what to expect.)

If your goal is to evaluate how well students have learned the class materials, then no. It is never a good idea.

If your goal is to measure how well-integrated they are into american culture, maybe? I'm not sure what kind of exam that would be, though.


Application deadlines for math phd program on a rolling basis I am interested in math phd programs for Algebraic Topology.  Most of the programs that I am interested in have deadlines in December and January.  I was under the impression that one generally submitted the application earlier, and early enough that people who take the subject in October don't get to see their scores before they are sent to colleges.

Is this because the deadlines are on a rolling basis?

In the U.S., mathematics Ph.D. programs usually do not have rolling admissions, and I do not think any of the top programs do.  Some people do submit applications at the last minute, but many people submit earlier because they have completed their application materials well in advance.  For example, if you'd like to get feedback on your application from other people, or if you are planning to provide it to letter writers in advance, then you shouldn't wait until the deadline.  Another reason to complete everything early is if you need similar materials for fellowship applications (e.g., the NSF deadline is in October), or if you want to get it out of the way before you become really busy at the end of the semester.

  I was under the impression that one generally submitted the application earlier, and early enough that people who take the subject in October don't get to see their scores before they are sent to colleges.

I don't have any statistics, but my impression is that most people who take the October GRE haven't taken it before.  (They waited until their last year, but missed the summer deadline for the September test.)  In that case, these are their only scores, so there's no benefit to waiting to see how they did.  Even if they score lower than expected, that alone is not a compelling reason to change where they apply.


Is it ok to get independent feedback before handing in thesis? I have a thesis to hand in at my university.

Am I allowed to ask a grad student who is an expert in my field to have a look at my thesis and give me feedback (more than merely grammatical / stylistic feedback that is) before handing it in at my university?

Some personal background to this:

I was asking my lecturer once if he knows anyone who is good at subject X. He referred me to Daniel. Daniel wanted me to pay him for his service, and I was ready to do that.
However, he then asked me whether I intended to hand in the paper, because if so, he could not give me proper advice / would have to withhold certain criticisms from me. I told him the truth and did not end up doing it.

But is this so? Was I unknowingly trying to 'cheat'? Would it not have been good conduct, because I would have paid him? Does this make it somehow different from "just asking a friend"?

One of the objectives of gathering professors, postgraduates, graduate students and undergraduates at an university is precisely to encourage working together and cross-checking. Nothing wrong here.

If another graduate student in interested in your work, good for you! Perhaps the basis for future collaborations. If she helps you out by helping proofread your thesis, she is certainly entitled to an acknowledgement of the help in your final writeup. And you should also lend a hand, either to her or some following students, in gratitude.


Is it conventional to point out harmless typos in mathematical derivations in lecture notes? I am on a physics course. Often I struggle with following mathematical derivations, so I aim to scrutinize them very carefully to make sure I understand them. Sometimes I find mistakes in the lecture notes, which are harmless from the overall point of view (ie we get the same result, it won't affect subsequent lines). Nevertheless, they are wrong. Ie instead of writing J(x) (J as a function of x), lecture notes contain Jx, ie function of J times x. We mean the former, and later use the former interpretation. Or: writing exp(0-), where 0- is the limit of x as x approaches 0 from below, while the right thing which follows from the previous lines would be exp(-0-). Of course these are equal so not much harm done, but it is still wrong. Or when on the lecture it is said that "do check this at home you will get X", and I go home and check it and the answer is not X, that seems to be problematic. Almost noone bothers to check though, so it doesn't seem to be a big issue.
My usual reaction to this is to write a kind email to the professor to point these out. I thought it is useful for both of us, he gets to correct a typo, or I get to learn something new in case it is not a typo & I am wrong. I noticed though that this is not something common to do. Once I checked this on a course, and more than half of the entries on the list of erratum in lecture notes are the things I have pointed out. Am I a weirdo and I should stop pointing these out, or this is normal behaviour?

I think it is a good idea. While the typos you find may be harmless in their respective contexts, they can be a hindrance to properly understanding the concepts, particularly for students who find the material challenging and are not immediately able to identify when something is just a typo. A harmless typo, such as an incorrect expression that just happens to match with the correct answer for a particular problem, can lead to errors if applied to other problems. Furthermore, "do check this at home you will get X" not giving X is not harmless — students would not be sure if they did not get X because they applied a method incorrectly or because it was just a typo, which would waste time and cause confusion, as you also mentioned.
Whether you should report the typos depends on the professor. If they explicitly encourage students to report them, then certainly you should. If there is no explicit guidance, then unless they react negatively to your corrections, it would be a good idea to inform them, and as you say, get a confirmation that your understanding is correct. If you are still in doubt, you can always ask what they would prefer.
In your specific case, the fact that they maintain an erratum suggests that they see it positively. Some professors create a collection of notes that they refine and keep using for future offerings of the course, so you are probably helping future students as well. In fact, some may encourage it to the extent of giving extra credit for finding errors.
I am not aware if it is "conventional" or "normal" behaviour in general, but I see no reason to not do this, as long as your corrections are accurate, useful, and you have the (even implicit) support of your professor.


As a undergraduate math student, what are some of the benefits of joining the American Mathematical Society? I am a undergraduate student at a large university, and I was wondering what kinds of benefits are available as a member of the American Mathematical Society. I've heard that it is a great resource for networking, but other than that I have heard next to nothing about it.

You get a discount on registration fee at their meetings, which is pretty much the biggest reason why people join AMS.


Tactful way to discuss an error in a published paper I am currently working on my masters thesis in mathematical biology. The work I am doing extends previous work by introducing new biological findings that are relatively recent.

Initially the plan was to take the models in an early paper in the field, reproduce the results, and apply my extensions. But, after a fair bit of work I discovered an error in a model which was bad enough that I couldn't continue to use it as a basis for further work.

This paper is significant in the field (lots of citations, good journal, respected author etc, etc). The error I spotted does have a significant effect on some parts of the analysis. But, to be perfectly honest it's not exactly a world shaking discovery - the original purpose of the paper was to convince researchers in this field that certain mechanisms were plausible and shouldn't be over looked and it certainly did that.

Now, because I found this error, the path of my thesis has taken quite a turn. I've had to propose my own model, perform a similar analysis as the paper, and then apply my extension. In other words I've had to redo a non-negligible amount of the authors work in order to do my intended work.

Discussing the error is important for motivating the extra work I've done. How can I do this tactfully? What is fair to say, and what should I avoid saying? What kind of language should I use? Should I avoid mentioning it altogether?

Use neutral and respectful language, but don't beat about the bush. If the model is wrong, say so. And remember to attack the idea, not the person.

Perhaps say something like:

"This work determined that the while the assumption that [quantity] is conserved is correct in the simpler case of model 1, this does not appear to be correct for the more complex case presented in model 2. This was established by [details of work that lead you to this conclusion]. It was instead found that the quantity is determined by [formula]. Model 2 therefore needs to be amended to [something]."

(I'm not sure if I've quite met all the requirements I've listed, but hopefully it'll give you something to go on.)


What would be considered a "competitive" application for mathematics postdocs in the US? What are the factors that make an application competitive for postdoc positions in pure mathematics at top tier universities (e.g. MIT, Harvard, Princeton, UC Berkeley, Stanford) in the US?

Clearly, one needs

Good recommendation letters
Interesting research articles
Some teaching/service experience.

In what proportion are the above needed? E.g. how many good articles, how many courses taught, etc. make an application competitive?

Is there any other important factor I haven't mentioned above?

There's no simple answer.  In particular, there are no quantitative standards for how many papers you need.  For postdoctoral research positions in mathematics at top departments in the U.S., it works roughly like this.  (For those from other fields, note that these positions are filled by departmental search committees, not individual professors, and they often involve some light teaching but are focused on research.  The postdocs are independent researchers, not under the direction of any professor.)

Teaching experience and the teaching statement don't matter much for these jobs.  The department will want to know that you aren't a truly terrible teacher, so you won't raise tons of complaints or create a serious problem if you teach a class, but they won't really care whether you are an excellent teacher or just minimally adequate.  (At best that would serve as a tie breaker between otherwise equally impressive candidates.)  Just write something sensible and uncontroversial for your teaching statement and don't worry about it much.
Quality matters much more than quantity for research papers, and trying to write more papers at the cost of writing worse papers is generally a bad trade-off.  In practice, the typical number of papers varies a little by subfield.  In some cases (such as theoretical CS), it would be very unusual to have only one paper, and it had better be amazing if you want to get a job that way; in some other subfields, having half a dozen papers might make people suspicious regarding their quality.  To gauge how your application compares, you can try looking at the CVs of people in your area who have recently started the sort of job you'd like, but keep in mind that counting papers won't reveal their quality.
Strong recommendation letters are absolutely crucial, and getting good letters is worth a lot of time and thought as well as preparation in advance, for example by talking with potential letter writers so they are familiar with you and your work long before you apply for jobs.  Choose your recommenders carefully, and don't limit yourself only to people at your university.


Is the signature track on coursera useful for MS admissions? I read through the forum and the opinion seems to be that doing a MOOC is equivalent of reading a book on that subject. This is largely because of that you can cheat through a MOOC.

So what if I join a signature track on a MOOC such as the one of Coursera ? I haven't ever tried a signature track out, but they capture your photo and recognize the way you write to ascertain if you have genuinely gone through the work or not.

Even american council of education is acknowledging this ....

How is this a duplicate of that question :|

At best, MOOC's are going to be viewed just like any other course on your transcript—they're not going to make it or break it anymore than any other course that you can take. However, as many people have pointed out, MOOC's are also viewed with substantial suspicion, in part because of their low completion rate and because of the difficulties with quality assurance.

So I would ultimately say that a MOOC probably has little or no advantage over a comparable course offered at your university. If it's something that is both highly relevant and not available at your university, that's another story—but then that should be clearly stated in your application as well!


Is simplication of known results worth a publication? I am an applied mathematician. A very simplified outline of my situation is as follows:

The leader of my research group is a "big wheel" in his specific research area. His contributions are considered both important and very demanding.

Recently I found a way to get a simplified access to one aspect of his work. I am very sure that no more than a few dozen people have ever made the effort to dig through this and understand it. The simplification is substantial, and even to my group leader it has not been known. Certainly it is not known to almost everybody else.

Other than an alternative simplified manner of setting up the theory, I can round out some things that have previously been done by hand-waving. That is only of theoretical interest.

So I wonder: finding this has been difficult, and it would help other researchers to know about it. But is it worth being published, with only a "sugar glaze" of actually -new- results? How can I determine this? How low for a journal should I aim?

In general, this kind of result might be worth publishing, also in top journals. However, it is impossible to tell without knowing the specifics. It might well be something that has been known as a "folklore result" for long in your field.

Luckily, you say that the leader of your research group is the major expert on this. So, ask him and not a random bunch of people from other fields you found on the internet.

If you have already asked and he disagrees, chances are that he is right. But if you disagree and insist that it is a major breakthrough, you can still write everything up, put it on arXiv, and wait for feedback from other researchers.


Should one add declined awards to a CV? Suppose I'm applying for grad school and I receive a scholarship award to study at grad school A, does it make sense to list such a scholarship award on my CV in my application to grad school B?

Or let's say I go to grad school B, should one still list the declined scholarship award from grad school A in future CV's?

My gut feeling for the first question I asked is that it would seem a bit weird and worse case scenario someone at grad school B is influence to some extent to think  "Well judging by this scholarship award here, this applicant already has a place at another grad school, so declining him/her may not be so bad". Is my gut feeling correct?

I would also agree with your gut feeling in this particular case. I can, however, think of a scenario where a declined award/scholarship should be included on your CV. In countries where you pay to study at a university, you can apply for scholarships/postgraduate awards/student funding. There is often a limit on how much funding an individual can accept. So, say for example you applied for funding from A and B and that these Funding Agents only give funding to high achievers. If you are awarded X from Funding Agent A and Y from Funding Agent B, and you can only accept the funding from Funding Agent A, I would say it is still acceptable to list that you were awarded funding from Funding Agent B but that you were unable to accept it. In cases where the award implies certain personality characteristics/strengths (but doesn't directly compare to the place to which you are applying as in your example), it can be advantageous. I hope that this makes sense.


Is it OK to contact conference chairs and volunteer to review (specific to Data Science Conferences)? I am a final year Ph.D. student. I work in the area of Applied Data Mining and Visualization. I have published at both KDD and IEEE VIS. I primarily work in the area of Natural Language Processing, Social Media Analysis, Information Extraction and Data Visualization.

However, I have still not received any opportunity to review papers.

As per the suggestions on other questions on this forum (How to become a reviewer for an engineering journal?, How do you earn opportunites to review journals or conference papers?, How to show interest to serve as a TPC or reviewer in top conferences?, etc) there are two ways I could get an opportunity to review papers:

Publish papers (I have published three papers at KDD, 1 as first author and 2 as co-author but have not yet received an invitation)
Contact the Chairs and volunteer to be a reviewer

Question: Since I have still not received an invitation to review, is it OK to contact the chair or PC and volunteer to be a reviewer? Do you as a chair, frown upon such emails?

Note: This question is specifically for people who has served as PC / Chair for one of the top Data Science and/or Data Visualization conferences (or workshop) like KDD, ICML, ICDM, PKDD, CIKM, WSDM, IEEE VIS, CHI, etc.

There seems to be an explicit question, why you have not been invited to review papers, and an implicit one, why you have not been invited as a PC chair.

Reviewing papers

As a PhD student you should have been given papers to review, but these papers will not be given to you by the PC chair but rather PC members who may delegate one or two papers to you. The most likely people to delegate paper reviews are your supervisor(s), you could ask them.

Becoming a PC member

Since you mentioned volunteering to be a reviewer, it seems you might have being a PC member more in mind. Typically, you can only be a PC member after obtaining your PhD. At this point, people who know you should suggest your name, such as your current supervisor(s), people you meet at a conference (this has happened with me) or your new colleagues (e.g., a PI) if you move on after your PhD.

For the specific question, if you know the general chair quite well, then I think it is okay to ask if you can help out as a PC (once you have your PhD). If your supervisors or other close collaborators are SPC, you can also ask them to suggest your name. But I suspect once you have your PhD you will be asked anyway.

This is only based on personal experience, no-one can say for sure whether a given person will mind.


Lost citations on Scholar Checked my citation score and it turns out three citations (from 3 different articles) disappeared over the weekend. How can this be explained? I just hope it's some weird bug in the crawler. Anything i could do about it?

How can this be explained?

Since the Google algorithm is closed source, only Google can tell.

  Anything i could do about it?

No. You could try to write Google but I don't know any case where this turned out to be succesful.


Do I have "the right" as a grad student to take a class just for fun? I'm currently doing a PhD in computational biology, but I have other interests like music and ceramics, and I'm lucky enough to be at a university with excellent programs in both. I've wanted to take a course in either of these fields for the 3 semesters so far I've been here, but my advisor won't approve and sign off on them. I have a free slot this spring and I really want to take a course just for fun, and to learn from the world-renowned instructors. I've tried negotiating about just taking an evening class, or having my work for him improve since I'll be happier overall, but he's just stuck on "this isn't your field". Who's being unreasonable here?

Just turn up for the class. Don't register; just sit-in. Afterwards, explain to the instructor that you're studying a PhD in computational biology and that you have a personal interest in the course. You won't get credit, but you're fulfilling a personal interest, not an academic requirement.


Maximum number of citations per sentence? I'm working on a literature review for a masters thesis in the sciences, and I have a ton of sources that cover the topic.  Many specific points are covered ad nauseam, and many similar ideas can be cited multiple times.  My question is how many is acceptable?  Is there a general rule for citing sources per sentence/idea?  Does more look better?  Basically, is there a limit?

The short and somewhat unsatisfactory answer is: enough. There is no formal limit but obviously too many becomes impractical. If you can reference a huge number of references for a single statement (sentence) it is normal to pick one or possibly a few by using a format indicating these references are just examples:

(e.g., Smith et al., 1943; Turner and Anthony, 1963)
some statement by, for example, Smith et al. (1943) and Turner and Anthony (1963)

I am assuming Harvard style formatting in these examples.
Exactly when it is reasonable to show examples and when one actually have to show al references is a matter of context. If you, for example, have a series of references that together build up some matter and where none is more important than the other and none summarize the other, it could be necessary to list them all regardless of how many there are. I suggest you try to look at a number of different papers of a similar type (literature review) to the one you are writing to see how others handle such instances. You should also look at other masters thesis if you have the possibility.
The main point of this is to know when it is sufficient to list only (good) examples rather than all possible references. This is of course a matter of training and learning to assess when which format is appropriate. It is therefore necessary to assess when papers simply duplicate each other (from whatever view point you reference) or when  they each contribute something unique that merits their reference.


How to optimize the next years of PhD I am in the first half of my PhD (Pure Mathematics) in the U.S. In this period of time I've read all of my advisors papers (apart from the very early ones), discussed all of them with him, and improved on many of them. My advisor is great: he has been extremely helpful, he'd always read all my stuff, and I definitely learnt a lot from him. I think he also got something from me, since I was able to answer a conjecture and a couple of questions that he had formulated/thought about for quite some time.

However, I feel like I know all the stuff he does at this point: he has very little left to teach me, as I noticed in the last six months.

My current situation is not too bad, I am capable of finding my own projects and most of my publications are based on my own ideas (I have 10 preprints/publications), so I could just go on like this for 2-3 more years. However, I think it would be better for me to go somewhere else, to learn from some other mentor, maybe in some different but related field.

Indirect sentences make me believe that my advisor does not want me to leave, although I never asked him directly. Before I do so, I would like to hear your opinion (I understand that the information I gave is not exhaustive, but nevertheless...).

If your professor really doesn't want you to leave, he needs to offer you a permanent position. It may be that keeping your association going would be good for you. But you need to leave the nest eventually and fly on your own.

But it sounds like you are in a good position to finish your doctorate early. I suggest that you do that, at least. Accelerate anywhere you can.

There is no reason that you can't explore a position elsewhere as you get closer to the end, to see what is on offer. It is good to have options.

To maximize your future, stay as helpful and cooperative as possible.


Question about reference letters on mathjobs I have a mechanical question about the mathjobs interface (I believe this is not off -topic since there is a correct answer and this answer would remove uncertainty for other mathematicians in future job cycles). If I list a reference letter in my application to a position, but the reference letter is submitted after the formal deadline (or at least after I submit the application), will that reference letter be automatically added to my dossier at the university in question or do I have to re-submit all of my materials?

The reference letter is automatically added to your applications by mathjobs when it is uploaded by your letter-writers, and there is no need to resubmit.

However, I recommend sending gentle reminders to your letter-writers!


I self plagiarized most of my work I submitted my final assignment on SafeAssign with 67% plagiarized and I plagiarized the work from me because two parts from my prievious assignment were needed to fulfill the requirements for my final assignment. Should I let my professor know or what should I do now?

Fun fact: I once read a legal paper whether self-plagiarism is right on wrong. The conclusion was: it's hard to say.

In my opinion you should let your instructor know of your concern.

Personally, I think you should be OK, especially if the problematic assignment really depends on the previous ones. If a student approached me with this kind of problem I would rather enjoy that he has seen the connections between the problems. If you were to submit other people's work as your own, that would be problematic. However, it's always academically wise to mark the places that are based on your prior work as well.

As a personal experience: when I was studying at the uni we were once tasked with a problem and I said aloud: "Great, I can submit my solution from other class". Instructor's answer was: "The assignments that can be submitted to pass different classes are the best. I once submitted same solution to three different instructors". YMMV, but I think you'd be on the safe side if you make your instructor aware of the circumstances.


New proposed theory is the same I asked in this network some years ago Imagine that I make a post in which I propose a new theory or idea, but I don't write any paper about it.
Then, some years later, a researcher independently and completely unaware of my post, proposes the same theory/idea in a peer-reviewed paper.
In what circumstances could I claim co-authorship of that theory/idea and how could I handle that?
EDIT: As suggested, I rephrased this question. I kept the original question below, for future reference. The context of how this question arose was maybe idiotic, and that was making the answers to drift away from a general view of the problem. As I said in the comments, I was not realistically considering to claim any authorship for the idea or act on it in any way - it is a genuine curiosity of how things could be handled in a generic way. At least, I'm glad to see that this community can engage in a controversial question like this without being disrespectful (no sarcasm).
Some years ago I made this question which was closed soon after.
I was basically suggesting that sleeping could be an evolution advantage as they allow dreams to happen, which in turn allow you to simulate different situations in a safe environment, thus being more well prepared to react in new situations in real life.
Recently, a researcher proposed the same (similar?) idea.
Now, I honestly don't think he stole the idea from my post. It's perfectly reasonable that someone in this field could come to the same hypothesis.
However, I am creature with an ego bigger than one could consider healthy, and this feeling of "I also had that idea before, and I think I deserve some acknowledgment for that" is lurking on the back of my head. I'm sure that with it will go away, but what I would like to ask here is: do I have any reason/right to claim co-authorship of such theory?
I know that history of science has many cases of independent researchers doing the same discover, and I'm sure all around the world there are people who already experienced this "ah! but I had that idea before!".
So, even though this really doesn't matter and it's just food to the ego, I am curious to know how this type of situations can be handled.

No, you have no reason/right to claim co-authorship, or I believe any acknowledgement at all.
For those curious about the paper a preprint is here: https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.09560
I have skimmed through the paper and have some background in AI, but even ignoring the fact that the topic of the paper is different to what you wrote about, what you have linked to is no more then a random thought. Any contributions from you can be summed up in the following hypothesis:

Dreaming can be a significant advantage since it allows you to experience a virtual world, simulated situations and reactions, without taking any risks. In this way specimens who could dream were better prepared to face new situations and how to react.

This statement is very vague and doesn't actually specify anything. How are dreams simulating a virtual world? Why are dreams better than being able to run simulations while awake? How does the specimen decide upon which simulations to run? Possibly a good starting point to develop a more specific research question but not a research question by itself. The statement was also after you asking if anyone else had ever looked at this kind of idea.
Even if the author had read your statement and that had inspired him to start thinking more about the subject I don't believe there would be any ethical issues by not referencing you since the statement above feels lacking in substance to me (just like you wouldn't reference a handwaved/madeup science fact from some sci-fi book if it had inspired you to look into a topic).
Now considering the actual paper, and based on my skim of the paper a few months ago, the topic is actually different to what you suggested. The paper proposes that dreaming solves the problem of over-fitting. This occurs in reinforcement learning (AI) where the algorithm is trained on a data-set and can perform very well on classifying/responding to that data-set, but when input that it wasn't trained on comes in the algorithm does something stupid.
So instead of simulating the situations and reactions that the creature may run into, the paper suggests that dreams are the result of training yourself from your daily experiences, but with added random noise to the input training set (your daily observations). This means that you won't assume that everything will occur exactly the same as what you observed today, and that will be beneficial. Specifically it balances against the innumerable number of variables that you couldn't have been aware of which impacted your daily experience.


Include logo of cooperating company on thesis cover I've just finished writing my master's thesis, which heavily relied on data that I received from a municipality. The data was collected within a project that was mainly conducted by colleagues of mine in behalf of the municipality (I'm working half-time).

I obviously mention the municipality and my main contact there as well as the company I work for and 2 of my colleagues in my acknowledgements.

Would you include the logo of either the municipality and/or the company on the cover?
What other options do I have?
(engineering science in Germany, if that matters)

The thesis is a scientific work, and it is the university that is responsible for it. The fact that you got someone funding you or that you performed the science somewhere else doesn't change this fact. I would keep the cover as simple as possible, and include only the university logo, and maybe even not that one.

Note that inclusion of logos of institutions that fund you seems to be a thing now. Sometimes rules are set up that the logo has to be on every slide of every talk that the people perform. This means that for some people, the slides are unusable, because they contain 5 or 6 logos. Some authors try to get their logo in an article they publish in the journal I typeset/copy edit; we have hard times explaining them that this is not acceptable in the journal and that only text acknowledgements are possible. Journals are quite strict on this, conferences commence to limit this as well.

Please, do not support this logo frenzy. If you really really want to include the logos, present them nicely in the acknowledgements section.


Is it plagiarism when copying something that you have written before? I am writing an essay and I have previously written and submitted an essay to a different professor about a similar subject. Would it be considered plagiarism if I copied my own exact sentences from my previous essay?

Plagiarism and self-plagiarism sound similar, but are importantly distinct things.

Plagiarism is if you use other people's work as your own. You deprive them of credit and claim credit for yourself which you do not deserve.

Self-Plagiarism does not deprive the author (you) from credit, but the offence here is that the the "present-you" claims credit that the "past-you" already collected.

This is an assessment offence because you would get a double mark for a single piece of work. You could, of course, quote yourself (properly cited!), in which case, you would be perfectly fine, but you would only gain marks for new work done, which, in case of a full copy, would still be zero. However, in a sensible school policy it should not be punishable for plagiarism in the conventional sense, since it was you in the first place who wrote the text.

As a student, I have reused software libraries I wrote in other coursework, properly cited, of course. It would be a waste of time to redo mechanical work, and permitted me to get much further. With an essay, nothing stops you, of course, to build upon existing writing (properly cited) to develop your argument further.


What research explains political attitudes of academics? According to the Times of Higher Education, there are more liberals* than conservatives in the social sciences. The ratio of Democrats to Republicans in economics is 5:1, in law it is 9:1, in psychology 17:1, in journalism 20:1, and in history a whopping 33:1.

From my experience, this trend extends outside the social sciences, i.e. to the humanities and the natural sciences, although it may be strongest in the former. I don't have data handy to back this up.

Is there any serious empirical research into why professionals in academia are more likely to vote democratic than the average of the population? If so, what are the main explanations? (Candidates could be self-selection, socialization, or confounding variables like income and education.)

  Moderator’s notice: As per this meta discussion, all answers to this question must provide external references. Please avoid any discussion about politics (rule of thumb: it should not be possible to deduce your political opinion from your writing). Answers and comments not adhering to this will be deleted without warning.

I really do not think we are going to get to any causal relationship here. One thing you might want to consider is the link between IQ and politics.

Smart people (generally) tend to be more liberal:
https://theconversation.com/do-smart-people-tend-to-be-more-liberal-yes-but-it-doesnt-mean-all-conservatives-are-stupid-57713

Childhood IQ in Britain, for a 1970s cohort, predicts voting for more liberal parties (Greens and Lib Dems):
https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/files/8896159/childhood_intelligence_predicts_voter.pdf

This answer is only meant as a starting point. You would need to consider all of the evidence from across the world (perhaps the reverse is true, in general, for example. And perhaps other variables come into play).


How is it possible to get into PhD in a different institute than Masters when publications take so long? Usually to be accepted by a PhD program by a reputed university the admission committee looks for candidates who have made research contributions to the desired field (specially through publications). A Masters student however only starts his/her research work in the last semester and even if something substantial is done during that time, getting it published would take a fair amount of time. How is it possible then for a masters student who's applying for PhD showcase their publications in the application?

There are two ways to look at this question, both of which are answered in the comments. The first of which is just you asking, "I have submitted for publication, but they haven't been accepted yet." As Per Alexandersson said, make a list, write submitted, and if it's in mathematics, you can even link to Arxiv.

But addressing the implication of the question that it is required to have publications to matriculate, I'm not sure that's entirely accurate. Many Ph.D. Programs accept students directly out of their undergraduate degree, and so to expect them to have published research would be generally unfair. It makes more sense for Ph.D. programs to be looking for students who have the capability for research. This capability can be shown through projects that go beyond the scope of the classroom, research with professors that didn't necessarily result in publication, or as astronat mentioned in the comments, by strong references letters from supervisors, professors, etc.


Chances of getting R&D job in industry after PhD in AI/Robotics I am a student of computer science from India and specialize in Artificial Intelligence & Robotics. I have completed M.Tech (for those who do not know, it covers 18 years of education. It is actually PG in engineering, sort of an Indian equivalent of MS, consists of a one year course work + one year dissertation ). I have a conference paper to my name and I'll take up my GRE exams in a short while. I wish to pursue PhD from the US. Let us assume I make it to one of the top 50 grad schools in US in the next academic session.

What are my chances of landing in a good R&D job in industry after completing PhD? I do not wish to stay in academia throughout my career. I do not wish to teach. Post-PhD, I'd prefer a transition to industrial R&D.

I have not really figured out the details, have just started conceptualizing a career plan. So I thought it wise to start with the basic question. Given my career objective, is PhD really worth it?

You need to think about two questions, essentially.

Why do I need a PhD? - Do you really want to contribute something special to the field? Unlike M.tech where you are guaranteed a degree after two years, things are a lot more uncertain in a PhD, so unless you have the drive, it could be very difficult.
What is the nature of work of doctorates in your field? - This is much more important than knowing if you will get a job after PhD. Do try to contact people who are in good places in the industry and form an idea about the nature of their job. If you are enthused by that and you feel an industrial research position is where you seek to be, then go ahead.

A PhD from a top institution can never be "worthless". You learn some set of skills that are difficult to pick up if you are elsewhere, so that's a huge plus.

TL,DR: If you are happy being a skilful software or embedded systems engineer, then you are better off building your experience in the industry; if you really desire to contribute to the field as a researcher, PhD is a must, so hurry up with the formalities.


Should I appeal my paper's rejection in PRL? My manuscript in PRL was rejected after two rounds, although apparently quite narrowly.

First round the paper was sent to two referees. One was very supportive to accept, and the other provisionally rejected but was willing to see what we had to say in response.

Second round we actually got both of the original referees to accept the paper. But for whatever reason the editor sent it to a third referee, who recommended to reject the paper. Typically PRL ends the review process at two rounds: it always rejects if there is no complete consensus to accept the paper after two rounds.

We agreed among us that the argument is not a deal killer, definitely fightable if we have the stomach for it.

As far as I can see we have a few options, and am wondering which we should go for.

Ask for a further round of review. Although the review process is technically over, in our collective experience, the editors will typically oblige your request, and even more so when you've got two good acceptances. The downside is that you have no idea how many additional referees you will end up having to fight with - some of our friends have ended up with 5 or 6 referees, not the easiest considering how PRL referees are like.
Appeal straight to the divisional associate editor, the default course of action. What this person says is final, even if it's to overturn two acceptances.
One of the lower Physical Review journals has offered to publish as a 'rapid communication' without further review.

Any advice?

Remember that editors often have to reject papers even if all reviews are positive. The reviewers only see the paper at hand, the editor sees all papers submitted, and all papers with only positive reviews are often still way too many to be all accepted. So by necessity, the editor also needs to reject papers with all positive reviews. Passing the hurdle of getting all positive reviews is often a necessary but not sufficient condition to be published, your paper also need to be better than a large portion of other papers that also passed that hurdle.

Bottom line: fighting editor decisions is usually not worth it, especially if you have another accept ready.


Who usually submits workshop proposals to conferences, and who usually pays for the workshop? I just found that a prestigious conference has announced workshop proposal (here).

I would like to know who can send a proposal for workshops and from whom usually is the proposal accepted?
Does the conference pay for holding the workshop?

Generally faculty or industry researchers propose workshops.
Workshops generally have an additional registration cost. From what I have seen, the conference pays for the workshop and coordinates a budget with the workshop but the money comes from that extra registration cost. I suspect that some larger workshops may not fit this model and may be entirely separate, but co-located.


How to professionally handle sexist remarks by a student? Suppose that you noticed a student saying a sexist remark to you, and the student is completely unaware of it. In the spirit of fighting sexism, I feel that I should maybe say something. But on the other hand, as a person on the higher end of the power spectrum, I feel that I would be bullying the student if I were calling him out on his sexist remarks (which he is probably not aware of).

If I witness a student engaging in a sexist behavior, should I call him/her out? How can I do this without making the student feel intimidated? What would be the professional way to deal with such a situation?

My question is:

If a student commits a clear sexist behavior in front of you, will you call him/her out? If so, how will you approach it so that you don't appear patronizing/bullying?

(I made a major edit, because many answers addressed my "background" story rather than my actual question. I do not see any satisfactory answer that fully addresses my question.)

This is similar to the person of color getting stopped by the police. Is it just a random stop, or is it racism? Very hard to tell without statistics on large sample sizes, or direct evidence of racism. Would the student have made the same accusations if you were male? Possibly, but very hard to tell without direct evidence of sexism.

The student could be complaining just because he got a bad grade. The backing off after you told him the syllabus was from another professor could be because that professor was male. But it could also be because that professor was as you said, very senior. Or because you showed him that indeed more people used that same syllabus.

My advice in general would be to fight sexism when you have clear evidence that gender played a role. In other cases: address accusations like this on their merits or lack thereof. If people find that their accusations towards women are unfounded, that also combats sexist views.

Hopefully this post helped a bit.

Regarding your edit and how to deal with explicit sexism: I would call them out on it. However exactly how to deal with it and whether appearing as a bully is a concern is difficult to say without an explicit case. Is falls in the general case of students making inappropriate/unacceptable comments or actions. Maybe a guideline could be: is it severe enough to contact other people in the university? If not, you might admonish it more lightly if concerns about being a bully are top of your mind. If it is severe enough to contact the administration or the person at your institution to contact out of line students, let it be their decision. You can never be accused of being a bully if the punishment came for an independent third party. Especially if you presented the case to that third party plain and factually, with the question being: what should we do now?

Again it is hard to talk in general about these things. That is why I focused on the more specific case, because I could be more specific about it.


Mentioning a personal tragedy in an academic style paper. Is it allowed? I am working as an editor for an edited book volume on covid-19.
I have come across a very peculiar chapter submitted by an author. In the chapter, the author discloses a personal incident where the author's father's friend passes away due to covid-19.
I am not sure what to do here i.e. whether to email the author as that paragraph seems very peculiar. Is describing such kind of incident, which I see as highly emotive and personal, allowed in academia for example book chapters or journal papers?

Since you are the editor of the volume, it is you who decides whether it is allowed. There isn’t any codified set of rules specifying whether any given content is allowed or not. That’s exactly one of the things editors are supposed to do - to edit.
Consider whether it makes sense to have such a paragraph in the volume given its topic and purpose. If you think it is appropriate, allow it. If not, don’t. If it is a borderline case, you can raise your concerns with the author and suggest that they change or remove the problematic paragraph, without requiring it outright.


When is the right time to tell my advisor that I plan on leaving my PhD program? I've previously asked a question on this forum about leaving grad school and moving to a new field. I'm a chemistry PhD student in my (now) second year. I've decided to leave my PhD program because my heart is not in my work, nor am I very passionate about my field (word to the wise - don't go to graduate school because you don't know what else to do). The toll of grad school has resulted in some serious damage to my mental health to the tune of depression and anxiety.

I don't have a fantastic relationship with my advisor, but it's not terrible either. There's a significant language and cultural barrier that creates a sort of disconnect between us. As far as I know, my advisor does not know that I plan on leaving, although if my lack of motivation and focus hasn't tipped him off that there's something wrong, I don't know what will. The emotional and physical toll of lying and not telling my advisor the truth is becoming debilitating. I can't focus on work, I spend most of my time feeling hopeless and scheming on how to get away as quickly as possible and I suffer from constant headaches. I never was so apathetic until about 3 months into grad school.

My main concern is that I still have two classes I need to complete in the upcoming Fall semester in order to leave with my terminal master's degree, and I'm worried that if I tell my professor now he will become extremely angry, cut my funding (even thought I'll be teaching in the fall) and make me leave the lab. I do not want to leave without having something to show for my work here. However, I think I would feel better if I just told him now and put myself out of my misery. That way he would understand where I'm coming from and why I'm acting in this way. He's paying me for the summer and the guilt I have for wanting to leave is getting out of hand.

I'm also in sort of an awkward situation where the project I'm assisting in will eventually be mine when my co-worker graduates in May and there would not be another student to take over when I leave as well. I feel like I'm just leaving my advisor out to dry.

So my primary question is, when is the best time to tell an advisor about leaving? As soon as possible? Or continue to let it sit until the fall semester starts? Is there even a "good" time to do this?

It seems to me that @Mad Jack's comment, though perhaps practical, is unethical.  Funding in a PhD program is conditional on one's intention to complete the program. If you accept funding under the expectation that you will take a certain long term action, then if you clearly realize that you no longer have the intention to complete that action then you are behaving deceptively, hence unethically, by hiding that information.  In an academic job by contrast, you sign a yearly contract.  Unless/until you have tenure, you could be dismissed at the end of any academic year.  Even when you have tenure you are rarely receiving university resources which would be wasted if you did not have a multi-year commitment, and if you do find yourself in a position of receiving those resources with the intention of leaving, then you are behaving unethically.

(Example: most universities which offer sabbaticals view them as investments for the future of the faculty member's academic career and their career at that university.  Many universities have a policy that one has to return to "active duty" for at least one year after a sabbatical.  Violating this policy would be unethical in a similar way, although it is also more explicitly against the rules.  A yet closer unethical faculty behavior would be to receive a multi-year grant to do X, to realize after the first year that you have no intention of continuing to do research on anything at all related to X but continuing to take salary from the grant in subsequent years.)

Moreover the suggested unethical behavior is in response to hypothetical undesirable behavior by someone else.  The OP does not know that behaving unethically is necessary in order to receive the outcome which is in her personal best interest.  In fact she does not definitely know that she wants to leave the program: rather, she has some good reasons to leave (lack of interest and enthusiasm for a future academic career) and other good reasons to stay for a while (a desire to get a degree).  The right thing to do is to talk to her advisor, be candid about her doubts, and get on a track that would allow her to gracefully complete a master's degree if she so chooses.

Someone who cuts your funding for expressing doubts about the future is not behaving ethically.  In all programs that I'm familiar with, funding is guaranteed conditional on satisfactory progress, and having a frank conversation does not make satisfactory progress unsatisfactory.  If the OP's advisor behaves so badly as to cut her funding following that conversation, then the OP can seek recourse from the director of graduate studies or the department head and has an excellent case.  The fact that she's scheduled to teach in the fall strengthens the case: if the funding is cut and she leaves because of it, who teaches the class?

The fact that not informing the advisor is setting him up for a crisis later on is also a significant consideration.  To accept mentorship and funding from someone while planning all the while to leave them in the lurch later is quite indefensible.  I'm not surprised that the OP is having feelings of guilt about it.  As she is learning, we know deep down at a visceral level when we are doing something that we think is wrong.  Doing the right thing has intrinsic rewards -- call it karma or neuropsychology, it's true nevertheless.  I think she will sleep far better at night knowing that she did the right thing and suffered financial hardship for no fault of her own than if she did what she knew was wrong for purely selfish reasons.  I know I would.

Finally, having a master's degree from a program and advisor who will only say negative things about you when asked is far from ideal. Being able to play well with others is valued even more in "the real world" than in academia, so burning bridges in this way is not a smart move.


Limitations of method and evaluation A (master) thesis about the development and assessment of an algorithm has some limitations. The method chapter is organized as follows:

Algorithm Description
Simulated Scenarios
Evaluation method

The algorithm itself is not optimal and potential flaws exist in some modules.
The simulated scenarios were selected in order to create a representative assessment, but are not covering the entire range of possible conditions.
The evaluation method is based on a number of simplifications which might lead to faulty final results.

To make sure it doesn't seem like I'm hiding something, I would like to describe all of these limitations. Where would this fit best? In the individual sections of the Method chapter? Could I title the chapter after methods "Results and Discussion" and mention it there? Or in the conclusion?

Since the limitations you describe are related to the coverage of the scenarios, I would describe them in the "simulated scenarios" section. If you really have a lot of content about these limitations, then it deserves its own section in the method chapter.

Then in the discussion part you can mention them again if relevant, e.g. "it's possible that results would differ if..." with a ref to the method chapter.

Traditionally the conclusion is a summary of your findings and a description of further work. If relevant you could mention "cover more scenarios" in the latter, but that's not where the explanations about the limitations should be.


Why do some science journals capitalize the words in a title, and others don't? How do I know when to capitalize the words in a scientific paper's title? When I look on pubmed I see both styles. To be clear I am talking about the actual title of the paper, not a citation.

Essentially, the way to check is to look at if the particular journal to which you want to submit a paper uses title case or sentence case for the capitalization of titles. I think a lot of it is publisher-specific. For example, in my field, I publish primarily in American Chemical Society journals, which use title case, and AIP/APS journals, which use sentence case.


Do reviewers really not know the identity of authors in fields that frequently use arXiv? The point of peer review is anonymity but since most authors upload their papers to arxiv long before the paper is published (at least for math, stats, computer science etc), the reviewers should see who wrote the script by simple googling right? Will this have an impact on the review process? That is, a famous scholar's article will more likely be accepted to top journal given similar quality.

It is in fact often easy for a reviewer to find out who an author is, unless the author is quite  new to publishing and has not uploaded the  paper to arXiv.
Sometimes it is hard not to know even without a search since the author may be building on their previous work so the list of references will be a giveaway even if the the text doesn't refer to "my previous work in [reference]".
That said, refraining from such a search is implicit in the unwritten contract between the reviewer and the editor.
I hope and suspect most reviewers honor that contract.


How can I prove that I didn't plagiarize? This year I have decided to take a Computer Science course on FLVS, an online learning institution.

Throughout the whole year, I worked well, and I had a lot of fun with the course. I was close to finishing the second semester of it, and I randomly lost access to the course. I was surprised to find out that they took a some of my assignments (about 6~7), and they flagged me for academic integrity, claiming that I used the answers from an online answer source. Another problem is that because it's so many assignments, they have kicked me out of the course, without me even communicating with them the issue.

My teacher had no idea about this, and she can't do anything about it. She told me to talk to academic integrity themselves. I now have a 0 for the course, and I'm very angry, and I have no idea what to do. I can show them I didn't cheat by answering on the phone any questions they have, and I've already studied for the exam and I plan on taking it, and I'm very confident I can get a good grade. I've also used the knowledge I've learned from the course, and I've created iPhone applications as well as games and other software.

I've left the academic integrity team a message stating that I need to speak with them ASAP, but how can I communicate to them that I didn't plagiarize the work?

UPDATE: I have done some research as to how I present my case, and I found a couple things regarding appeals. FLVS claims that it's so called "academic integrity" team is fair and not biased and they utilize a lot of technology to ensure that their claims are as factual as possible, such as www.turnitin.com. I have found a Customer Support number that I can voice my concerns to, so I'm going to present my case to them.

UPDATE #2: After speaking with customer support (see update above), the person on the other line wrote down my grievance in an email, and she sent it to the academic integrity people. I also received a copy of the email. She told me she's sorry for my problem and taht I should expect a call in the next 48-72 business hours. Hopefully I will fix this.

UPDATE #3: We had a long talk with the academic integrity team yesterday, and apparently (I had no knowledge of this) they claim I have copied work from my twin brother Varun from about 20 assignments. Going through these assignments, there seems to be evidence of similar code, but that's because certain instance variables and functions had to be created as per the assignment's instructions, but the overall design of the program is different. They also say that we had the same typesetting (meaning me had him the same spacing and tabs and white space), although we're both very experienced programmers, and we follow the conventional format of tabbing and spacing. I'm most likely going to court :D.

UPDATE #4: This is the best part. After talking we academic integrity before (see above update), we decided to check all of the assignments she flagged and come up with legitimate reasons as to why I didn't cheat on them. After coming up with a long list, we sent an email to the academic integrity people and told them that we came up with a lot of reasons as to why we didn't copy, so she said that she would call us in a couple of days. After 2 days, she sends another email stating that her reasons are legitimate, according to her "boss", and that she won't discuss the issue any further. I am now super angry about this, and I have legitimate reasons as to how I didn't cheat. She won't tell me anything, and my teachers haven't returned any of my calls. I really hate FLVS.

There are a few steps you can take, but the specifics depend on the individual institution and its procedures:

Find out what evidence is behind this accusation. Presumably when you talk to this "academic integrity team," they will tell you more specifically why they think you cheated. Once you have a chance to find out what their evidence for this accusation is, you will be in a position to show them how they made a mistake.
Find out what the institution's official policy is for appealing accusations of academic integrity. This depends on the individual institution's policies. When you speak to the "academic integrity team," you can ask them directly what the appeal procedure is.
Find out what the general grievance procedure is. If you don't have a good experience with the "academic integrity team" (e.g. they did not give you a fair chance to appeal the accusation), you should find out what procedures your institution has in place for voicing grievances in general, and you can pursue these if necessary.


Can a penetration test write-up be used as a bachelor thesis? I'm doing a Computer Science degree in university. While the program provided by the uni is not focused, I'm personally focusing on studying security, aiming to become a Penetration Tester/Red Teamer. I'd like to do a penetration test (on a real system with permission or a simulated system) and make the write-up my thesis.

I've emailed the main professor in Computer Security of my university but haven't yet received a reply. I'd like answers besides "just ask your professor" and "wait for a reply".

I'd like opinions from other university professors: Can a pentest write-up be used as a bachelor thesis?

Sorry, but the only valid answer will come from the professor. It is acceptable or not based on their views only.

But be aware that a penetration test on a real system can come with legal implications. Claiming to be a white hat may hold little weight with authorities. Gaining permission, as you suggest, might be very difficult as institutions running real system have a lot of concerns beyond the obvious. Their own legal department might nix any such project.

A simulated system is fine, though seldom has sufficient protections in place for a valid test. An iterative, competitive, duel between two teams (Red team, Blue team) might be interesting.

The answer to the general question, though, is yes, such a test can be used as a thesis, but only with the consent of the advisor. The general answer to the question has exactly zero impact on your case.


Writing a function name in a normal paragraph in my dissertation I want to mention the name of an specific function (or method) that I used in a experiment in a normal paragraph in my dissertation. What is the best way to do it? Considering that the official dissertation format that my teachers gave me doesn't mention how to do it.

For example:

  "... with the Java programming language we can use System.nanoTime ..."

Is this a question regarding the formatting?

In this case I would use a typewriter font. In LaTeX this is simple by using \texttt:

... with the Java programming language we can use \texttt{System.nanoTime} ...

This looks similar to

  ... with the Java programming language we can use System.nanoTime ...

In Microsoft Word, you could simply use some font, such as Courier New.

However, you should check with your supervisor if this is OK for him or her.


How does applying to work with multiple potential advisors at a university work? I plan on applying to some graduate programs for a psychology PhD. At some of these universities, there are multiple professors I am interested in having as an advisor. If I am accepted to the program, how is my advisor chosen? Does my order of preference get taken into account or does it depend on which professor express the most enthusiasm to have me? Experiences may vary of course but any insight into this process would be helpful.

The picking/assignment of adviser varies dramatically by institution and department. In some institutions - for instance, in some of Carnegie Mellon's departments - the student chooses their adviser (and optional co-adviser) during the first month of their first semester after admittance, and the adviser needs only to agree. Advisers usually can say yes to any request they want because the department funds all new PhD students for the first year - and thus only becomes responsible for funding the student after that year. But some departments don't have the same policy!

A friend at Berkeley told me that their adviser actually saw their admissions packet and reached out to them to say, "I know you said you wanted to study X, but I think you'd enjoy topic Y that I'm working on" - and the student accepted and thus gained their adviser (in an entirely different field than they applied).

As yet another variety, I'm told that at some institutions the student is admitted with no adviser and the expectation is they will work with various potential advisers in different semesters for the first 1-2 years before being expected to formally have a permanent adviser.

The variety of systems is heavily influenced by the nature of how funding is handled at the school, as well as how admission is handled. In many institutions only the admissions committee decides on who is admitted and then advising comes later, while at others at least initial advising is part of the admission process (students are paired with potential/initial advisers before admission, and if you don't fit a professor with an open student slot then you don't get admitted).

Luckily this process is usually not a big secret, so you can talk with graduate admissions coordinators at departments you are interested in to find out just how things work there. Current PhD students are also often helpful in willing to share how they got their adviser, but be aware that their experience may or may not be typical (and sometimes they don't actually know).

Finally, there is great variance between institutions, and between departments within the same institution - and even greater variance between countries - and yet more variance across time as departments change their policies and strategies to recruit and retain students. So in the end - you'll really have to ask that specific department near the time of application to find out how thigns work


Plagiarism Tools in Academia A colleague of mine noticed that one of his co-authors copied and pasted a discussion from another paper into their manuscript. When confronted, the co-author freely and casually admitted to it. My colleague is understandably distressed, they are at the beginning of their career and the co-author is near retirement. They are concerned that if they have a mutual paper which openly plagiarizes another, then that could severely hurt their chances of getting a professor position in the future.

My colleague was wondering if there are any good tools to check against academic papers, so that they could see if the final manuscripts of their co-author actually contains plagiarized materials.

I know of turnitin, but I assume that just for undergrad essays and what not.

Does the community have any recommendations?

The same company that sells the TurnItIn service has another product called iThenticate that is widely used by journal and conference proceedings publishers to check for plagiarism in submitted manuscripts.  My institution uses this to check MS and PhD theses and dissertations.


How to know whether references, tables, and figures are included in journal word limits? Whenever a journal asks for "Articles should be limited to 3500 words + 5 figures/tables", do they mean the texts in the tables and figures will not be counted in the 3500 words limit?
Also, will the reference section be included in this word limit? Or, it just means only the Abstract, key-words, introduction, methods, results, and discussion sections will be bound to 3500 words limit?

That depends on the journal. Therefore you should ask them.
E.g. https://aip.scitation.org/mmm/authors/jsprep (mirror):

Contributed MMM Manuscripts should not exceed 3500 words. Abstract, title, author list, references, and acknowledgments are all excluded from the 3500-word limit. Figures, tables, and equations, however, are included and must be accounted for by calculating a word count equivalent to the space they occupy.

https://jasn.asnjournals.org/sites/default/files/ASN/PDF/jasn_ifa.pdf (mirror):

Original Articles are limited to 3500 words (including significance statement, abstract, and main text, excluding Methods) and eight data figures. Methods, references, figure legends, and tables are not included in the word count

FYI  Why do so many publishing venues limit the length of paper submissions?