Should there be a space between a value and the units used? When preparing a technical report or paper, is it better (more readable, more common) to use a space between each value and the units for it, or no space?

With space: 10 mA
Without space: 10mA

If there is a standard in academic typesetting¹ and typesetting in general, it is to use a narrow space, i.e.:

  With space: 10 mA; without space: 10mA; with narrow space: 10 mA

The most suitable Unicode character for this is U+202F (narrow no-break space). This is also the default setting of the LaTeX packages units and siunitx.
The SI Standard says (p. 47):

  a space is always used to separate the unit from the number.

However, it does not specify the width of the space. But at least, using no space at all is against this standard.
As for readability, I am not aware of any studies on this, so I can only give you my informed opinion. Consider the following examples (I use a picture to ensure that we are seeing the same thing and to be able to employ justified text):

In the first sentence, no space is used. This makes it take longer to identify the unit as it merges with the numbers, in particular with long numbers.

In the second sentence, a full space is used. Units are now read as individual words because that’s how our brain is trained to read full spaces. As our brain is also trained to process words one by one, it will first read and process 192.34 and then continue with K. In the third sentence, where narrow spaces are used, our brain is more likely to process the 192.34 K in one chunk and we also do not have the same problems as in the first sentence.

Finally, consider the list in the second and third sentence (1 Ω, 2 Ω and 3 Ω). With a full space it becomes more difficult for our brains to group what is written into individual items, as, e.g., the first Ω has almost the same distance from the preceding 1 than from the 2 that follows it. With a narrow space, this is easier.

Thus, using a narrow space is a compromise to have number and unit to be seperated less than words but more than the individual digits of the number.

¹ Some journals do not seem to care to make their publications consistent in this respect.


How long before asking for a formal offer letter? I have recently been offered a position by a university I had applied to.
After I accepted the offer (through email), they said they would send me a formal offer letter along with other paperwork "ASAP".
It has been over a week and I haven't received anything.

I'm not sure how long these things should take (nor if they normally send the letter via mail or email). Would it sound rude or desperate to send them an email to inquire about why I still haven't received anything from them at this point?

(sounding desperate my hurt my position in subsequent negotiations, but I would very much like to have some closure on my job search as soon as possible)

I have recently been [informally] offered a position by a university [and] they said they would send me a formal offer letter along with other paperwork "ASAP". It has been over a week and I haven't received anything.
I'm not sure how long these things should take...

Far longer than a week! The sheer number of personnel involved---e.g., your future manager, the committee that selected you, the head of school, perhaps someone above them, HR, other administrators,...---means the process is slow. Couple that with numerous inefficiencies and you'll quickly appreciate that 3-4 weeks isn't unexpected (and it might even be twice that).

Would it sound rude or desperate to send them an email to inquire
about why I still haven't received anything from them at this point?

It isn't appropriate at this point. Maybe after 2-2.5 or maybe even 3 weeks.

I would very much like to have some closure on my job search as soon as possible

You already have informal acceptance. I wouldn't expect rescinding acceptance to be particular common. (You could always ask a question about that.)


How can I convince my postdoc advisor to end my contract early? I am currently a postdoc in a Computer Science discipline.
By some odd artifact of the way our university handles postdoc contracts, we are given fixed-duration (1 year) contracts with no exit clause. The only way to amend the contract (i.e. end it early) is through a mutual agreement with the advisor.
(Side note: this came as a nasty surprise to me when I started looking for jobs.)

I have found a job that is a great career opportunity for me, and I intend to take it as I believe it's acceptable to leave my postdoc early.
The job is in industry (again, my choice), and while I would much prefer to not burn any bridges I understand this is a lot to ask of my boss.

I am personally aiming for the smoothest transition possible,
with a reasonable notice period (1.5 months) and a plan for transitioning my duties, but obviously this mutual agreement issue is a big sticking point.

I am looking for good arguments to help my case, ideally focusing on the positive (it's great for them), for example:

it looks good on their "CV" to have lab members go to great places
This increases their visibility in the community
people are defined by where they've worked previously, this can increase the reputation of the lab

What arguments can I use to convince my postdoc advisor that we should end the contract early?
I realize there are many "legal" reasons why I can/should be allowed to leave, and I would have posted on workplace.sx to look for those.
My hope here is to look for some of the often-intangible "academic" benefits, and take a step in the direction of a win-win compromise.

Just explain your situation to your advisor.

Say that you are sorry to leave and explain why the new opportunity is great for you.

You do not need to come up with reasons why you leaving early is great for your advisor. (It isn't, but they will understand.)

Advisors worry about your future.


Suggestion about research plan I would like to apply for PhD studies in Computer Science in a university in Europe, but I have seen that among the requirements is a brief research plan.

Let's suppose that the field in which they are offering the PhD is in topic X focused in Y. For what I know the research plan is the outcome of an agreement between the potential supervisor and the applying PhD student; so what to put there if I only know X and Y, but still have not contacted any of the supervisors (the application does not say explicitly to do so)?

Comment: I know about topic X and a little bit about the specialized topic Y, but I am afraid that if I propose to do some research in Y, maybe, it would appear as a numb or dry topic to them and I end up losing this opportunity.

Any help?

As much as anything, the purpose of the research proposal (in the UK at least) is to show potential supervisers that you have the ability to construct and justify academic research, can write clearly and put forward coherent arguments. It is unlikely that you would be held to the specifics of your proposal. Once you have been accepted somewhere, it is generally accepted that the details of your research will (at least) be refined, if not completely changed! Just think of it as a way of demonstrating your abilities.


What should one look for in a statement of purpose (from the admissions side) in mathematics? I'm a youngish (recently tenured) faculty member at a reasonably, but not extremely prestigious university in the mathematics department.  While I've looked at some graduate admissions files, this is the first year I have been on the actual committee and thus been responsible for reading many files.  I feel like most aspects of the application (CV, transcripts, test scores, letters of rec) I understand reasonably well, but all statements of purpose read like meaningless gobbledygook, and I tend to completely ignore them unless there's some aspect of the student's file I'm confused about and hope to find an explanation for (and of course, I often don't).

I've seen a lot of questions on this site about how to write statements of purpose, but not much about how to read them on the other end.

  Is it normal/reasonable to essentially ignore the content of SoP unless you are looking for specific information on something unusual in the student's application?  What other things should a reviewer look for as positive or negative signs?

I've asked about mathematics in the United States since that's my field, and I want to avoid stupid replies like "But how can you know what lab they want to work in!" but obviously, I am interested in thoughts from people in other disciplines.

Good question.  I worked on graduate admissions at my math PhD program (at UGA, in the US) for several years, and after a few years off I am the new Graduate Coordinator, so I will shortly be wading through a sea of applications and personal statements.  Here is how I see things at the moment.  I'll modify my answer if upcoming experiences change my mind.

  Is it normal/reasonable to essentially ignore the content of SoP unless you are looking for specific information on something unusual in the student's application?

You could put a more sugary coating on that for public consumption, but: quite reasonable and probably rather normal, I think.

  What other things should a reviewer look for as positive or negative signs?

A statement of purpose is a great place to address things that are out of the ordinary.  It's really the only place for that.  There are a lot of math PhD programs in the US, and most of the applicants to most of the programs (i.e., not Harvard/Princeton/Berkeley/Chicago/UCLA...) have applications which are "uneven" in some way.  Giving context and explanation for the weakest part of your application could be helpful for many students.
I look at the personal statement first as a writing sample, second as a very broad measure of (mathematical) cultural awareness and sophistication and third as a chance to show that the applicant received a decent supply of rope and managed not to hang him/herself.  You are right that there is a lot of cluelessness and ignorance displayed in personal statements...but usually of a rather standard sort that just means that the person is not yet in a math PhD program so has quite foggy ideas of what such a thing is.  However some kinds of clueness, ignorance, stubbornness or hints of anti-social behavior are less common and could be red flags.

One of my favorite stories about a personal statement was told to me in a departmental information session when I was an undergraduate applying to grad school, by the head of the CS department at the University of Chicago.  (I think it was Lance Fortnow, but I am not completely confident of this.)  He said that he once got a personal statement that said that the student wanted to go to grad school in CS because he thought that any other career would involve a lot more work, and he was trying to take it easy.  This put the department head in a bit of a pickle.  As he proceeded to explain, this was exactly what he did not want to hear in a personal statement.  But how seriously does one take the personal statement?  Maybe the student was trying (and failing) to be funny.  Because the application was very strong in all other respects, the applicant was eventually admitted.  He failed out of the program less than a year later, because he was not willing to do any work.  The department head said that he had learned his lesson: the next time a student said something like this in their personal statement, they would not be admitted.


Which is more important for PhD applicants — Quality or quantity of research papers? While applying to a PhD program in computer science, which one is more important?

Publishing 4 or 5 medium/low-quality journal or conference papers or publishing only one paper in a top journal?

The review process of top-quality journals are usually 1-2 years. Which means, one has to begin his/her research during the bachelor's and submit the paper in the beginning of master's degree. But as far as I know, this is extraordinary (especially in my country).

An extra question would be: Regardless of the quality of the paper, is publishing papers in distinct areas or publishing papres in a specific area more important?

I'm willing to move to Northern Europe (UH, TUT, KTH, KU). So, answers from the professors/students of those universities will be highly appreciated.

I disagree with the assumption that top journals with slow turnaround times are more highly regarded than top conferences with quicker turnaround times.  In most (all?) areas of computer science, the most competitive conferences are at least as highly regarded as the top journals.  It is also not unusual for longer versions of conference papers to later be submitted to journals.

As David Patterson (UC Berkeley), Larry Snyder (University of Washington), and Jeffrey Ullman wrote in Evaluating Computer Scientists and Engineers For Promotion and Tenure:

  The evaluation of computer science and engineering faculty for
  promotion and tenure has generally followed the dictate "publish or
  perish," where "publish" has had its standard academic meaning of
  "publish in archival journals" [Academic Careers, 94]. Relying on
  journal publications as the sole demonstration of scholarly
  achievement, especially counting such publications to determine
  whether they exceed a prescribed threshold, ignores significant
  evidence of accomplishment in computer science and engineering. For
  example, conference publication is preferred in the field, and
  computational artifacts —software, chips, etc. —are a tangible means
  of conveying ideas and insight. Obligating faculty to be evaluated by
  this traditional standard handicaps their careers, and indirectly
  harms the field. This document describes appropriate evidence of
  academic achievement in computer science and engineering.

Your research advisor should be able to provide you advice more specific to your case.

I agree with amirg that having any publications when applying to a PhD program (especially based on undergraduate research) makes you exceptional.  Your advisor's recommendation also counts a lot, especially if he or she is well known.


How to proceed when a professor is not answering emails requesting for a grade? and not awarding bonus points as he said? Some key facts:

I am a master's student.
The professor in question is also our director of studies and teaches 3 mandatory classes in our program.
Several students have sent emails that never received a reply.

The situation:

The professor in question is not answering emails regarding the grades for two of the seminars. I contacted this professor by email about two weeks ago to know what was my grade for the last project and to have feedback on what I did well/wrong and also to know how was the class graded in general, but I never received a reply. At this point, I will like to mention that other students have also emailed this teacher about the same topic and to this date, no one has received an answer. Yet, he does answer emails for other type of inquiries we might have.

This brings me to next point, it appears to be that in both of the seminars he did not add in the grade bonus points we were promised (as a matter of fact, he was the one proposing the bonus points after some of us complained directly to him about the tasks\projects in question).

At last, if we know our final grade is because the department sends them to each student once the professor has given them the final grade which in the case of this professor it took about 2 months longer than the rest of the seminars. The issue here is that we never got the grade for the last project we did in both of the seminars, but only got a final grade. Therefore, there was no possibility to know if the grade for the project was fair and it has not been possible to have some feedback on why we got the given grade.

At this point, I am pondering whether it is necessary to contact an Ombudsperson from the university or to resend him an email or contact him personally instead of escalating the situation?

Thank you for your valuable feedback on this matter.

Yes, contact the ombudsperson, student office or office of graduate studies about this. If several of you do so then it’ll probably make the department push the Professor to do their job. Professors often see their teaching duties as secondary but this seems particularly egregious.

Hope it gets straightened out. I had a professor who failed to submit grades for nearly a year, eventually the entire class got an A- blanket grade which was infuriating.


Why write papers anonymously? The author Anonymous has 74,305 publications in the Scopus publication database.  Those include 32,476 peer-reviewed articles, most from the 1980s and 1990s.

Why would anyone write a peer-reviewed paper anonymously?

I searched for the author Anonymous in PubMed (the life sciences publication database), and found 26 results, which shed some light on your question.

Some paper titles:

"I was sexually harassed as a junior by senior doctors: it still goes
on, and it needs to stop"
"My own story: dealing with depression"
"A mind surrounded by a moat: a first-person account of cognitive impairment in multiple sclerosis"
"Trying to overcome racism in the NHS"

So in many cases the authors are describing a sensitive experience or medical condition they have and they do not want others to know about. Alternatively the author could be a whistle-blower. It may also be used in some cases where the editor wrote the piece but does not take credit, but I am guessing this is usually not the case.


Out of school for ten years and letters of recommendation for PhD programs I graduated with a BS in physics in 2009, so it's coming up on ten years since I've been in academia. I have a great relationship with one professor, with whom I'm still in contact, and my old advisor would most likely also help me.

The problem is that most places I see want three letters, and I don't know of any other professors that'd likely remember me. I do, however, have about half a dozen former class mates. I have a friend doing a postdoc at Yale and another at Lawrence Livermore. I also have another friend who just finished her dissertation at Berkley.

I have a wide range of research experience, am published (I helped an experimentalist and got tacked on to the groups paper in phys rev), and have fair grades from a very challenging curriculum (e.g. general relativity, qft of a scalar field, theoretical techniques, intro to string theory), and am not worried about the subject GRE hell (I've done it before and scored in the 80%s once and 90%s the second time).

My problem is that usually one needs 3 letters. I currently work in tech, and could get a great letter from my department's boss, but the only time I do math there is when I make corrections to complex integrals an EE's whiteboard. Or when I'm bored and start calculating connecction coefficients for a metric or dervice generators for SU(n) n>2.

Any advice would be most appreciated!

From what you say it is not clear how your current job is related to the PhD you plan to study. But in general, excellent recommendation letter from your working place might be a good complement to two academic letters. At the end, your work did require technical / analytical skills, and those are the skills that will be useful in academia. Had you been a soccer player or dancer, this would have been a different story. Also, probably you can ask your boss to focus on some aspects that you think are important to emphasize (e.g., technical skills).


What should I do if someone else claims an award that I actually won? I am a PhD student. A few years ago, I won the best paper award at a conference.
However, they didn't post the list of winners on the conference website.
But when I google the name of the conference, the very first search results include someone who already graduated and claims on his personal webpage and LinkedIn profile that he won that award.
The only proofs that I have are the award itself and a congratulation email from the committee.

Currently he works at a company so I don't know how to handle this case especially after his graduation he may no longer care about consequences.

What can I do in this situation?

Send him a message

Even if you think you know the only truth, maybe there is something you don't know about this award.
If there is no response in.. let's say 48 hours, let's go to phase 2

EDIT : concerning the timing, @O.R.Mapper is right, if he is on a vacation... bad luck.

Send a message to the committee

They gave the award, so explain the situation, and ask them to put on their website the name of the winner for each year.
Explain why you want this.

If the commitee is reacting (if not, will be hard :/)

Send a (still) polite mail to the cuprit and tell him he MUST remove what he puts online.
No response ? let's go to the last part

Write to his university

Even if you think they might not care, it's still a graduate student, it's bad for the reputation of the university to have graduate student with a bad behaviors.

EDIT : as said by @CaptainEmacs , do NOT to accuse someone, even if you're sure it is the truth. Tell politely that you think he might have mistaken, that is all.

I think that's the proper way to do it.


Faculty job application - search committee chair, dept head, and follow up emails I recently interviewed for a tenure track position in a public R1 University. There were 4 candidates. The last one interviewed at the beginning of April. Two weeks ago, I have been told by the chair of the search committee that they have submitted the summary to the dept head and now the choice is in her hand. Currently, I am still waiting.
The emails from the chair and the dept head have always been very matter-of-fact and straight-to-the-point. Particularly, when I sent thank you emails to all the people I met during the interview, the chair is one of the few who did not reply back (overall reply rate ~75%). Does it mean anything? Should I be worried about it? Or am I overthinking? Did you have a similar experience to mine but got the offer anyway?

Probably overthinking. The chair has other duties, of course. And, since they have the responsibility to make a decision, they might find it improper to communicate outside the committee.
Let it go. You will learn soon enough.


What should I do when my students use their phones in class? On the first day of class, I told my students that they are not allowed to use their phones in class. However, a lot of them use their cell phones and don't pay attention in class. How should I deal with this problem? Do you let students use their phones during the lecture?

Well, we are educating adults - and they should be able to decide what's good for them and what's bad.

Of course, this philosophy does not work out really well in real classrooms - but some students are using their phones to look up terms I used or check concepts I was teaching online - yes, it really happens!

What I'm doing is confronting them with the results of such behaviour: I'm telling students, that they failed a test because of their phone usage (not only in class but in general). From time to time I demonstrate that they do not follow the course by taking someone as an example for something who is currently using the phone and they do not recognize we are talking about them.

But if you take it too serious, you can only lose.


Writing advice for a junior PhD student writing a single-author paper I am a second year theoretical physics PhD student authoring a paper on my own in a subfield completely different from my advisor's (in my free time, with his blessing).
My question is specifically about writing advice. In all my previous papers, I have always had experienced senior co-authors looking over my writing, telling me what's appropriate and what isn't, how to handle specific things, how to best present results to appease reviewers and editors and, of course, significantly polishing my manuscripts. Now I have completely lost this advantage, and while I have improved a lot, I am afraid it is not enough.
How do I make up for the lack of experienced collaborators with my writing? Are there specific writing tips that can help with single author papers? What are some common mistakes junior PhD students make while writing, that my coauthors might catch (if they existed)?

In all my previous papers, I have always had experienced senior authors looking over my writing, telling me what's appropriate and what isn't, how to handle specific things, how to best present results to appease reviewers and editors and, of course, significantly polishing my manuscripts

You want to continue to have all of these things, just perhaps under your own power and at a more complete stage of development (not necessarily when you are almost finished, but when you know clearly what you want to ask). You've hopefully collected some of the advice you've gotten in the past on your work not just as specific advice on that paper but as direction on your writing in general.
However, you still want to have senior advisors look over your writing. Writing a single-author paper doesn't separate you from the need for that guidance. Even tenured professors share their writing with peers (and students) for feedback.
If you are unsure if an approach is appropriate/how to handle something specific, ask an advisor. It's your work, so don't ask "what should I do?", ask "do you think X or Y would be better?" (it's okay if the answer is Z), but don't be afraid to get advice. There is a lot of feedback you can get without sharing all of your writing - you can get advice without someone needing to read 40 pages to give it.
The polishing stage is probably something you need to take more control of, but once you've polished it as best you can, once you've let it sit for a few days before coming back to editing it with a fresh view yourself a couple times, you'll still likely need someone else's feedback. Few people can write well without it.
If possible, you may be able to split some of the burden to more than one person. Your peers can help as well - and you can trade your own efforts on their projects - and hopefully this can limit the advice your advisor needs to give.


Is there a tool for visualizing the geographic locations of research? Many e-journals search tools contain much metadata in their database. For example, they have the "location" entry required for some citation formats, which at least shows the location of the journal, but the might also store the original authors' university name.

Is there any tool that can allow researchers to either (a) search a term and see a map of where the articles are coming from or (in some similar form or other) (b) see a world map showing where research in a particular area is geographically concentrated?

this is an active aera of research in Geography of Science. We've been working with sociologists of science and bibliometricians to assemble a geocoded database of scientific publications, based on the Web of Science database.

We've not (yet) produced a publicly available interactive search tool like the one you describe, but it's a possibility. Instead, we have published several papers and an interactive tool to geovisualize the collaborations between co-authors of papers : http://www.coscimo.net/ (in french)

If you're interested in this question, i can provide a bibliography.

A conference paper :
http://sticonference.org/Proceedings/vol1/Grossetti_Geographical_348.pdf
A research paper :
http://usj.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/11/20/0042098013506047.full.pdf


Should I cite a book that I read to prepare for a talk but did not directly use it? I have used a few books and articles to prepare for a talk, but I only used some of them directly in my slides. The slides also include parts that are made based my knowledge (background knowledge plus what I learned from reading those sources) but are not new information and could be found in those sources.

Should I cite all of those sources in my references slide? If yes, do I need to reference each piece of material on the slide, or just citing the sources at the end would be enough if I didn't use them directly?

NOTE My question is not a duplication this because that question is asking about referencing for presentation in general, but my question is not about referencing the sources I used directly, but those I read to build up my knowledge for the presentation but did not use directly.

What is the purpose of your talk?

If you are reporting progress of your work, focus on your work. In that case it is typically not relevant which general resources you used to brush up your understanding of the topic.
If the purpose is at least partially teaching, I'd put them into a "Recommended Reading" slide / part of a slide at the end of the presentation.


Why many research results are presented as paid articles? Many times I learn or look for some information, I find scientific article on ieeexplore.ieee.org or similar, where articles are paid. Most of the articles are written by some professors of universities or students about their work.

My question is, why do they sell their results?

If I was a professor and made some work, I would like to gain some acknowledgement for it and I think there is no better way then see others work based on mine. So why not to publicly share the article for free?

I understand that private companies sell their innovations because that's the main source of their income, but people at universities are usually paid and writing articles are part of their job.

So what are the advantages of selling results instead of sharing for free (is there any other except money)?

Does selling your results have any negative influence?

PS: I may not have enough backstage knowledge about how it works on universities and I don't want to offend anybody. I also don't mean work people do in their own free time, but work they do on behalf of universities. This just slows down the development and overall research in field in my eyes.

Professors who publish their research results normally do not earn money from these paid articles. It is the publishing journal who earns. There are even journals who ask the author to pay for publishing the articles.

Contact the authors of the paid article directly and ask them for the copy of the article. Be polite, explain why do you need it for. In most cases, you will get that copy for free.

Also, try put the article name and authors into Google search. Another similar article by the same authors may exist and be free to download.


Should sources of sample sentences be shown in (computational) linguistics research? What would be best practice in indicating the source of text samples used to illustrate some concept or analysis result in linguistics or computational linguistics?

For example, I might want to use the sentence

  If you had told someone in 2012 that in just two years hence, the eurozone would remain bonded together but the United Kingdom might not, they would have thought you insane.

from a recent The New York Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/10/upshot/why-does-scotland-want-independence-its-culture-vs-economics.html?abt=0002&abg=0), augmented with some annotation, in order to illustrate how different anaphora resolution methods would work or fail for this real life example. Copyright fair use policies allow to use such limited extracts without any permission, and using them is common practice, but the attribution and quoting seems unclear.

How, and if, should I quote the source of that sentence within a paper?

Would publication style (say, short paper vs. a dissertation) affect it?

Would density of examples (2 examples in whole paper vs 20 different examples in a single page) matter?

Would indirect sources change it? E.g. if the sentences are taken from, say, British National Corpus - but, naturally, they originally come from some different publication.

Language utterance sources are different from other references

At least in computational linguistics, general practice clearly is to not include the source of language utterance or sentence examples together with normal references. There are various approaches seen in practice among respectable publications: no referencing at all, a footnote reference for the sentence, a mention in article text, a single reference to a whole corpus (by referencing not the source but some authoritative paper about the corpus), etc.  I'm wondering about those options, which would be preferable and which should be avoided.

Avoiding the whole problem by using sentences made up by myself is not a good solution - artificial examples are biased towards using constructions that behave in the same way as you and your tools expect, so real life examples of natural language from domain-representative sources are strictly preferred.

I believe your field is doing itself a disservice by not citing the sources of language utterances. Particularly if direct quotes from published sources are used, the information about the source is important. Did the sentence come from the Los Angeles Times or the neighborhood community newspaper? From a novel written by a Novel Prize winner or a first-time novelist? From a book written in 1879 or 1979?

It feels like an archaeologist writing about a pot without including where it was found, what was found around it, etc.

The field is just not practicing good science.

If you feel that your paper will not be accepted with more complete referencing of the language utterances, try to mitigate the issue by using examples from the fewest references possible or creating your own with the same structure or pattern.

I think you've found a nice hole in the field--can research be done to show that omitting or not studying the sources of the language utterances changes results?


When should an editor use reviewers recommended by authors of a submitted manuscript? I am a newly appointed editor to a top journal. I have received my first manuscript assignment. I see in the journal system that the authors have provided preferences for reviewers for their paper.

I was wondering what is the norm like with respect to this. Do editors normally go by author's preference or do they ignore it? What factors should I take into account before considering author preference of reviewers?

On one hand this makes my task of searching appropriate reviewers easy but I suspect this might also give an unfair edge to the authors if the reviewers have some/any kind of bias.

The way the preferred reviewers are used varies. Some go by these suggestions whole-heartedly while others do not. I lean towards the latter since my experience with some preferred names is less than favourable.

In my experience names listed can be good. I usually double check to see if persons seem affiliated in some way and if they do I avoid appointing them. As a rule, however, I try to find persons independently and based on my own experience. I tend to use the preferred names as back-ups unless my preference and the authors coincide.

The reason for my slight aversion towards the preferred is that some authors tend to list friends and other persons who are obviously close to the authors. I have seen many low quality reviews come out from such reviewers an clearly at a rate very different from independently chosen reviewers. Judging what is too close is not easy and sometimes it may be justified if, for example, the topic is such that local knowledge comes into play. For the reason of uncertainty I therefore try to at least mix them up so that one is chosen by me independently and the other is selected from the authors suggestions.

So, try to assess the quality of the preferred reviewers and at least try to find some to complement a preferred reviewer will be my advice.

It is also common that authors list non-preferred reviewers. I always stay clear of such reviewers since I do not know what lies beneath the sentiment.


What should I be doing now to get a good recommendation letter as a graduate student? I am currently doing a Master's degree in applied mathematics. I am worried though about after I complete my degree and I apply to another graduate school for an applied mathematics PhD program. While I have a good relationship with my supervisor an expect to get a good recommendation letter, most graduate schools and research award applications require three.

My question is what should I be doing now to ensure that I can easily get good recommendation letters when I graduate?

Right now I spend most of my time doing research which by it's nature in my field is a solo activity in collaboration with my supervisor. The rest of my time is being a teaching assistant, and doing a few extra circulars. I want to start working on getting good recommendations while I still have time before I graduate.

More Personal Notes

I am in my first year, started September 2017.
Things I do outside of research and being a teaching assistant include being part of my school's graduate society, and mentoring undergraduate students in the department.

One suggestion is to get a good teaching reference if you're working as a TA.  Most departments have one or more faculty who supervise graduate student TA's.  If you're actually leading a recitation section or teaching a class, you should ask this person if they would be willing to write a recommendation letter addressing your teaching and you should invite them to observe you in the classroom environment.  A good letter of this support together with good student evaluations will make a strong case for your ability as an instructor.


Finding Post-PhD employment in Mathematics - How difficult? I have completed a 4 year bachelor of Mathematics at a decent university, and a comment was made by Pete L. Clark, on this website, here: "post-PhD academic job market is one step shy of airtight at the moment."

I was intending to study a PhD in america, and am wondering if his statement rings true in the most part. Is it truly difficult to find a post-PhD academic job, specifically in Mathematics, and if so, are there relevant statistics backing this up?

The American Mathematical Society publishes detailed data about mathematics employment in the United States.  In particular, the Report on New Doctoral Recipients has

  "... information about the fall employment plans of doctoral recipients, a demographic profile summarizing characteristics of citizenship status, gender, and racial/ethnic group, the starting salaries, and other employment information about new doctoral recipients"

The data is always delayed by a year because of response and processing time. The most recent report as I write this is 2013-2014. My own take is as follows.

First, the statistics show that the overall unemployment rate is low: a new math PhD recipient is likely to be able to find a job of some sort immediately after graduation. In 2013-14, 85% of math PhD recipients were known to be employed immediately after graduation, and only 5% were known to still be looking (9% were unknown).  This is partially due to the ability of mathematics PhDs to look for jobs in business, industry, and government, although the majority work in academia.

Second, based on my personal opinion and experience, the job market for postdocs and research-intensive tenure track positions is very competitive (this is true both in the U.S. and Europe, as well as some other countries and regions). You will need to be one of the very strongest candidates in your area to have a reasonable chance at such jobs.

Third, the market for tenure-track positions at non-research-intensive colleges is also competitive, but in a different way. For these, you want to have a strong vita showing teaching skill and research ability in line with the institution where you are applying.  Simply having a PhD and teaching a handful of classes as an graduate student is unlikely to make you stand out from the other applicants.

Overall, because the job market is competitive, if you do enter a PhD program, you need to plan early for the career path you wish to follow. Simply "getting a PhD", and only worrying about the job market in your last semester, is not a good strategy. You want to begin shaping your vita early in your graduate program so that you are in a good position when you graduate.


Is it considered plagiarism for a professor to use uncited sources in teaching materials? I have a professor at my university who uses content from an un-cited textbook that he has never referenced anywhere, including his green sheet (syllabus), as an additional resource. At least some slides he has used include parts of content that have been re-worded and others that are 100% the same. I noticed this by Googling for textbooks on the material we're studying in class and found that examples given in one that I found were exactly the same as what he has provided.

Would this technically be plagiarism? Should he be given the benefit of the doubt in this situation?

Plagiarism involves dishonesty: taking someone else's work and leading others to believe it is your own.

In the case of unpublished teaching materials, I don't think it's assumed that all the examples, etc., a professor uses are original unless an outside source is cited. So I wouldn't strictly consider this plagiarism (though citing outside sources is definitely preferable to not citing them).

It's possible that in your academic culture it is assumed that all of a professor's materials are original, in which case, the above would not apply.


Small bugs during review in software tool paper I am reviewing a software library tool at the moment.
During the review, I found some minor bugs while running their examples. However, it seems like nobody else has these bugs (at least I cant find them on the Github issue page). Otherwise, the library seems to be great. Should I recommend an accept pointing to these bugs or post the issues on Github (which could technically reveal my identity though, which would be against the blind review process).

You should submit the bugs with your review, not through Github.


How much do budgets affect likelihood of grant funding? I am preparing an NSF standard grant in mathematics, and I need to prepare a budget. As is typical I am requesting two months' summer salary, a travel budget, some money for student support, and a couple of other minor odds and ends -- but I'm not sure how much to request. I don't need anything, but I could make good use of essentially an unlimited amount of money.

One guideline is the average award sizes, which are published by the NSF. It seems quite reasonable to request approximately the average, and this is what I will probably do. But sometimes I wonder if I am wasting the opportunity to request more, for example to allow more of our students to travel to conferences. This is especially true since I would still be happy to be funded even if my budget was cut.

When I get the opportunity, I will ask my question in person to someone who has served on a panel in my discipline. For now, perhaps it is useful to ask the interwebs: generally speaking, what is the relationship between the amount of the requested budget and the likelihood of funding?

A badly written budget could put your proposal out of contention, but a well written budget that scrimps on costs isn't likely to help you get funded (what are the odds that your project is "on the bubble" for funding and just fits within the total funds available?)

In your proposal you should ask for what you need to get the research project done and to support the "broader impact" of the proposal.  Don't load up the budget with unnecessary expenses just so that you can get a larger award.  On the other hand, don't prepare a low-ball budget that doesn't include adequate funding for travel, students, etc.  Being too extreme in either direction can hurt the reviews of your proposal.

Be aware of your institution's overhead rate and if it is higher than normal, don't be surprised if your budget is larger than average for the program that you're applying to.  If your institution has a relatively low overhead rate, than don't be surprised if your budget comes out on the low side of average. A lot of the variation in budgets is due to differences in overhead rates (along with PI salaries and the cost of students.)

Also, work with your "restricted funds" office to make sure that your budget conforms to your institution's regulations as well as the applicable federal regulations.

In my experience, the likelihood of getting funded seems to have little connection to the size of the budget, as long as the budget is within the normal range for the program, the expenditures make sense for the project, and there aren't any very expensive looking items.

For a grant in mathematics you really should have a very a simple budget and it shouldn't be hard to justify the budget.  Compare this with some grants I've worked on with earth scientists that included international travel to places like Peru and Tibet, shipping boxes of rocks internationally, expensive laboratory tests, etc.


Assignment extensions for no apparent reasons (USA) I recently started teaching activities in an American institution.

I have had a couple of students asking for extensions for problem sets / project deadlines for medical or family reasons, which is obviously acceptable. More unexpectedly, other students asked for extensions because they also had problem sets, quizzes and projects due for other classes during the same period (end of semester). Note that there is a buffer period between classes and exams, so we are not talking about conflicts with finals here.

I studied in a different country, in a notoriously work-intensive institution, so the idea that having homework for class X would somehow be an excuse to turn in homework late for class Y simply never occurred to me. I feel that no class should have priority over other classes - if it was the case, differences in credits would reflect that (my class is not a "small one" with little credit). Yes, sometimes students have a lot of work - but is it not part of real life too? On the other hand, the fact that students made these requests so openly makes me think that it might be normal here in the US, and I wouldn't want to be more strict than the local standards.

Is there any kind of norm regarding what is considered as an acceptable reason to ask for an extension?

The short answer is that opinions on granting extensions vary between institutions and even departments. Some universities view extensions as a way to support student learning. They argue that they want students to be able to get the most out of each assignment and so when the student completes the work is less important than that they do eventually complete it and are able to focus their full attention on it.

Other universities hold the same perspective that you do, that learning to manage deadlines is an important piece of being a student, and that allowing for extensions whenever asked is doing a disservice to students.

The chair of your department or even the other faculty should be able to give you insight on expectations that you should follow and on what is customary. I strongly recommend that you talk to them, since they know your students.

Another option is to pre-emptively institute a limited extension system for all students. The mathematics and computer science courses at my undergraduate college used this tactic to great success. On the first day of the semester, the professor told the students that each of them had a certain number of "late days" (usually 4 for a class with weekly assignments), which would grant a student 24 hours of automatic extension. These could be used at any time on any assignment except for group work or exams. Students did not need to provide a reason for using a late day, although they did need to inform the professor/a TA that they were. There was usually a form online for students to fill out. Students could use them as they wanted- all at once or one at a time. Some professors gave small amounts of extra credit for having late days remaining at the end of the semester, and some allowed students to earn extra late days throughout the semester by doing extra credit work, handing in assignments significantly early, or going to relevant talks, etc.

The benefit of a system like late days is that most students will feel less stressed and more in control of their own time. It thus enables you, as the professor, to hold a quite strict "no other extensions unless absolute emergency" policy. It was well understood that if a student used up all of their late days early on and then got minorly sick or had a job interview or had something else come up, that was just too bad. They would turn in what they had. Further extensions were typically only granted if the student or a family member was in the hospital or if they had formal accommodations through the college itself.


Including link to professor's page in resume I am applying for PhD positions in computer science. I have been fortunate to get the opportunity to research under some really good professors (specifically, one who has a high h-index, another who is the academic director of a large scientific institution). While these professors are respected, they are not pioneers in the field and so not known to everyone.

Thus, while mentioning that I worked with these professors (specifically in my resume, but in general wherever it's required), I usually include a link to their profile. My question is, is there a specific format or convention that people follow while providing more information about a professor?

For instance, many professors have multiple profile pages across different institutions that they're associated with---which one should be used then? Sometimes, they have poorly maintained profile pages but have really good research work, which makes their Google scholar page much more impressive. Some even have Wikipedia articles about them.

If I want to highlight different aspects about a professor, can I link different pages against their names? In my case, that would mean linking the Google Scholar page for the professor with the high h-index while linking the profile page of the professor holding the important position.

I would assume taht someone really interested is capable of using a search engine. Personally, I would find it strange if there are any links.


I am going to teach a course, but the classes have already started with another professor. Any tips? I am the assigned professor for a course, but won't be able to teach its first two or three weeks.

The University has appointed a substitute for those weeks. Any tips on things I could do to smooth the transition? Things I should be aware of?

Thank you!

It's a hard situation. I hope the other teacher can update you on what was done. Preferably with a bit of lead time before you take over.

I would, myself, spend the first session back doing a review. Or at least the first hour if classes are long. Ask the students a lot of questions. "What was the most important thing you learned in the past weeks?" "Anyone else? What..."

Try to make a list of the things that they thought were important. Have them ask you a bunch of questions also. How can you help fill in as necessary? One way to get a lot of questions is to ask for them to be written out on index cards. They can be anonymous.

This session should be mostly the students talking and you listening and prompting. Don't try to cover new material. Another trick is to ask them to write out (and hand in) sample test questions based on the previous weeks. Read these aloud as time permits. Get feedback from them on the questions.

Your goal is twofold: "where are they" and "how can we make a smooth transition".

This should give you a good basis for understanding where you can start in the next session. It should also give you a certain rapport with them as someone who listens.

But you will need to be flexible about where and how you start so that the transition is smooth.


Is there a website where I can post my CV where potential academic employers can find me? Is there a website where I can post my CV where potential academic employers can find me? To be more precise, I'm looking for postdoctoral position in the areas that uses differential geometry but could also use statistics, for example, computational neuroscience, computer vision, manifold learning etc.

P.S. this is my main question. But if you could answer the same question for industries for using the above topics and could access my CV online, that'd be well appreciated, because in case I don't get a postdoc, I'm keeping myself open to industry too.

Thanks in advance!

Academic employers in my experience don't go looking on websites for candidates. We post jobs to our own websites, advertise in professional society magazines, and on certain mailing lists and LinkedIn. We get so many applicants this way, that actually searching out candidates on our own is frequently unnecessary.


When to refer to a paper as "seminal" I am writing a paper that relies heavily upon some important work done some 10  years ago. The paper was well received gathering well over a 100 citations and is a must mention within my niche field. I would like to reference the paper as seminal as in "so and so, et. al., in a seminal paper..." but am not sure that would be appropriate. I recognize 100 citations isn't a lot in the scheme of things but at the same time this paper was very important within my niche field.

Under what circumstances can one decide a paper is seminal? Must the person citing it be well renowned? Must the author of the considered paper be well renowned? Is there a citation # that should be exceeded (I really don't like that one, it seems too inflexible)?

Neither I nor my professor are especially well established in the field we are publishing in (this will be my first publication and my professor mainly publishes in another field). Are we qualified to refer to a publication in this field as "seminal"?

I would understand "seminal" to indicate that  (a) the paper was the the first in some sense, and (b) that it led to a lot of subsequent research. For example, a paper proposes and tests a theoretical idea, and then lots of other people come along and test that idea building on the original study.

It doesn't matter that you are not established in a field. Anyone can use the word "seminal". It's just that using it correctly requires a good understanding of your field and the interconnections of research papers.

Having a lot of citations is necessary but not sufficient to show that a paper has led to subsequent research. Some citations don't mean much on its own.


Can we add articles downloaded from Sci-Hub to a meta-analysis study? Is it safe and legal to add articles downloaded from Sci-Hub to a meta-analysis study(unpublished)? Will it make any difference? Are there any consequences?

If you disclose that you downloaded it from Sci-Hub, one cannot rule out that you will suffer legal consequences one day (alongside, perhaps, social punishments based on moral grounds). But given the almost non-existence of a legal enforcement against the individual use of this 'pirate', I find it unlikely.
To be on the safe side, you should simply not disclose the source from which you downloaded that publication. Mention it, discuss it, cite it, but do so without telling the reader how you acquired the PDF. This would be too much detail anyway.
(Yes, a meta-analysis would do good to disclose how it came to include certain studies, but it does not have to tell the reader in minute detail how you downloaded each study's PDF.)


Where can I get graduate level "tutoring"? I'm a practitioner who is struggling with techniques from some difficult academic papers (computer science & mathematics). How can I find "tutors" (graduate students perhaps?) who are willing to work on an occasional basis to help me understand specific papers?

I would contact the math department at your local university.

I would be prepared to pay them well, they have lots of responsibilities and demands on their time as it is and it can be quite a lot of work to work through an academic paper, not to mention the effort involved in compiling background material to essentially teach this material to someone else.

If I were a graduate student still, I wouldn't do it for less than around $75 an hour, because the time I would have to put in to give essentially 2 hours a week of this kind of tutoring would be closer to about 6 hours, so even then it starts to sound barely worth it.


Are there post-doc grants available for non-US citizens in the US? I was looking for postdoctoral grants/fellowships for a potential post-doc opportunity in the US. It appears as the entire grant/fellowship system is geared towards US citizens, or permanent residents of the US. It is understandable with respect to use of federal resources, but slightly discouraging nevertheless.

Are there any funding opportunities available for non-US citizen? In terms of field I'm interested specifically in Biomedical and STEM fieds.

There is relatively little funding of the sort you are looking for--funding that non-U.S. residents can apply for directly to fund post-doctoral work inside the U.S.  However, that is not really that important, since that is not how most post-doc positions are funded anyway.

Most post-docs do not apply for their own funding.  The funding comes from the institution that hires the post-doc (Very often--but not always--the money ultimately comes from a research grant from an outside agency, but the post-doc would not be involved in writing or administering the grant.)  If an institution has funds for a post-doc, they will advertise a job opening and hire somebody.  Generally, the search is global; they would be willing to hire somebody from anywhere in the world, provided they are a qualified.  (There are some technical caveats about how this works, but they are of little import in practice; and--again--they are things that the hiring institution mostly needs to worry about, not the person they choose to hire.)


How can I not forget university mathematics? I am a first year undergraduate student of mathematics. Nevertheless, I have (self-)studied a total of 19 (UG and PG) books, cover to cover already, at home not in classes. The method of studying was to study a book (i.e. for first time) without doing the exercises with understanding at least 80% of it; in other words, "reading" or not involving in all technicalities. Afterwards, for second time I analysed every line of the book with doing all exercises.

However, even with twice study I have forgotten almost all of the 19 books. To be precise, if I take a test one week after I am finishing a book (the second cycle of studying) I would get a perfect score; on the other hand, if I take a test about 6 months after that initial test I would get 5%-10% score!

Quite the opposite, I do remember every mathematics that I have learned in high school and I will probably remember after 20 years!

I thought about that quite a lot and I cannot figure that out why is there such a big difference. Or more practically, what can I do to learn university mathematics as 'mind-sticky' as high-school mathematics?

In order to learn anything you need to cause physical changes in the brain. This requires repetition and reinforcement. The brain actually re-wires itself by forming new connections between neurons. Your initial reading is probably doing little for you as you just pass over the material. If you read, for example, The Iliad, it is a nice story, but you won't remember much of the detail of it after you finish. Only a few things will stand out. And mathematics is worse because it is the connections between things that are essential.

Your second pass, doing all the exercises is better, but apparently not enough.

Engage with the material.

As you study take notes as you go. Summarize each chapter of the book. Write down the three most important ideas in each chapter. Better yet, each time you have a "study session" write down what you think are the most important ideas (but not everything). When you finish, go over those notes again and write down the three most important ideas.

When you go back to study for another session. Try to remember what the important ideas were from the previous session. If you can't go back and review your notes.

Periodically, review your notes. You don't have anyone to give you an exam, which is the trick professors use to get you to review, so you will have to make that part of your regular process.

If you take notes on index cards you can carry your summary cards with you for review. If you have to wait for anything for a few minutes, you can pull out your cards and shuffle through them. You can also rearrange them and create mini-decks of important ideas.

But the idea is to force the important concepts from short term memory into long term. Memorization isn't the goal, however. It is making the remembered ideas useful. Connecting one idea to another. A math problem seldom depends on only a single idea for solution. You need to combine them. Memorization alone won't do that for you, but solving lots of problems will. There used to be (and may still be) books you could buy that had nothing in them but exercises. I once used those books to help solidify my knowledge.

You can also make up problems for yourself. If you want to know what, for example, derivatives can tell you about the shape of a curve/function of a certain kind, graph a lot of such functions by hand, on paper. If you graph, say, 100 rational functions by hand using the first and second derivatives, you will get a feel both for rational functions and for derivatives.

It is that sort of reinforcement that leads to learning.


Letter of recommendations from computer science professor for humanities? I am trying to apply for humanities (PhD is pure humanities) graduate school in USA next year. I am going to graduate with a bachelor in computer science. The application requires three letters of recommendation, how am I supposed to get those letters of recommendations? We studied zero humanities subjects. I study in Europe.

I suppose that you’re just going to have to work with the letters you have. You should let your letter writers know what the target program is so they can potentially tailor it to the best of their ability.
In any case, the point of the letters is mostly to indicate your research potential. This can definitely be indicated regardless of discipline.


Giving up good position because of studies I earned my Bachelor Degree in Computer Science 5 years ago. From the moment when I have a diploma in my hands, I thought, enough I never return to academia, no matter what happens. I was very keen to start working.

By the moment I changed few workplaces. I wanted to try all kind of positions that computer science man can get. All my positions were not very interesting. I wouldn't say I became very experienced programmer, I have some experience, but I don't have a field I am good at, and actually I am not too worried about that. The main problem I think is I don't feel that I do something useful or something challenging, actually, I feel that I waste my time. I do my job, but I don't feel I contribute to myself.

Few years ago I realized that may be it's worth returning to academy. Simply, just because I remember it wasn't boring. I sent few application letters to few good universities in my country, but they didn't apply me. There were universities that just refused without any explanation, and in few of them I fault in interview.

In this situation, I decide if no official program is allowed, I can just take few courses of Master Degree in any university. The result of my first course was very terrible, I think I was the worsen student on the course. But afterward there was a gradually improvement in the grades (I never took the same course twice). This year again I sent few application letters with my grades, and I was applied by all universities.

The problem is by now I have a very good position in very successful start-up company. The position is very hard and almost all the time in the office I am under a high pressure, but of course, there are benefits of a successful start-up company, fast promotion, investment, but still I have a feeling that I am doing something wrong.

I don't have a decision yet, either postpone my studies or give up good position. Have you found yourself in a similar situation, when you have give up a lot, just because you want to do something you was dreaming about? Particularly, have you gave up you job for studies, and do you regret about your decision?

tl;dnr: A few years ago, I didn't like my computer programming job.  I was good enough at it, but the job wasn't very challenging and didn't offer much room for personal growth.  I felt like I was wasting my time. Even though I had sworn that I never would, I applied to grad school.  I was not accepted as a full-time student, so I just started taking classes as a non-degree student.  Initially I did badly, but over a few years I improved.  Recently, I was admitted to grad school.  But by now I have a great job in a fast-paced startup.  So I'm torn about whether to quit my job to return to school.  What do you suggest?

An important consideration is "window of opportunity".  How long will you have the chance to go back to school?  Will the school be happy to let you defer for a year?  In contrast, if you leave your current job for school, is there a good chance that you could return to work there after you finish a masters degree?

Also ask "What are my long-term goals?"  It sounds like you mainly want to be challenged and experience personal growth; perhaps also to "do something useful".  Do you have others long-term goals?  How likely are you to be happy and on your way to these goals in 5 or 10 years if you stay at your current job.  Grad school can be fun, but it's often just a way to delay "real life" for a few years.  If you get a masters, will that really help you to be happier with your life and where you're headed 5 or 10 years after you finish school?


Do tenure reviews in U.S. universities usually consider the number of PhD students that a professor successfully graduates? When it comes to the tenure review process, someone puts it like the way it's put below:

  The tenure review process is designed to determine whether someone has
  "the ability to do their job." The junior faculty member has six years
  to construct a track record of success. During these six years, the
  junior faculty member acquires teaching evaluatons from students and
  colleagues. The junior faculty member acquires grants and sets up a
  lab with a productive research program. The junior faculty member
  develops a reputation of collegiality and service within the
  department and the university.

Though that's how it's done in name. Others, like Sean Carroll, say that research is far more important than teaching (which is probably true in the elite private universities).

What about things like successfully graduating PhD students though? Can a PhD student help an assistant professor gain tenure? I'm particularly curious about whether or not this applies for all universities - both in the elite privates and the public ones.

How many graduate students a professor helps through the program can have a number of impacts on tenure - including some I'll likely miss. Off the top of my head:

As a former student, I have been asked to write a letter on behalf of a mentor of mine. The more students one helps launch off into bright, shiny, productive careers, the more of these letters should be positive and strong.
PhD students are heavily correlated with research productivity. One person can only be so productive - having a thriving lab with graduate students passing through it can help boost publications, productivity, etc. all of which may very well help one's tenure portfolio.
To address "like Sean Carroll, say that research is far more important than teaching" - your actual, direct supervised graduate students really don't fall under "teaching" in many cases, and are much closer to either the research or service end of things.

Keep in mind that, with the tenure clock of many universities, a junior professor may very reasonably not have graduated any students from their lab by the time they come up for tenure. But being a good mentor and building a pool of capable graduate students can help one's tenure application in a number of ways even if the committee doesn't look at it as a solitary number.


Are ethnic "minorities" given preference in PhD admissions in the US? I have a question about college education, or more specifically, admittance into college education in the US.

Since as far as I remember, I've always heard that colleges or universities in the US have a sort of special preference for admitting people that are considered "minorities". I would like to know if this is true, and if so, what it entails.

For example, I myself was born elsewhere but moved to the US at an early age, and eventually became a citizen. I don't know where this places me as far as "minority" programs go, if they exist. I imagine there'd be a sort of hierarchy such as scholarships > minority with scholarship > minority, but I really have no clue.

This interests me because I am studying in a university outside the US, and I'm considering applying for a PhD program in the US. I'm aware that schools function differently, but if someone knows of this topic for a specific school it'd help.

There is a slight preference in the US for what are known as "underrepresented minorities"—that is, people who belong to groups who are not adequately represented in college enrollment relative to their proportion in the general population. That currently includes groups such as Hispanics, African-Americans, and Native Americans, but not groups such as Asian-Americans. So long as someone is a citizen, it does not really matter if one was naturalized or was a "born" citizen.

This does not mean that quotas are used, but it can be used as a "plus" quality in terms of admissions and hiring decisions.


Can I ask reviewers (via the editor) whether they lost track halfway through the paper? I submitted a paper to a journal in linguistics. It was accepted pending some minor revisions w.r.t. typesetting and a few sentences that had to be reformulated. The reviewers gave eight comments on the introductory section, comprising roughly 1/3 of the paper, and only one on the rest. On the one hand, this may be expected, because I am less proficient with the broader context of the introduction and had most difficulties writing that section. On the other hand, I'm slightly worried that the reviewers lost track of the train of thought halfway through the paper.

I would like to know if the reviewers got lost in the paper, and what I might do to improve it if necessary. However, I have not found a good way to ask the editor. I don't want to suggest that the paper should not be published or that the reviewers may have been lazy or stupid. How can I ask for more feedback? Or should I just assume that no comments means well written?

I do not know how many people reviewed the paper; the editor aggregated the comments before sending them to me.

This sounds like you wrote a good paper with some minor problems in the background/introduction that need fixing/polishing.

If reviewers get lost they should (and most likely will) mention that, and make you work a lot more. If, however, the editor and all reviewers have nothing to complain, your paper should be alright.


Is it ethical for a journal editor to use a generic rejection response when desk rejecting a manuscript? Is it ethical for a journal editor to provide the same response to many authors?

Here is an example generic rejection comment made by a journal editor:

  All manuscripts are initially assessed by the editors to ensure they
  meet the criteria for publication in the journal. After careful
  evaluation of your manuscript, I regret to inform you that I do not
  find your manuscript suitable for publication in Journal because
  it does not meet the impact requirements of the journal. Therefore
  your article has been rejected from Journal.

Yes.

It is ethical—and moreover, common and accepted practice—for a journal editor to provide the response that you quote to many authors.

You've received what is commonly known as a desk rejection, where the editor uses their own judgement to determine whether the paper is suitable for and likely to be accepted for publication in the journal.  If the editor's professional judgment is that your paper is out of scope, or that there is no realistic chance of acceptance, then this response is not only ethical but the best response you can hope for, because the near-certain alternative is several months waiting for referee reports followed by rejection.


"Stealth" interviews I am an assistant professor and was invited to do a "stealth" interview at another university.

Should I really treat this interview as a secret (and risk that others in my department find out through the grapevine), or should I go ahead and tell my department chair now (even though it is just an interview)? What are the pros and cons of each?

There's absolutely no payoff to telling your chair that another university might be interested in you unless and until you have an offer you think you might want to accept.

If an interview visit is confidential or, as you put it, "stealth", everyone involved should know what that means and there should be very little risk that word of your visit will filter back to your home institution.


Applying for another job within same department? I've been a postdoc for just under a year in a nice lab, and I have no problems with my boss or colleagues. However, another position has just come up in the same department, which fits way better with my career plans. I've been advised to apply anyway, and only mention it to my boss after an interview / offer are made, if I get as far as that. The reasoning being, there's no need to cause awkwardness in the group if I'm not even shortlisted. The problem is, the HR persons responsible for recruitment are the same for both departments. So, even if I ask for confidentiality in the application form, it's not impossible that the information could leak to one of my colleagues.

So the questions are:
 - From a PI's perspective, how acceptable is it to hear one of your postdocs is trying to move to another job in the same department?
 - From a postdoc's perspective, what is the less damaging strategy in this scenario? Try to keep it confidential, and risk the info leaking to your PI? Or telling your PI about it before you apply, and risk creating an awkward feeling among your group - especially if you don't get the job?

Disclaimer: I'm aware of previous questions around the theme of multiple job applications to the same University / department; and of questions about changing departments while in a graduate program. What I'm asking is neither of those, as you're already employed and thinking of moving within the same department.

This seems to me to depend on personalities more than anything. You need to make a judgement about the reaction of your boss. Most people, IMO, would support you in any career advancement. Giving early notice, in most situations, is beneficial, as it lets them know that they may need to search for a replacement or otherwise arrange schedules, etc.

Putting your options out, as you have here (fantastic opportunity, career goals...) would probably be a good way to approach it. I don't think anyone expects you will remain a post-doc forever.

If your boss is a reasonable person, then it would seem to me that s/he would be happy for you, and happy that if you get the new position that you will still be available for consultation and that your expertise won't be lost.

There are exceptions, of course, even beyond personality. If one is working with highly sensitive information, for example, it might be necessary to escort them off premises immediately on hearing that they might be leaving. But the situations in which you would need to hide your application would, to me, be rare.

Finally, I think that the issue of same department has no real world meaning in such a decision. For example, most people would celebrate a move from post-doc to tenure track faculty.


Should I cite a really bad research paper published in my small research area? I am working on a special topic in applied math. We are trying to explore a new and largely unexplored area in our line of research. Our hope is to be the first researchers to have solid results in this new line of research.

Couple days ago, my co-author and I have stumbled upon a paper that is titled almost exactly as the topic that we wish to explore and publish.

However, upon further reading, we realized that the paper (despite being published in a journal) is actually very low quality. Not only that the theoretical guarantees does not support any of the applications in the paper, the theories themselves are also very poorly explained, definitions are missing, handwavy at times, and we suspect that the proofs are wrong, but cannot be verified due to author's lengthy and unconventional proof style, which involves some vague interpretation of results contained in other references, one of which is written in a language that is completely foreign to us and couldn't be found online after a quick Google search.

This isn't to say that the authors are cranks (even though the paper reads like one). The paper is roughly 10 pages. Properly formatted in the style of the journal. With ample (albeit, strange) diagrams. It is just that the results are confounding, suspicious, and paper is lacking in rigor, despite being peer reviewed and published in a journal.

For what it is worth, the authors are not working at a top-tier research institute and the journal is not the highest quality of this field.

What should we do when we start our writing process?

Should we painstakingly go through the process of providing a
critique of a paper that is written in such a way that it is difficult to critique (without dismissing it as poor writing)?
Or should we ignore the paper and pretend that we didn't see it? (Despite the fact we wish to work on the same, very specific, topic?)
Ultimately, what should you do when you see bad research papers like these?

Yes you should cite it because:

You know about that paper
You read it in the context of preparing your work. Finding gaps and flaws in previous works is a major part of designing and refining your own research
By your own judgement it’s highly relevant.

Explain your rebuttal of their claims or method using proper scientific arguments. If I were you I would refrain from using words like “hand waving” or “cranks” in a scientific context.

Whether or not you are the first to discover something isn’t really something you can control. It’s possible that they actually did find something of value but were bad at communicating it. From what you say there seem to be still time for you to be the first to get it right but you won’t achieve that by ignoring previous work.


Benefit of having more than required courses on a Ph.D. transcript I am in the second year of my Ph.D. in computational Physics I have already fulfilled the course requirement according to the university doctoral school. However, I am interested in two more courses that are being offered this semester. I am planning to take them. I mentioned these two courses to my advisor and he said that they could be helpful for my research. He said that it's up to me if I want to properly register for these courses or just sit in class without registration and learn the course content.
I am wondering what is the impact of having more than required courses on a Ph.D. transcript? I will be learning these courses in either way. If I don't register, I would not be bound to take final exams (a little relief). But if having more courses on a Ph.D. transcript shows a positive feature (for a job or postdoc position), I would not mind taking final exams.

Once you have your doctorate people are very unlikely to care which courses you took to get there. Especially in academia, though there might be some value for a specialized industrial job.
The trick, however, is whether sitting in will give you enough incentive to learn the material enough to benefit your research. Probably it will, based on your question, but some people need a goad to work hard.
If the knowledge will be helpful and you can put in some effort, then I'd suggest just sitting in (or auditing) would be best. You don't want additional courses to actually interfere with your research.


Can one compensate for poor funding performance elsewhere in determining academic promotion? Follow up question to How does research funding work in determining academic promotions? since it was too broad.

Take two equally talented researchers, Alice & Bob. To what extent will it matter if Alice has a large amount of grant funding, compared Bob who has little or no grant funding? Can Bob compensate for his lack of grant funding by, e.g., having better teaching evaluations or supervising more undergraduate students?

Like your other recent questions, this depends on many things, but most especially on the mission of a given institution. In some places good research would vastly outweigh good funding. In others, just the opposite. In teaching institutions, as opposed to primarily research universities, teach might outweigh everything else by a large margin.

But there are certainly institutions where the only viable path to tenure goes through the funding institutions and a successful and continuing record of attracting money. I some of these, the research is actually primarily carried out by the students, not the PI, though under the direction of the PI who is able to fund the lab and its student researchers.

So, first look to the stated mission of the place before making any assumptions. Then make sure that the actual mission is consistent with the stated mission. Sometimes they are at odds for various reasons.


On writing critical review: is there any threat? During my research on a specific topic, I found two interesting papers by same authors. So, I decided to implement their proposed idea but it was not possible. At first, I thought that I was wrong but after thorough exploration of the papers and reading other papers in the field, I found many mistakes and errors within those papers.

For examples, some of the standard and common rules were presented mistakenly. Since the papers published in highly-esteemed journals, it should be considered as a real drawback. Frankly saying, I take it as some type of betraying to the science and research community.

It seems that either they did not have adequate knowledge to write such a paper or they intentionally added some noise (!) to the paper to make the simulation by others impossible.
So, me and my supervisor have decided to write a critical review for those papers. However, I'm afraid of the consequences.

Can this be a possible scenario that the authors - specifically the somewhat famous ones - affect my future researches, for example trying to reject my papers through their relationships with other editors and researchers, i.e. blacklisting me.

Have you tried talking to the authors directly?

Reach out to the authors before you publish.  Don't phrase it as a criticism.  Try something like.

  I'm confused by how your paper used X, Y, and Z.  The normal interpretation is W.


Use academic degrees in thesis acknowledgments In theses, students typically write acknowledgments thanking their supervisor, co-supervisor, other advisors, etc.

Maybe everyone can just do it at will, but is there any best practice, if academic degrees should be used in the acknowledgements?

In the ones I have seen, they are mostly omitted, but my guess is that this is pretty country and field dependent. You should look at other thesis published in your department, and see if they include them.

Once you know what the norm is, do as you wish. Acknowledgements are the part of your thesis that is most yours, and you should write whatever feels right.


Is the distinction between qualitative and quantitative methodology still significant today? Some scholarly articles explain in detail the epistemological and ontological differences of the two methods, while some argue that the distinction between them is now blurred. I try to reconcile this inconsistency by thinking that quantitative and qualitative traditions form a methodological spectrum, where pure quantitative and qualitative approaches are situated at the opposing extremes, while mixed-methods are at the middle.

Is the distinction between the research traditions still significant? And if yes, do social scientists promote a "methodological spectrum" or do they still deny the compatibility of the two?

In nearly every scientific field you will find that some investigations are more heavily quantitative while others are quite qualitative in nature.  I find that the difference tends to be that qualitative investigations are more exploratory, observing a phenomenon in its natural conditions to establish that it really exists or to gather case-study sorts of information, while quantitative investigations are more aiming at firmly establishing an explanatory model.  The boundaries, however, are quite incremental and blurry, and I'm not quite sure what the value is of trying to draw a distinction, rather than simply saying: "this is the mixture of methods that can best study these phenomena at present."

Thus, while I don't know what the current vogue in theory of science is, I would be startled if it did not include a spectrum.


Publishing tutorials What are my options for publishing tutorials?

I would like to publish tutorials for specific methods of statistical analysis using a third party software package with some of my own code for handling the data. Something along the lines of this example - Analysis of Diallels using SAS.

The tutorial you are referring to may be suitable for Protocol Exchange. These protocols are not peer-reviewed, and you can include supplementary materials such as computer code. Or else, if you think your method would have wide applicability, you could consider submitting to Nature Protocols, which is peer-reviewed.


How to cope with a situation, when I withdrew from a job search, but now I regret it? I applied for a position. Before the interview, I was encouraged by the selection committee that I was a very good candidate. But I was not sure. I thought it is far more above my capabilities, I was not sure what to do with my family (it was not a permanent position), etc. After the interview, I just withdrew even before I knew the results.

Now, after a couple of weeks, I think I made a mistake. Should I try to correct it? To ask them if the position is still available? It is in different country, so I have only email contacts.

Or should I just leave it as it is? I have the feeling, that if I will leave as it is, they will think I am arrogant because I rejected them. What would be the best solution?

Two weeks sounds like a lot of time and it is likely the position was already offered to another candidate. If it was, you lose nothing by sending an email. If it was not, they probably do not have an appointable candidate and in this case they can be actually quite happy to offer the position to you. However, consider providing a brief explanation of why you have withdrawn and why you are now asking to reconsider you for the post. The appointing committee needs some reassurance that you will take the post if you are offered it.


How to deal with a professor who grades assignments and exams incorrectly I currently have a (graduate) professor who clearly does not understand the material she teaches at the level required by the course. This normally would not be a problem - I'm fine with educating myself via textbook - but unfortunately her inaccurate knowledge also extends to grading. I have no problem with studying hard for a difficult class, but I can't possibly know how to predict the exact incorrect ideas that the professor has and incorporate them into my work.

My first response was to very, verrrrry diplomatically approach the professor and talk to her about the questions - but she immediately became angry. I then talked to my advisor, who said that this isn't the first time she's heard of problems with this teacher. My advisor said that her only idea is for me to go to the head of the department, but I'd really prefer not to do this for two reasons:

Relatively small department; it's likely that this professor has
a good relationship with the department head, and I would look bad
It seems like a "nuclear option" and I would prefer to avoid it
(if possible)

This is my last semester of graduate coursework in molecular biology, and I have never had a problem like this before. I feel like my only option is to drop the course - without it, I would still have all my coursework requirements fulfilled - but I don't want to have a W on my transcript.

I have been unable to come up with a satisfactory way to resolve the problem.

Possibly helpful additional information

I have talked to other students in the class; all (of the six I have talked to about the issue) have experienced similar problems in grading
I have confirmation from other teachers that my answers are correct, but they don't want to confront a colleague (and I can't fault them for this)
I don't dislike the teacher; she seems like a relatively OK person. I just wish she understood the content better
The teacher can't possibly have a grudge against me, since I had never met her before the class
I'm  very interested in what this class covers, which is why I took it despite not needing to
I have taught some of this material at the undergraduate and graduate level; I understand it's difficult stuff. It's more the teacher's attitude towards grading that is the problem.

Not a definitive answer, since I’m a postdoc with comparatively limited experience of such conflict situations, but I do have a few suggestions.  They aim to:

maximise the chance of getting better grading without ruffling too many feathers;
give you solid documentation if you do end up escalating the complaint;
minimise the embarrassment in case it turns out that you’re misunderstanding something and your lecturer’s grading is defensible after all.

If you confront the teacher again, do so by email rather than in person.  This has several advantages.  Firstly, it allows you to look over what you’ve written and make sure you’re phrasing everything as tactfully as possible.  Secondly, it gives her time to (hopefully) get over any initial anger/embarrassment and give a considered response.  Confronted on a sensitive topic in person, it’s easy to get flustered and defensive, and entrenched in a position it’s difficult to climb down from later.  Finally, if she doesn’t respond constructively, you have the exchange in writing, so are on firmer ground for escalating the issue to the department head.

If possible, phrase the question/request so that your desired outcome is also palatable for her.  If you argue that she’s fundamentally misunderstanding the course material, she’s pretty unlikely to accept that — admitting that one’s wrong about something is already difficult, admitting one’s incompetent is a whole lot harder again. Instead, you could say that (e.g.) you have learned some of the material previously, and so know it with a different viewpoint from hers (and maybe give a couple of examples here, ideally with sources in well-established literature) and you would like to check that this angle will also be acceptable for work on the course.  I’m not saying you should say exactly that — but look for something that allows her to concede that your understanding is correct, without having to admit (to you or herself) that hers is wrong; and down the line this makes it easier for her to improve her understanding of the subject, rather than remaining antagonistic towards your suggestions.  On the other hand, if she does defend her current approach, this gives her a chance to lay out her case more clearly and carefully.

If you do this and she still doesn’t engage constructively, you’re now on very solid ground to escalate the complaint.  You have a written record of your good-faith effort to sort this out tactfully.  You have specific examples where she has doubled down on her misunderstanding of the material.  (I’d suggest double-checking these with your advisor or another faculty member to be absolutely sure you’re right about them.)  Even if the head of department supports this teacher in general, it will be comparatively difficult for them to dismiss the complaint or paint you as a troublemaker.


If I request a paper through my university library, must they pay a substantial amount of money? I was asked to referee a mathematics article, submitted for publication in a reputable journal. To evaluate it, I also wanted to look at a cited article which it claims to extend. Upon searching online (through my university's VPN) I hit a paywall: I can read it for "only" $39.95.

My university subscribes to some journals, but apparently not this one. I find this price ridiculous and I will not pay. But I am also reluctant to ask my library to; that money is coming out of our students' tuition. If I ask a librarian to furnish me with a copy of the article, will they be out this same $40?

Related question: will publishers (requesting that I do peer review for them) obtain and provide articles upon request, in situations like this?

(Related but different.)

Update: People gave me the (excellent!) advice to ask my librarians, and they got back to me. Their answer in brief: It depends. Usually, it doesn't cost my library anything; sometimes it can, but the requests go through different channels than the paywall I encountered.

You should not hesitate to ask the library for articles like this. The library most likely will pay a fee, but it will probably be less than the $40 for you to access it directly, and is an expected budget item for academic libraries.

There are costs associated with interlibrary loan (ILL) transactions, but they are minimal for articles that can be handled entirely electronically (for things that need to be physically transmitted, like books, and/or processed in some way, like print articles that must be scanned, the costs can be substantially higher). Since you found this article online, it probably falls in that cheapest category.

Many libraries also have agreements with publishers to "buy on demand" some articles that are requested through ILL. This usually happens entirely behind the scenes, so you probably wouldn't know the difference between such an article and traditional cross-library lending. It may cost the library more than ILL, but the library then "owns" the article so any future requests for that article will be at no additional cost, unlike ILL, which costs the same every time.

As an academic librarian, I can tell you that the library almost certainly has a budget for this kind of thing, and if it were my institution, I would want you to use this basic library service to get the materials you need to do your job (almost as much as I want students to get the materials they need). Nothing in a library is actually free*; making information accessible is the reason libraries—and library budgets—exist.

*Of course there are open access journals, donated books, etc., but someone had to pay for all of those, too, one way or another.


Paper on project without any result - how to conclude I'm reporting on an engineering project that is in its early phases. Therefore, there are no results, but there is already a quite detailed plan on how the problems in the project can be conquered. Now I was asked to present the project at a conference. I want to present the current state, but I'm not sure how to structure a conclusion as there is no result, and I can't evaulate, if the planned methods will be successful. Still I believe presenting the intended methods will bring value to the community.

How do you conclude a project presentation that doesn't have any results but already has a quite concrete and detailed plan? What content could I provide? Or can one just not provide a conclusion in a paper? That seems a bit unbalanced...

I think the conclusion of a paper and the conclusion of a project are two different things.

In my view, the conclusion of a paper is the summary of the paper while the conclusion of a project is the end results of the project. Your paper has the current state and the future plan of the project. These can be the conclusion of the paper. They are not necessarily the conclusion of the project.

If you don't feel comfortable with having "Conclusion" section in your paper without stating the true conclusion of the project, my suggestion is to write a ""Summary" or "Future Outlook" section at the end of the paper. This is a personal taste, in my opinion.

There are many papers without "Conclusion" section either by authors' choice or the final conclusive results for the problem/conjecture were not obtained yet at the time the paper was written.


What is a customary startup package for a USA Engineering TT position at an R1? My colleague and I, both postdocs, are going to TT positions at separate R1 public universities. For various reasons, our advisers have little idea what present startup packages look like. I am in Industrial, he is in MechE.

Here are some guesses from our last brainstorming session:

Equipment (thinking 100k or so)
Cash for travel, supplies, etc (Thinking 50k or so)
Grad student support (thinking 1-2 grad students for 3 years)
Postdoc support (might be substituted for a grad student)
Summer salary (for 2-3 years)

Thoughts? Additional things?

Nothing in your proposed startup packages sounds too unreasonable. The only thing that might be a problem is the number of years of support. You’ll want to know how much it costs to support a grad student, between tuition and stipend. The larger the cost, the fewer the years of support you’ll be able to ask for.

Also, I would expect that the department will not support a post doc, but would instead prefer you to use their funding to support graduate students.