If you want to do a PhD in mathematics, how important is it to start immediately after finishing undergraduate studies? I'm about to finish my undergraduates studies; I majored in mathematics and minored in physics, and I always intended on going to grad school to pursue a PhD in mathematics, but I've been having doubts recently. I did well in all my courses (3.92 GPA), but I'm trying to seriously consider if my background is strong enough now and if I'd truly have the motivation to stick it out. I've also been thinking even if I decided to give it a shot, it might be nice to take some time off for rest and to improve on some of my weaker areas. But I've been told by a few people that if you want to do a PhD in mathematics, you have to go pretty much right after undergrad, mainly because recent letters of recommendation are so important, and professors forget you after a time. So I wanted to know if this is true, and also thought I'd ask for advice if anyone has been in a similar situation.

But I've been told by a few people that if you want to do a PhD in mathematics, you have to go pretty much right after undergrad, mainly because recent letters of recommendation are so important, and professors forget you after a time.

You do not have to start a PhD program "pretty much right after undergrad".  It is most common to do so, but there is a substantial minority of students who are older and/or spent several years out of school.  In (American, at least) academia, your age counts for nothing; the ticking clock in the sky keeps track of the number of years since your PhD.  I know several people who spent years off from undergrad in the sense of leaving school but clearly kept up with their mathematical reading and learning -- while in the Israeli army, culinary school, creative writing programs... -- and started grad school with skills at least at good as those around them and a maturity that most 22 year-olds lack.  I've looked through hundreds verging on thousands of job applicants' CVs, and I am struck by how often the stronger candidates were in their 30's rather than their 20's when they got their PhD.

Of course the biggest risk in taking time off between undergrad and grad is that you will get distracted by the rest of the world and not come back for graduate study.  But that's only a risk in the context of your original plan: if you found something else that you like better than being a graduate student, good for you.  It is also relatively common that after a fairly small time away -- one or two years -- people realize that they really do prefer an academic career.  (For some reason this seems to be most common among high school teachers.  Isn't that a bit sad?)  If you're not totally committed to a PhD program, taking time off and seeing whether your desire waxes or wanes is a pretty smart idea.

Of all things in your decision, I don't think that going straight to a PhD program because you're worried that your professors will forget about you is a good strategy.  Professors don't forget about students that quickly, but after a few years, they may.  To combat this, I would say: if you are not sure whether you want to do a PhD right away, why not apply right away to PhD programs?  Certainly knowing where you can get in and seeing the programs that admitted you are all factors in your decision.  If you apply right away, professors will write letters for you, and if you go away even for a long time, those letters should still be equally usable afterwards: your past undergraduate performance is not a function of time.


Negotiating with an editor after a failure to review a paper honestly Suppose the first paragraph of a paper submitted to a journal says "We prove that the Riemann hypothesis follows from Catholic doctrines concerning sacraments [etc.]" and the referee's report accompanying the rejection says "The author's purpose is to prove the P =/= NP conjecture . . . " etc. and explains that that fails.

How reasonable would it be to argue that the journal should reconsider on the grounds that the paper was not honestly reviewed? And in so doing, how would one avoid offending the editor who probably holds the referee in high esteem and has never heard of the author?

How reasonable would it be to argue that the journal should reconsider on the grounds that the paper was not honestly reviewed?

If I were you I would really, really, really avoid bringing anything to do with "honesty" into the discussion. Seriously, it's unprofessional and off-putting to question the integrity of people who may have a much higher reputation and level of credibility than you (and you don't even know the identity of the person you're accusing... not a good position to be in). However, I think it would be extremely reasonable to politely point out the mistake and make the case that the reviewer's misconception of what the paper does is severe enough so as to invalidate the conclusion of the review and justify giving the paper a fresh look.

Now, whether it is also reasonable to expect your argument to sway the editor's decision is a separate question. Personally I wouldn't be too optimistic, but it's worth a try, and if you phrase your rebuttal politely and professionally then I don't think you are risking anything other than a bit of time and a minor disappointment.

I also agree with a point made in the comments that it would be worth taking a fresh look at your paper to see to what extent a lack of clarity in your writing may have contributed to the reviewer's mistake. If you find any way to improve the presentation in a way that minimizes the chances for this sort of misunderstanding, do so, and include a revised version of your manuscript when you submit the rebuttal, and explain the changes you've made to eliminate the chances for a misunderstanding.

  And in so doing, how would one avoid offending the editor who probably holds the referee in high esteem and has never heard of the author?

I don't see why the editor should be offended, and also think it should be possible to not offend even the reviewer if your email is polite and sticks to facts. Mostly, just don't say anything offensive (like questioning people's honesty!) and you should be fine. Here's one way you might do it:

  Dear Editor,

  Thank you for sending me the referee report for my paper and the decision regarding my submission. While I appreciate the consideration given to my paper by yourself and the anonymous referee, I wanted to point out what appears to be a misguided interpretation of my paper's results by the referee. They claim that I try and fail to prove the conjecture that P=/=NP, but in fact my claim is that I have proved the Riemann Hypothesis, which is a very different conjecture. The difference between those two claims is that [insert very brief explanation here if necessary] and is well-known to experts in the area. I believe that my reasoning is solid and have checked the paper to the best of my ability, but of course a serious examination of my paper would be necessary in order for a fair and correct decision to be made regarding whether the paper should be published by your journal. The referee's mischaracterization of my claims obviously calls the conclusion of the review into question.

  I therefore kindly request that you send the paper to be refereed again, either by the same referee with a request that he or she rethink their opinion in view of their earlier misunderstanding, or to a different referee who is qualified to provide a serious opinion on the paper.

  I also wanted to mention that I have made a few small changes to paragraphs X, Y, Z in Section A to try to make the statement of my results clearer and minimize the chances that other referees or readers of my paper will misunderstand my claims. The revised manuscript is attached.

  [Yours etc.]


Is it dishonest to guess on multiple choice exams? I have never seen a thing, until recently, like someone not marking a cross on a multiple choice test just because he didn't know the answer.

I wonder whether this is a East Asian right-thing-to-do mentality, or just a quirk of some student.

Should maybe we ask all students to do this? Indeed, on a multiple choice with 5 choices per question, the expectancy of a student employing pure guessing would be  a 20% score. But is it cheating to mark something when you don't know the answer? At least, you are getting sometimes some point for nothing.

Should maybe we ask all students to do this [refrain from guessing on multiple choice exams]?

Some multiple-choice exams use negative scoring, where points are deducted for wrong answers. This discourages guessing, but introduces other problems.

One problem is that students who know the material vary a great deal in their confidence in that knowledge. If students are actively discouraged from answering questions unless they are sure they know the answer, students who lack confidence in their knowledge will be at a disadvantage. (I'm assuming you want the exam to measure student's knowledge, and not their confidence in that knowledge.)

  But is it cheating to mark something when you don't know the answer?

Not unless you're told "Don't mark something if you don't know the answer." Cheating implies deceit - there is nothing dishonest about guessing, unless it's forbidden and you do it anyways.


Is it okay to ask a journal for review reports as they are available? The typical review time for a 1st decision in my field is 4-6 weeks. It has been nearly 12 weeks since initial submission of a piece of work by a student who just graduated and will leave the lab in about a month. The problem now is what if the reviewers ask for additional experiments to be performed, but the student who actually knows how to perform them has already left the lab?

Would it be okay to ask the editor to release any referee reports already completed while they wait for a final decision? This could help us get a jump start on any required additional experiments and complete the work before the student leaves for good. Obviously it's unusual, but my thinking is that we'll see the referee reports eventually anyways, so would there be any harm in seeing them a few weeks in advance?

There is nothing wrong with writing them a polite letter asking what the status of the submission is and whether they have an estimate for when it will be done.

  The problem now is what if the reviewers ask for additional experiments to be performed, but the student who actually knows how to perform them has already left the lab?

This is really a separate question, but if that happens, typically your options are:

Convince the editor to let you skip those additional experiments
Try to get the student to come back and do them
Have someone else do them, hopefully with the benefit of the original student's notes and advice

  Would it be okay to ask the editor to release any referee reports already completed while they wait for a final decision?

I doubt they would agree to this. For one, it is uncommon to do this so most editors would refuse for the sake of being consistent with their policy. Also, sometimes the reviews can influence each other, for instance the editor might wish to investigate a disagreement between two reviewers, and the reviewer that finished early might want to change their review. Worse yet, it may be that when the late review comes back, the editor will decide to reject you outright. If you have already done some revision work at that point, it becomes an awkward situation. As an editor, I would never agree to this, simply to avoid weird situations like this.


Is it okay to work in different lab during Summer? I was wondering if it is okay to work in different lab during summer.

I am first year master's student and currently I am working in the lab as volunteer at my college. During summer (May through August), because of housing/financial reasons, I have to go back home which is in different state. Despite wasting my summer without doing anything, I want to work in the lab in the different college that is working on similar project and the lab that is located near my home. Can I do that? I guess I care about if it would be rude or not. I will definitely tell my current P.I. and potential summer P.I. about it but I wanted to make sure it's okay before I proceed.

Ask your advisor.

Whether it is okay or not will depend entirely on him. He may have some reason why he wouldn't want you to (rational or not). It shouldn't come across as rude if you ask him openly and express your reasoning (have to go back home but would still like to be research productive and may be a good opportunity to network with the other lab).

Whether the other lab will let you, is a different question entirely. Another option is working remotely with your current lab.


Should I use Japanese title for Japanese people instead of English title? I'm in contact with a Japanese student support staff of a Japanese university. Because he is a staff, I don't know how to address him properly: Mr. or Dr. or Prof. However, I know that in Japanese culture, there is only one title for this job: sensei:

  sensei: (for example Sato-sensei)
  This is a title used for teachers, doctors and other people with a higher education and from whom you receive a service or instructions.
  www.japan-guide.com

As a member of the Sinosphere culture, I understand that correct title is important. Also, this would indicate that I'm trying to learn how the culture works, even thought I don't know Japanese.

Should I?

Assuming you are writing in English, I would say

The expected* way to address university staff (non-faculty) is
generally "Mr" or "Ms" depending on their gender.
You can call
people who you would call sensei in Japanese by [family name]-Sensei
(note the position of the sensei as after) in English.
Calling people with doctorates "Dr X" is not generally expected in
    Japan. (Also, many Japanese faculty who are older don't have doctorates due to some vagaries of the system used here).
Similarly, they are much less used to "Professor X" than
    in American contexts.

I would say (2) is normal in day-to-day conversation, but for many of them writing = Mr / Ms

Separately, if he is truly "support staff," then he is not a sensei within the Japanese system. If he is over the support staff, that might not be true.

*by "expected" I mean the expectation of most Japanese users of English

Source: 1kyu (JPLT N1) and presently living in Japan working at a university


As an undergraduate, should I graduate 1.5 to 2 years early with little research experience or 1 year early with a decent amount of research? So I am an undergraduate student in my third semester and I am mostly done with my double major in Pure and Applied Mathematics/Statistics. I will be done with the requirements for my bachelors by my fifth semester at the latest.

If I want to go for a PhD in Pure Math, would I be better off graduating after my 5th semester or pushing some classes back, taking graduate level classes and seminars in my 6th semester and doing an undergraduate thesis? I have some research done and will be doing more next semester, but that is nowhere near what I would do for the honors thesis.

Alternatively, I could go all out next semester and graduate then. However this would leave me very little time to study for the subject GRE (I am good with the general GRE) and to actually apply for schools due to how busy I will be.

I tried to make this a good question by including as much information as I thought was relevant, but if there are any questions or anything I forgot to mention then please let me know.

Does anyone have advice?

For the title question, graduating 1 year early and accomplishing more is definitely better than graduating 1.5 or 2 years early, and accomplishing less. In fact, there's a strong case to be made for taking four years and accomplishing as much as you can. In PhD admissions, you'll be competing against people who were also ahead of the game in their first few semesters, but stayed in school and kept gathering feathers in their cap. Some of these feathers will be more impressive than graduating early. Also, more time as an undergrad means more chances for professors to get to know you, and this is what translates into good letters of recommendation.

Now, that is all general advice. Factors particular to your situation may tilt the balance in favor of it making sense to graduate early. I would recommend talking this over with your professors, because they know your record and can give you realistic advice about your prospects after graduating in X semesters, for various values of X.


A PI gave me 2 days to accept his offer after I mentioned I still have another interview. Is this normal? Last week, I had a postdoc interview for a "senior" role. They call it senior because they've asked me to lead on a (perhaps the) research problem. For the interview, they asked me to prepare a 10 minutes presentation where I propose a research plan. My presentation focused on a particular case with a detailed plan. I proposed to work on a particular case simply because it's all I can do at the moment (in terms of my current knowledge and research experience from my Ph.D.).
They complimented my presentation and the fact that I have a clear plan. But they did say that they want someone to work on the research problem from a general perspective and then perhaps at the end, target a particular case. The researcher is also expected to show leadership during his research when working on the project. The issue is the general case will require a lot of reading. The interview was really good and I have answered all of their questions. But they didn't ask much to be honest (I guess it's because my presentation was technical and focused on the particular case and not the whole problem). But I wasn't expecting an offer because our research goals weren't the same.
Now that I gave some background to why I am hesitant, I will get to my question. The PI sent me an informal email just two days after the interview, saying that I did a good interview and I should expect good news. The next day, he did say that he's going to offer me the position (again informally) and that I need to accept so he can send a formal letter. I told him that I am interested but I have another interview next week in which I've confirmed my attendance. I said that we can start the formal procedure next week after my next interview. He basically said that you have 2 days (before my next interview) to accept otherwise he will move to the waiting list. It's my first time receiving an offer, is this normal? To give 2 days as a deadline knowing that I asked for more time for my second interview? Note that a 5 day-deadline is more than enough to have an idea about both postdoc positions!
Update
I want to thank you for answers. Really good points were mentioned that help see things from both sides (candidate's and the PI's point view). For this particular case, I decided to quickly decline the PI's offer informally.

This means one of two things:

The PI has a certain set of needs right now and wants them met. Your needs are irrelevant. This will be the case for the duration of your employment - they'll be a decent boss until they need something and then that thing will be more important than anything you've got going on. This is a reasonably common PI mindset and most of them will respond to pushback - if you're assertive and can manage their expectations and needs this could be an ok fit for you.

The PI is cynically abusive to staff. This is a test. They want anyone assertive to get filtered out at this stage, because you'd just quit later in the face of abuse anyway. This is a shibboleth to identify postdocs who can be used and discarded. There is no way to make this job work for you. This PI is rarer but tends to be hiring a lot (for obvious reasons) and so you'll see them more than you would expect on the job market.

It's better to not work for either kind of PI if you can avoid it.


Co-author blocking publication This question is somewhat inspired by the question in When is a supervisor unable to request paper retraction if a paper gets published without her consent?, although I've no reason to suppose that the following situation describes the one prompting that question.

Suppose Alice and Bob do some research together, with Alice providing ~75% of the intellectual contribution (perhaps Alice is Bob's PhD student). Alice writes a draft of the paper, and lists both of them as authors.

Bob does not agree with part of what Alice has written, and says he does not agree to the paper being published in this form. Alice, however, is not willing to remove the offending section. (For the sake of argument, let's assume that neither Alice nor Bob can be said to be objectively 'in the right'.)

Is there any route out of this impasse? Can Alice treat Bob as refusing authorship of the paper, and publish the manuscript without his name?

There are several options for Alice:

Ask Bob if he is willing to give up his authorship. Then, if he says
it is OK, publish without his name (but make clear in which part he was involved).
Remove Bob's contribution from the paper and then publish. (Which might not be possible.)
Find some common ground (maybe with the help of someone else) with Bob and then publish. (The best way, but
may not be possible.)
Do not publish the paper at all.

  Can Alice treat Bob as refusing authorship of the paper, and publish
  the manuscript without his name?

No.


Is it unethical to hire a paper writer AFTER the assignment is done? This is an intriguing scenario that came to my mind. I have not done this and am not planning on doing it, but I am curious about it. Of course, it’s well known that if you hire a paper writer to write your assignment for you, that’s cheating. But what about this situation?:

You have a difficult writing assignment. You follow all the rules, do it yourself, turn it in, and then you get your grade, and it’s a poor grade. But you want to learn what a really good paper for that assignment would look like, for the purposes of gaining knowledge, not grades. So you hire one of those paper writers people usually use to cheat, who is known for getting (dishonest, of course) As on all the papers they write, to nix it for you, so you’ll have an example of what an excellent paper would look like for your study pleasure.

So my question is: is this unethical, and if so, why, and what might be the consequences were it found out? The reason it seems interesting is because it’s being done after the assignment is turned in, so you’re not doing anything to deceive/defraud the teacher or get grades you did not merit – all transactions with the teacher were done by the book. But on the other hand you are going through the motions you’d go through to cheat, not to mention paying money to someone people pay to cheat. So where does this situation stand, ethically, and why?

In your hypothetical situation, no cheating occurs, since you do not misrepresent your own efforts. Comparing your own to someone else's solution after corrections have been returned in order to better your understanding is a perfectly good study practice.

Let me also clarify one point: you say, "paper writers [...] known for getting (dishonest, of course) "A"s on all the papers they write". There is nothing dishonest about the A grade. If the teacher gives it an A grade, it's because it is an excellent paper. If it had been handed in with a different name on it, it would have received the same honest A grade. The only dishonest thing is the student's behavior in putting their own name on it and claiming it as their own work, and arguably the ghostwriter's in knowingly assisting in this deception. Absent this, everything is above-board.

The only point where questions could be raised is the influence of money in your hypothetical. There are two places where this could play a role:

1) Acquiring this solution is expensive, and therefore out of reach for poorer students. This kind of disparity seems to be more acceptable to some societies than others, as shown e.g. by the price of education in the US (lots) vs Germany (nothing).

2) You are contributing to the maintenance of an industry which is predominantly assisting others' dishonesty. On this question, which is similar to e.g. contributing to bittorrent development because you like to use it to download linux distributions, I think that society has not formed a uniform opinion, and it is left to the individual to decide their own comfort level.


Grad school - Is transferring to another school for a Master's program (Computer Science) a good option? I am an international student in the US (important as my stay in US is tied to my student visa, issued to attend my current university).

I joined as a grad student in the MS CS program in one of the okayish public universities (ranked ~50 on QS/US news). I joined in Fall '18 and am still in my first semester. I took all the so-called "difficult" courses, but I find them very trivial (considering my undergrad was from a very good university). I am very disappointed with the curriculum and feel the coursework is not at all rigorous for a grad-school.

I might sound super arrogant, but I feel out-of-place when I talk to other students and hear them cringe about how hard the courses are, or how they don't have enough time to finish assignments within the deadlines as I find all of the coursework very trivial and feel that the assignments are a joke.

Fortunately, I am working with one of the best profs the university has to offer on a very impactful project and the research is going great. But that's the only plus point I see from sticking around.

My aim from grad school is to get research experience and join one of the Big 4s or upcoming CS unicorn startups. I cannot see myself joining one of the Big-Ns after graduating since the students from this school rarely bag a Google/Fb/unicorn startup job.

Since December is the Fall'19 admissions deadline, I am thinking about reapplying to those top 10 CS schools which I couldn't get into last year (probably because of my poor undergrad GPA).

On the other hand, since every CS company just asks leetcode-style questions in interviews, I can just be super good at it and try to nail whatever interview I get without wasting another year and then doing the same.

I'm not really interested in any kind of credit transfer either since I would like to start fresh in a more rigorous curriculum.

I'm not sure if switching schools would be a wise decision and could really use some advice from the community here.

PS :
Probably related -
Is transferring to another university an option for an unhappy PhD student?

Posting with a dummy account for anonymity.

I think you should stay where you are. My thoughts below.

Research. At the beginning, the classes seem hugely important and there is a lot of angst about whether you are at the "right" grad school. By the end, the only thing that matters is your research.

You write:

  Fortunately, I am working with one of the best profs the university has to offer on a very impactful project and the research is going great. But that's the only plus point I see from sticking around.

This may be the "only plus point", but it's the crucial one. If you're doing good research, learning something, and publishing good papers in good journals, then your PhD is going very well.

Rankings.
I think you would have a legitimate concern if you were at a predatory grad school that no one had ever heard of. But you say your school is ranked ~50, so presumably it's a "real" school that people have heard of. Going to a "slightly" better school will make ~no difference to a hiring committee. Going to a famous, top-10 school might make a difference, but even that is maybe less than you imagine.

Other students. I would point out that it's not necessarily that the other students are dumb; it's that they haven't covered this material before. But even if they are dumb, that just makes it easier for you to get the resources you need. One of the best talks I ever attended was from Karen Kelsky, who made the point that hire-able grad students are able to "pass" as a professor -- in the way they dress, the way they interact with colleagues, and the work they do -- so the other students are really irrelevant here, your "colleagues" are the faculty.

Time. I would also consider that transferring schools is a lot of work and, if you start from scratch, it will mean wasting a year of your life while you repeat "year-1" of grad school. Grad school is worth taking your time and doing well, but I would also seriously hesitate to lose an entire year -- you only get so many years in the workforce, so an extra year in grad school means one fewer year in the meaningful, interesting job you'll eventually find.

That said, I admit that getting a degree from MIT or Harvard would be exciting. If there's a way to apply to such schools without burning bridges, it might be worth sending in an application "on a lark". If you get in and have an advisor lined up, then I might even consider switching. But I would remain fully committed to your program until then -- it seems like things are going fine, and there are definite downsides to transferring even to a top school. Good luck!


Why is a PhD course studied by consultation? And how is the study by consultation done? I have been accepted to do a PhD in Czech Republic. I will be arriving to the University at the end of November 2020.
The supervisor told me to take about three courses and we agreed on which courses I'll take. I then emailed a professor that is responsible of one of the courses and he told me that the course is not organized as a  regular one consisting of a series of lectures. Instead it is supported by a group or individual consultations devoted to specific topics.
So my question is how is the study by consultation done (in detail please)?
Also Why is a PhD course studied by consultation rather than a series of lectures?
Thank you

In other places such a course might be called "independent study" and involves study with guidance by a professor. Normally there would be readings and some exercises or writings with periodic meetings with the professor. Sometimes the "meetings" are in seminar with a few students.
The usual reasons for such courses is that there is low demand for them and if they are assigned to faculty as part of normal load, then other courses with more demand will be harder to cover. Lecturing to one or two students is a poor use of faculty time, especially for experienced students who should be expected to be able to read and find supplementary resources.
Sometimes such "courses" are also given to be able to offer very esoteric subject teaching. Again, these might be seminars rather than individual "consultations".
For faculty organizational purposes, a faculty member might get "credit" for part of the teaching load but less than that of a full course.


Should I send low GRE mathematics score to universities? My GRE score is only 790 (77 percentile). I am an international student applying for PhD in applied mathematics at Tier 1 schools in the U.S. I am from the top university in my country and have a strong academic record and good recommendations. I have communicated with some faculty at some of these universities and they have expressed interest in my profile.

I am worried that my application would get filtered out just because of the GRE score. So I was wondering if I should send this score at all?

Many US universities are going to ask for the GRE results.  You probably won't be able to avoid having to send them.  Also, many schools pull the GRE data from ETS the testing service that administers the GRE.  That means even if you take the GRE a second time all of your GRE exams will likely be received by the university.  That is not meant to discourage you.  The program's admissions committee has final say on the matter and they look at other factors too.  If you are not good at exams, but good at applied work highlight that in your review process.  Good luck!!!


What should you do when your supervisor is ill? While somewhat related to this recent question but this situation is different in that my supervisor has over the recent months had unspecified health issues. It has not overly effected our relationship other than a bit of a delay in some of our emails. Without knowing exactly what is wrong it was conveyed at one of our meeting that it was not overly serious. In the last email I received it was noted by my advisor that their health was poorly over the summer.

As someone who has previously had a prolonged serious bout of Crohn's, I can understand how poor health can impact on someone's life and would like to be able to make our professional relationship work in a mutually beneficial way.

So in a way my question is two-fold.

Is it appropriate for me to sympathize/empathize with my supervisor about their health issue?
Should I ask them how they best wish to proceed when they may be ill in relation to submitting work etc.?

Since in a recent email your advisor has told you about the health issue, it is perfectly acceptable for you to sympathize/empathize with them and it would not be out of place to ask if you could do anything regarding your work to accommodate them. That said, if you feel uncomfortable raising the issue, you should be able to depend on your advisor being mature enough to tell you what he/she needs in terms of accommodations.

If your advisor had not mentioned anything to you and you wish to sympathize/empathize with them, then you need to be more delicate.


Are there forum-like collaborative Q&A/Annotation tools out there? I’m teaching an introductory programming course using the Moodle platform and I find that the forums are not used as extensively as they could be. Especially, students ask duplicated questions, have a hard time formatting their code correctly, and don't organise their questions and answers in a very structured way (e.g., they ask a new, unrelated question using the “Reply” button while reading another question).

I would be greatly interested in a web-based tool that would allow me to do this: divide my window vertically into two large columns. In the left column, I could post code snippets, my slides as PDFs, my exercises as PDF or HTML online, etc. In the right column, student could ask contextualised questions related to a particular line in the exercices or in the slides. The advantages would be:

All previously asked questions related to this same point would already be shown on the left. This would considerably lower the the probability of duplicated questions.
While asking a question, no need to copy and paste a code snippet to inform the reader about the context — the context is shown right there in the left column.
A voting system similar to the StackExchange system would be great.

Are there any such tools out there?

This is likely my shortest answer ever.
Check out NB (formerly "nota bene") via MIT
 http://nb.mit.edu/welcome

Instructors upload pdfs and students can highlight particular sections of it and ask questions.


How to gain admission to a math PhD program when as an undergrad, I didn't do research, take pure math classes, or form relationships with professors? I just graduated college in May, and I spent my entire college career convinced that I would never study again. I had a plan for my future, and it involved working- no more school. I had considered grad school, but never very seriously.

Now, however, I am very much considering a grad or PhD program. Unfortunately, because of my intentions before, I hadn't done much research in college, opting instead for leadership and work experience. I also didn't foster any significant relationships with my professors. I talked to them enough to learn the material and pass the class, but, in my opinion, not enough for a glowing recommendation.

Now, I feel like I wasted something. How can I get into grad school when I am unable to procure stellar recommendation or show that I took classes in pure, theoretical mathematics? (I took more classes that concerned mathematics applied, like statistics and practical life models and such)

Would it be necessary for me to take more classes? Go back to school? That seems unnecessary, since I already have a bachelor's degree in Math, but I don't know what I can do.

How can I get into grad school when I am unable to procure stellar recommendation or show that I took classes in pure, theoretical mathematics? (I took more classes that concerned mathematics applied, like statistics and practical life models and such)

I think you need to take courses in pure, theoretical mathematics.  You can do so:

As a non-degree seeking student at a reputable university, probably self-funded.
As a master's student at a reputable university, possibly self-funded.

By a "reputable university," I really mean one with a solid math PhD program or a very strong master's program.

Presumably you want to do this while still keeping gainful employment, so I would start slowly: maybe take one solid course, really try your best, and then reevaluate whether this is what you want to do.  If that goes well, repeat and intensify.  I would plan to spend at least two years doing so.

Once you start doing well in courses, make a point of talking to the instructors and getting advice from them.  Maybe they will encourage you to apply to the PhD program there, or maybe they will have other good suggestions for what to do next.


How do I remove myself from academic mailing lists? When I was a grad student, I participated in a bunch of conferences, and sent papers to journals and the like.

But now I'm no longer in academia. I've been out for more than three years, and I still get a few emails a week notifying me of new conferences, hotel discounts for those who register, extended deadlines and the other usual stuff.

The thing is that none of these emails offer contact information or ways to unsubscribe from the mailing list. And it's not like they're from organizations I previously interacted with, but they are certainly about my former line of research. They are probably worse than spam, because I don't even think you could report them as spam.

I removed myself from all site registrations I can remember, such as IEEE and ACM, but these keep coming and coming and coming and coming.

How can a former academic get himself removed from all these mailing lists?

Sadly, that sounds like spam, and you should treat it however you'd treat spam.

I'm not sure you should assume good faith on the part of the people sending you those e-mails.  I'm an active academic with an e-mail address accessible on my university website, and I receive:

Legitimate conference announcements over e-mail lists used by people in the area, which I could unsubscribe from if I wished.
Announcements from people who actually know me.
Unsolicited announcements from scam journals and conferences.

I receive several of the last category every week (and more, unsurprisingly, than any other category).  I do not get legitimate mass e-mails that are not in the first two categories.  It's possible that in other fields there are some legitimate announcements sent the way you describe, but I'd guess very few.

In other words: spam is spam, and you should feel no compunctions about treating it that way.


What to do with rejected papers in case of conflicting reviews everytime? Recently, I got two times rejection for my paper from two different reputed journals of Mathematics fields. The first time, I received two review reports in which both reviewers gave detailed comments with decision of major revision. But the paper got rejected by the handling editor of the journal.

Before going for a second submission (new journal), I tried my best to implement the comments of the reviewers of my first submission. This time again I got two review reports in which the first one suggested me to go for minor revision, while I received negative comments from the second reviewer. The second review says that my methods do not offer very much of an advantage over some of the existing classical methods. Also, it argues that no comparison is done with them.

Now, I am worried whether to submit this paper in a reputed journal or an average ranking journal. I am totally appalled by addressing their comments. What am I supposed to do in such circumstances?

You seem confused by the fact that one of the reviewers only suggested minor edits whereas the other was quite against the whole thing. As an editor, I see this all the time -- and typically, it means that I chose the first reviewer poorly and that the second reviewer really knows the field, knows the other methods that are used today, and can compare what's proposed in the paper with what's being used today. The first one may have tangential knowledge of the field, but not enough overview to recognize that the method is not new.

In other words, to avoid a repeat, you do well to think about whether the second reviewer may be correct. If she is, you would do well to figure out what you think what is new about the paper, and whether that is sufficient to justify publication. An experienced co-author or colleague can certainly help you with this, and you should schedule some discussions about this topic before you think about where to re-submit the paper.


What are the most credible rankings of US computer science departments? I am wondering what are the most well-regarded rankings of computer science departments in the US. Preferably, this would be broken down into rankings by research output and rankings by student labor market outcomes.

Surely, one can find a myriad of such rankings by google searching, but I am wondering whether there are some common rankings that are referred to as standards by academics and practitioners. Thank you kindly.

EDIT:

Let me clarify. Most answers below answered the question "are academic rankings useful/unbiased/etc." but this is not at all what I was asking. I know that such measures are noisy and subjective. This is well-known. But in every profession there are some rankings that are well-regarded among other researchers in that profession.

Please, I know it's hard, but try to stop yourself from answering why rankings suck, even if you feel very strongly about it.

Very few computer scientists (or academics in general) think highly of any ranking system. The main reason for this is that rankings are pretty arbitrary, highly biased by personal opinion, and not super informative. There's very minimal feedback pressure on rankers to get it "really right," and there's no particular reason to think that they do.

The methodologies vary widely, and small differences can result in wildly different rankings because the gradations between schools is usually not very big. In the US News and World Report Ranking, five schools all got a perfect score. Their methodology is to solicit rankings from researchers on a scale of 1-5 and then average them. So there were five schools that everyone gave top marks to. But there were also 17 schools that received higher than a 4.0 without receiving a 5.0. Due to their methodology, that means that there are at least 17 schools for which at least half of respondents said it was a 5/5. It seems unambiguous that all of those 17 schools are outstanding, because at least half of researchers gave them a 5/5. However, it likewise is very unclear what a 4.1 vs a 4.5 actually corresponds to.

This also shows how much the presentation of the results matter. The following three statements are all true of the USNWR ranking:

UIUC is ranked 4 slots behind CMU.
UIUC's ranking is five times that of CMU.
UIUC's raw score is 11% lower than that of CMU
UIUC is a top 3.3% school and CMU is a top 2.8% school.

Other sites use a weighted system that scores universities on a variety of factors and then take the weighted average. The issue with this methodology is that the results are highly variable with differing weights, and there doesn't seem to be any principled way to decide if "mean impact factor of faculty" should be weighted 0.3 or 0.1. Even choosing to measure "mean impact factor of faculty" could be disputed, and one could use median instead of mean or only look at the 5 most active professors. There are arguments for and against myriad tweaks like this, and again there seems to be no principled way to decide which is best. This wouldn't be very concerning if it mattered little, but it matters a lot. This is easily seen by looking at 5 random rankings and observing that there's a very high variance in the ranking of universities from site to site. This issue is exacerbated by the fact that universities try to game ranking systems (note there are two links there).

How your school is ranked can also vary massively with the discipline or sub-discipline.  My alma mater had a fabulous CS theory program, a less-reputed systems program, and (at the time) a non-existent AI program. Someone who says "I studied theoretical computer science at Stella's alma mater" gets a very different response than someone who says "I studied programming language theory."

Not only is your discipline going to matter a lot, who your adviser is will as well. Sometimes the word experts on fields or subfields work at universities that are, in general, not thought as high of. But if you can go study the problem you're interested in with the world expert on it, you should jump at that chance, even if it means going to some podunk school you'd have never heard of if your adviser wasn't located there. And these kinds of concerns are entirely ignored by rankings. Some rankings have breakdowns by sub-discipline, but there's no real way to get them nuanced enough to be particularly meaningful.

University rankings are also comically America-centric, and actual perception of the quality of universities widely varies by region, both within the US and across the world.

Finally, university ranking doesn't matter that much compared to other factors.


Can an extended journal version consist of more than a conference paper? Can an extended version contains 2-3 conference papers? If yes, should all authors be listed or only the key contributors?

An extended journal version might well combine multiple input papers, though this is somewhat unusual.  In general if somebody was an author on one of the papers that is a source, then they should be an author on the composite.  The only exception that I can think of is if the resulting composite paper drops sections from some of the inputs, and certain authors had only been involved in those sections.  Again, this would seem to be a rather unusual situation, though plausible.


Should I list my work as a frequent journal reviewer as a volunteer work in LinkedIn? I am a frequent reviewer for a particular (computer science) journal, and I wonder if the review work I do counts as a "volunteer" work?

I do already list this work in my CV under (PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES) section. Should I also add it to my LinkedIn profile under (volunteer experience) section?

I think you should take advantage of being a peer reviewer. You can add it to your LinkedIn account, and create a profile on Publons and ReviewerCredits to be registered as a peer reviewer.


Taking year off after PhD and focus on research? Does it look bad? Say I have finished my PhD and I would love to just write a few papers and do some research before getting a job at a university which will also involve teaching & administrative things. Also, assume I would have the money to do just that for a year, or two (I am in the Humanities & have access to a library, no need for a lab)

How would this look on my CV, how would this affect my future chances of getting a teaching position? If I don't publish anything, it will be horrific for my CV I'd assume. What if I would actually manage to publish a few good papers (and more or better ones than I would have been able to with a teaching position)

This sounds like an incredibly poor decision to me:

the job market in the humanities is very bad, even compared to the rest of academia, and very "lumpy."  There are relatively few jobs, and they tend to have fairly specific concentrations.  You are taking a huge risk by passing up a year of chances to apply; the set of jobs in your specialty, even the set of cities where jobs in your specialty are available, will likely be totally different next year.  The opportunity cost is enormous.
It will look bad on your CV.  Some people will just find it an amusing eccentricity, but many people will not really believe your unemployment was voluntary, and some may wonder what sort of person they'd be hiring into their department (most academic departments feel they have enough odd characters as is).    Discussing the matter will just emphasize that you feel like teaching and service are a burden, which doesn't make you sound so appealing as a colleague.
There's a much better solution!  Get a job (if you are so lucky), and find some excuse to take an unpaid leave. I'm sure attitudes about this vary from department to department; in my field (mathematics) this would be very easy to do, and indeed in many cases you could arrange a visit somewhere that might pay some of your expenses.  I don't think this is the same in every field, but it's still surely much better to be in a position first, rather than waiting.


Professor expressed interest in collaboration, but remains unresponsive and unreliable. How to proceed? About 6 months ago, when I was searching for postdoc positions, one of the professors whom I contacted encouraged me to write a joint paper to make a possibility of my invitation to his group. I tried to prepare a manuscript during this time, but as a joint work, he has not contributed yet. For instance, he has told me that he send some useful references or put some materials into the work, but never did that. I think he is no longer interested in that. What Should I do? The last time which I sent an email, he replied that he will write something about that to me "tomorrow". Today is almost 10 days after that "tomorrow".

So he says he's interested but acts like he's not?  Then you are probably not very high on his priority list.  You could e-mail him again after a week or two, but it probably won't get a different outcome. I'd suggest you move on.


Copyright and ownership for rejected papers that are edited based on peer review I submitted a paper to a journal and I got extensive reviews, and the paper was rejected, but they encouraged resubmission if I successfully did a bit more science and made other drastic revisions. Note this is not the same as being conditionally accepted; I had to resubmit the paper. Well I did this and the paper was accepted the second go around with minor revisions.

The Journal has the policy that you may post a copy of the preprint, the draft prior to review, on your personal website with a link to the final article which is behind a paywall.

My question is, since they rejected the first draft of the paper, can I ethically call the second draft, the one with major revisions and extra science, the pre-peer review paper. It was the raw draft submitted prior to the second set of reviews after which they accepted the paper. Or because that paper did benefit from the first set of peer reviews, I should post the original first draft? My guess is that I am allowed to post the second draft; what do you think?

It seems clear to me that the answer is post what you call your second draft. The first "round" is a closed chapter because of the reject decision. You should consider your new round as the round of relevance for the final publication; it is a new paper, the old is "dead". The first round draft will be so different from the final that it cannot represent the final version. If you receive a major/minor revision, it means that the submission has intrinsic values that are clear to the reviewers and editor and in such cases the early drafts carry with them enough to mirror the final product. So from this perspective the reject decision is a clear line of separation.


Is there any risk in applying for a different graduate program, while already doing a PhD? I'm doing a Ph.D. (in Europe) in field X, but my interests have shifted towards a different subject (say Y) over time. I've tried to shift my research to be on interdisciplinary topics crossing the two areas, but it's far from satisfactory for me and still my advisor constantly pushes me towards research projects I'm not really interested in.

Initially, I thought I'll finish the Ph.D. in X, develop some transferrable skills, and then do my postdoc in my area of interest, but my advisor is limiting me to opportunities (collaborators, conferences, projects, etc.) within my old field of interest and I just can't imagine an academic career in X for myself. I want to stay in academia, but join a Y department, which would be impossible without a proper training in Y or substantial research experience and networking with the researchers in that field.

So, I'm now considering applying to grad programs in Y, but I actually have no idea about my chances. I have some interdisciplinary research experience and minor collaborations with researchers in Y (plus self study of course), which is what I'm relying on for my application. I'm also getting recommendation letters from my collaborators working in Y, who are aware of my situation. But, since I don't know whether I'll actually get in or not, I don't want to burn bridges or make my advisor angry or disappointed. After all, my only chance for pursuing my interest if I don't get into the grad programs I like, is to finish my current Ph.D. succesfully and find interdisciplinary research positions (which comes at the risk of being a "research associate" or some sort of "life-long postdoc" and never getting a tenure). My alternative is to finish my Ph.D. in X and then go and do a masters or possibly a second Ph.D. in Y (which is suboptimal, but still allows me to follow my interests), and I don't want to burn bridges for doing that either.

This means I'm applying to grad programs in Y, without telling my current advisor about it. I'm worried the department I'll apply to might (possibly unintentionally and just in a coffee chat at a conference) might reveal this to my advisor or other members of our group, especially because in a few of the departments I'm targeting, there are people who actually collaborate (or have collaborated) with our group. I was wondering whether this is something I should worry about. Are there professors on the the admission committee (for master's programs in Europe)? Am I overthinking this or is there a real chance that this could happen? Would a reviewer ever email my advisor and tell them "this student of yours is telling us they don't want to finish their PhD and want to move to our department and do a master's in Y and then do a PhD in Y!"?!

++ Please note that areas X and Y are traditionally considered completely unrelated, but there are modern interdisciplinary research combining practices of the two. That being said, it's still almost impossible to get hired at a Y department without a formal training in Y (especially if you have a Ph.D. in X, the general attitude in Y communities is that you don't really understand Y).

++++ By grad programs, I mean master's programs (in Europe).

In most cases it would be foolish to hide it from your advisor. But I don't know them or their personality. Some people would react very badly and others would be very supportive, with every possibility in between. For a vindictive person, you need to be extra cautious. But those folks are fairly rare.

One issue you should consider is whether you are leaving others with problems to clean up after you go. If there is none of that, then people are more willing to be supportive since it is easier. But you may have control over when you go and the state in which you leave any joint research.

The reason it is foolish is not just that the person might try to torpedo your career (possible - unlikely), but that they may have options for you that you haven't considered. Those options might involve X or Y or a melding. But they've been around longer than you and may have a much better idea about what is possible.

But this is a sit down face to face sort of conversation. I wouldn't express it in terms of like and dislike, however, but that your recent studies are pushing you toward one thing rather than the other and you want to continue those explorations.

Perhaps, knowing the situation, the advisor can make room for it to happen. If not, you can, perhaps, leave with good mutual feelings.


How to improve the narrative in a piece of academic writing? I have recently finished a year of Doctoral School, and am about to start my PhD. During the last taught year I have written two research papers which were reviewed by several people both internal and external to my faculty. The feedback was mostly complimentary, however the common criticism made about my work went along the lines of "You write excellent sections, but there is little link or narrative between sections."

There are a few guides on technical writing fundamentals, so this could serve as a platform for other posts on more nuanced writing practices. I would like to create a better narrative in my writing going forward, so the themes I would like to create a discussion on are as follows:

Practices for identifying the narrative present in your own work.
How do you build a narrative when writing an academic paper or other piece of technical writing?
Guidelines for linking the internal sections within a piece of writing.
Guidelines for linking your work to related research by other authors.

As a non-native English speaker, I found the use of linking words lists very inspiring. I printed this cheatsheet and carry it with me along with the paper draft of my thesis for immediate access.

I also took an afternoon to brush up on my English (which, I believe, was already fine to begin with) and ended up reading most sections on this Guide to Grammar and Writing. In particular, I paid special attention to the page on Transitions, and it might help you too. On this page, they show how you can turn this hard-to-follow paragraph:

  The ancient Egyptians were masters of preserving dead people's bodies
  by making mummies of them. Mummies several thousand years old have
  been discovered nearly intact. The skin, hair, teeth, fingernails and
  toenails, and facial features of the mummies were evident. It is
  possible to diagnose the disease they suffered in life, such as
  smallpox, arthritis, and nutritional deficiencies. The process was
  remarkably effective. Sometimes apparent were the fatal afflictions of
  the dead people: a middle-aged king died from a blow on the head, and
  polio killed a child king. Mummification consisted of removing the
  internal organs, applying natural preservatives inside and out, and
  then wrapping the body in layers of bandages.

into this nicer one

  The ancient Egyptians were masters of preserving dead people's bodies
  by making mummies of them. In short, mummification consisted of
  removing the internal organs, applying natural preservatives inside
  and out, and then wrapping the body in layers of bandages. And the
  process was remarkably effective. Indeed, mummies several thousand
  years old have been discovered nearly intact. Their skin, hair, teeth,
  fingernails and toenails, and facial features are still evident. Their
  diseases in life, such as smallpox, arthritis, and nutritional
  deficiencies, are still diagnosable. Even their fatal afflictions are
  still apparent: a middle-aged king died from a blow on the head; a
  child king died from polio.

There are others resources grouped into "Word & Sentence Level", "Paragraph Level", "Essay & Research Paper Level".

Finally, if you need help writing transition paragraphs between sections, I'm not sure whether resources exist about this. I would suggest thinking about the high-level view of your work and reminding yourself (and the reader) why the previous section exists, why we are going to start the next one, and how they are connected within the big picture. During this paragraph, imagine your reader all of a sudden stops and says: "why the hell am I reading this already?" -- this is your chance to remind them.


Does registering in Editorial Manager® and indicating that I am available as a reviewer increase my chances of being invited to review manuscripts? Do editors check the database of registered users in Editorial Manager®, their keywords and ORCID records when selecting reviewers? I believe the majority of reviewers are assigned based on the references of the manuscript, the editor's personal preference and knowledge and the list of suggested reviewers. However, will merely registering in Editorial Manager® increase my chances of being invited? I am an early career researcher, with a few publications and some reviewer experience. The question refers specifically to journals that use Editorial Manager®, but it can be applied to other journal submission systems.

This depends on how the editor finds reviewers. Some (most?) editors select reviewers the way you described: from the references, the editor's personal contacts, etc. Others search the system. Editorial Manager allows the authors to select the subfield of their paper, which in turn can be matched to reviewers' interests. An editor who's searching the database for reviewers then can find you if you register.

One thing is certain: registering in Editorial Manager won't lower your chances of being invited (unless you have a track record of writing bad reviews, since your reviews will be tracked by the system).


What's the best way to inform a supervisor of collaboration on papers with a different professor? A professor in the same department has asked my friend to collaborate with him in writing a paper which is close to his area of research. My friend is not sure what to tell the professor since he is afraid that his supervisor will not be happy that he is publishing papers without letting him know or without adding his name.

Should he ignore the invitation of this professor or let his supervisor know about this? What should he do in this situation?

In some cases, a supervisor will be happy to have a student work on independent projects as well.  In other cases, the supervisor will be happy for the project to happen but want to be involved themselves as well.  In yet other cases, the supervisor will feel the project is a distraction or problematic for some other reason and strongly advise the student not to take part in it.

Which case you are dealing with depends critically on the details of the people and projects involved, and the best thing to do is for the student and supervisor to talk.  Don't make it a big scary deal, just let the supervisor know about the opportunity, say you're interested, and ask what their opinion is.


How to identify the publications that cite two specific papers? Finding the citations of any particular paper is straightforward.

But how do you identify the set of publications that cite two specific papers?

The reason I am asking this is because I am trying to write a review article to resolve an issue in the literature. There are 2 papers that adopt opposite views regarding that issue. To check if any similar study to mine has been attempted before, I am trying to look for any papers that cited those 2 papers together. Any way to do this?

Each paper has hundreds of citations, so looking for common citation is not practical!

My procedure was simple but worked for me. It is similar but different to that suggested by tripartio.

Look up article A in Google Scholar.
Click the link for articles that cite that article A.
Check "Search within citing articles"
Type the details of article B in the search bar (e.g. authors or title)
Explore the results

This is not as systematic as would be ideal, but should help to give a first-cut idea.


Is MDPI a reputable Academic Publisher? I was recently asked to review for an MDPI open access journal. Is this a reputable publishing company? Their website suggests that they are 15 years old, and only do open-access publishing. The journal has a 3-year impact factor of around 2, which is not unreasonable for my field.

Based on the amount of spam that I receive from them (mostly calls for papers in special issues), the fact that their automated emails do not feature a “unsubscribe me” link, and the fact that I did not manage to be removed from their lists after several complaints, I would say that they are not a respectable publisher.

I don't know how long they have been around, but most of their journals in my field (chemistry) were very recently created: see there for a full list, which you can sort by journal creation date. Their older journal, Molecules, has a less-than-stellar impact factor of 2.4. Its editorial board, apart from the occasional celebrity or two, is unremarkable.

As a conclusion: I think they surf on the popularity of open access journals, but I don't consider them serious players.


Correct identification of scientific journal? I'm new to academic writing. From what I read on other posts, would the "133" be the volume number? And the 46-54 be the page in the journal?

J Surg Res. 2006 Jun 1;133(1):46-54. Epub 2006 Apr 21.

From: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16631200

Journal of Surgical Research
Volume 133, Issue 1, June 2006, Pages 46–54


PhD application: my country isn't listed I'm from Palestine (or West Bank). Now I'm applying to Boston University (the deadline unfortunately is just  a few hours from now), and my country is not listed in their online application.

What can I do? There is not even an "others" option listed. Could I safely choose the nearest country to mine (Jordan), where incidentally I had earned my B.A. degree from? Or is that stupid to do? I can't call Boston directly now because their offices are closed now.

Should I forget about Boston University? (I did that, sadly, with UCLA for the same reason). But I really care about this school and I already sent both my GREs to them.

EDIT:
I have both Palestinian and Jordanian passports, in both of them my homeland is Palestine. I don't hold an Israeli passport or citizenship.

UPDATE:I submitted an application and followed it with an email explaining the issue. I'm still waiting for a response.

The United States does not recognize the statehood of Palestine (meaning technically that can't be your home country as far as that government is concerned), which makes it somewhat unsurprising that an American university might not have it listed as a country.

The Department and School likely doesn't have a particular stance on the issue - they probably didn't even design the application. Of course the ideal option would be to call them, but as this isn't an option at the moment, I'd put something close (Jordan - which as you mention you hold a passport for) and then call them to clarify as soon as you are able to do so.

Also, as this is clearly a recurring problem, you should seriously consider finding out if a given school's application has this problem well before it is due.


How to show graduate schools my strong self study background? I'm taking some time off between my undergraduate and graduate studies. I've definitely kept up the practice of my field during this time through self-study. My question relates to how I can show this to graduate admissions next year. Let's say I've been working through some very important books/papers of my field which prepare me for research. What's a good way to show this? Simply stating this on my statement of purpose isn't sufficient as I've seen first hand people mentioning  or exaggerating the extent of their study/projects and there'd be no way to tell if what I'm doing is any different. Should I be typing up notes as I go along and uploading them somewhere? This to me seems like a tedious task which would take time away from the actual study. Or should I upload my hand-written notes? This on the other hand seems a bit unprofessional.

Edit: For clarification, I should mention that my field is theoretical physics.

Yes, things like typing up notes, writing a "learning/seminar blog" and being active on SE sites are good ways to help indicate the level and seriousness of your studies.  However, unless you are spectacular at this and manage to become well known this way, on most admissions committees, no one will have seen this stuff before they look at your application.  This means that they can check out your blog, notes etc but probably will not unless they are interested anyway, or it gets hyped up by your letter writers.  Consequently, this will be of some advantage in alleviating concerns of your time off, and is certainly worth doing for your own preparation, but it is better if you have something more reliable in your application.

Here is one suggestion: if there is an appropriate professor from your undergrad, preferably one you were fairly close with, you can try contacting them to let you know what you're studying, with aims to go to grad school, and ask if they can spare a little time to (i) suggest reading materials/exercises/projects, and possibly (ii) answer occasional questions you may have.  They may also be able to (iii) give feedback on your notes/blog, though it makes more sense to wait to ask about this until you have something in hand to show them.

Professors are busy people, so someone may or may not have/make time to help you, but we enjoy working with good students, so at least you should be able to get some suggestions on reading materials.  On the other hand, there's also the possibility the professor is willing to work rather closely with you.

In addition to providing valuable guidance to your own studies, this will keep at least one professor abreast of your continued studies, which should then come through in your recommendation letter from this person.


Are there any recommendations from professional or academic associations on maximum class size for STEM courses? I read here that some professional/academic organizations (Association of Departments of English, National Council of Teachers of English) have released specific recommendations regarding maximum class size for writing courses.

Are there recommendations from a professional association, accrediting body, or other group, regarding maximum class size for STEM courses? (Either STEM in general, or for specific disciplines. I am most interested in electrical engineering and computer science.)

To maximize creative learning, classes should be small enough for close communication and effective teamwork. One of the basic tenets of system
development philosophy is that involving fewer participants tends to reduce complexity and foster innovation. In short, teachers should be encouraged to reduce the size of the classes they manage.

Instead of answering the question, I'll just point out why I think a policy or recommendation on this topic is useless at best, and counter-productive if strictly followed.

Direct recommendations regarding class size are likely to be too specific to be useful in general. The "best" choice in most circumstances is likely to be a compromise between what is practical and cost-effective versus what is ideal for student learning. The instructor and/or their supporting administration are in the best position to determine the optimal class size, ideally with input and feedback from the students.

A quick search turns up a US study and some statistics on the effects of class size provided by the Council of State Governments.

In addition, the following studies might be of interest:

Estimating Class-size Effects using Within-school Variation in Subject-specific Classes

On the relationship of number of students to academic level

Class size effects and the educational production function in Austrian schools

What Do We Know about School Size and Class Size?


Are online bachelor's degrees offered on Coursera the exact same as offline degrees? The University of London is offering a bachelor's degree in computer science. It costs over 10k GBP and only opens application twice a year to high school graduates and beyond. Does it have the exact same value as attending the university physically? Can I find good jobs in the US, Canada, UK, etc. with it? This could be my only opportunity to get a bachelor's degree abroad without spending tons of money. (I'm Chinese.)

It may not be exactly the same syllabus and teaching material as a conventional degree, but it is a valid, accredited UK degree offered by the University of London (founded by Royal Charter in 1836). The University and its member institutions have over 50,000 students studying by distance learning, in 190 countries.

Note that 50% of the assessment is by exam at one of their approved centres worldwide.

Whether it will be viewed as equivalent to a degree taught by attendance depends on the employer. Some employers will add some value to a degree studied part-time by distance learning, others will prefer to see physical attendance.


Acceptance to online publication – Why is everybody I know faster than average? I recently attended an editiorial panel at a conference where editors of several journals in my field advertised their journals and to this purpose listed, amongst others, the time difference between editorial acceptance and online publication.

While the averages they gave were about one month, I cannot recall any paper of mine or my colleagues in this field for which this took longer than two weeks. We get the proofs within a week, send our corrections within one or two days and the paper is published a few days later. Add two days for the rare case that another round of proofs is required.

I can guess several reasons for this discrepancy myself such as:

authors not returning the proofs in time
bad figures that require reworking
bad English that requires a lot of copy editing
a strongly skewed distribution of acceptance-to-publication times (but then journals would probably use the median and not the average for this statistics)

However, I am interested in something more substantiated than a guess and thus in any statistics or hands-on experiences from a copy editor or similar as to what usually makes up for the time between acceptance and online publication, which in turn could explain these discrepancies.

From personal experience, I can say that while the usual time from acceptance to online publication may be quite short (for a good journal), there are occasionally situations where the process takes a lot longer.  This probably pushes the mean time interval up quite a bit.

Over the last five years, I have published a couple dozen papers, and for most of them, the time lag between their acceptance and their appearance online was just two or three weeks.  However, for three of those papers, the time was quite a bit longer--a matter of months instead.

The reasons for this varied.  In one case, the copy editor raised some questions about my wording, and the paper passed back and forth between me and the journal several times before both sides were satisfied with the way the terminology was used.  For the second paper, the proof contained a serious error in one of the equations, which took three more rounds of proofing to get corrected.  (Every time I explained what needed to be changed, they messed up something else; it was frustrating.)  In each of these cases, it would take a couple weeks for the editorial staff to make the changes, generate a new proof, and send it to me.  When you need to go through four proofs, that can stretch the process to two months.

I don't know why the third paper took three or four times as long as usual; it just did.  Presumably there was some difficulty at the editorial office, but I never pressed them to find out what it was.

I try very hard to submit very carefully composed and edited manuscripts, and I encountered a few slow-moving manuscripts.  I know there are a fair number of people whose manuscripts routinely need quite a bit more editing work than mine.  Mostly, I think this is because the authors are not native English speakers.  However, whatever the reason, there are going to be a nontrivial number of papers that need to be sent back and forth between the authors and the editorial office multiple times.  These give the distribution of time delays a long tail and probably stretch the mean waiting time out significantly.


Can I modify my name on my Scopus profile page? I have recently legally changed my name and about to publish my paper in that new name. However I was wondering is there anyway to change my name on my scopus profile?

Thanks

You can simply publish your paper with your new name on it. It will appear in Scopus within your new author profile (with a newly created Scopus Author ID). Finaly, you can send a request to merge authors to Scopus (http://www.scopus.com/feedback/author/home.uri#/). All your Scopus records (with the former and new name) will be collected in a unique author profile. When merging profiles, you should set your newly created profile (with your new name) as preferred.


Including a research experience with no recommendation letter I am applying to graduate schools in the United States this year. I have research experience for one year in algebraic geometry. I learned a lot from this experience, mostly by reading papers, books, and doing calculations. I have produced no publication (algebraic geometry is a hard field). However, I have a conflict with my advisor and therefore can not include him as a recommendation letter provider. So can I omit this experience completely from my CV? would it be ethical? or should I mention it and risk the admissions committee drawing the conclusion that my research performance was bad and therefore reject my application immediately as many people here seem to suggest?

I see no reason to omit it. I see no reason to have the supervisor write a letter of recommendation either. They are independent things. You want the best letters you can get and they seem to be from others here. You also want to show that you have some research experience even if it wasn't sufficient to result in publication.

I assume you mean undergraduate research, of course, which is limited in time and scope. The limitations are, well, limiting in what can be done. With more scope you might have gone further, as you would be expected to do with a more open ended program in a doctoral degree.

List it, even list the name of the supervisor if he has some prominence. But have the letters attest to both your background accomplishments and the probability of your future success.

Most places would consider it improper to contact someone that you didn't include in your application materials. But if they do, and you are questioned on it, just be honest about the situation. Conflicts happen. People know that.


What format should sources be cited in a thesis Literature Review? I have a LaTeX document with a separate .bib file that lists all of my references.
When citing them in my Literature review, it appears as the number corresponding to that reference, not providing many indications to what paper I am talking about unless you click the internal hyperlink to see.
Would I say:
\cite{source} contains an X model, Y model, and a Z model. An X model is represented by..."

[1] contains an X model, Y model, and a Z model. An X model is represented by...

or

source contains an X model, Y model, and a Z model. An X model is represented by...

p.s. I would ask my supervisor if he hadn't been on holiday this past week with another week left to go (:

I think you want the link, with as much information as the link text can provide. So

Dumbledore [D1] contains spells X, Y and Z.

rather than

[3] contains spells X, Y and Z.

If you can find a document like yours (same level, same discipline) you can copy its style.
In any case, make a choice. If you use LaTeX properly you can change that globally with a macro change without having to edit the text.


What are "getcited.org" and "getcited.com" for? What is the purpose of getcited.org and getcited.com?

I am completely new to researching and paper publishing and I frequently get results from this site in Google Scholar Search.

I am absolutely not able to make out what this site does, it just gives the name of the paper, the author and the publication. It does not give a link to download them, neither does it give any abstract.

There are these link buttons which ask you to enter a username and password each time. Even after creating an account and logging in, I am asked to log in each time I click on a link button and the link button just opens my profile on the website.

From the wikipedia page:

GetCITED is a website database that lists publication and citation information on academic articles whose information is entered by members. It aims to include not only journal articles but also book chapters and other publications, both peer-reviewed and non-reviewed. The objective is to make this information publicly available, as such information is presently held in restricted databases. It indexes over 3,000,000 publications from over 300,000 authors.

However, on the actual getcited.org webpage, we see the copyright dates 2000-2006, which makes me think the page has not been maintained in 5 or 6 years.  So basically, it seems to be a dead website, that is still available mainly because domain registration is so cheap.


Is it acceptable to use an acronym for a set of adjectives? In science, it is very common to shorten nouns with acronyms (e.g. deoxyribonucleic acid -> DNA). However, I am struggling to think of any examples of sets of adjectives that are written as an acronym.
I am writing a scientific document, in which I must describe my data in a specific way. For the sake of this question, let's say it's "high time resolution data". It is important to distinguish the data as high time resolution data, as it is a unique type of data in the field, and the document requires justification of the significance of analysis of this data. I do not think it is appropriate to drop the adjectives and simply describe it as "the data" due to the context of the document. Is it fine/acceptable to refer to it as "HTR data", in order to improve the brevity and readability of the text?
I should note that I would prefer to use "HTR data" instead of "HTRD" to allow for interchanging the word "data" for something else, like "measurements", where appropriate.

I think that in general it would be fine as long as you use it consistently and introduce it properly again in every chapter. For example, in a sentence you could write something like this:

The High Time Resolution (HTR) data was analyzed using tool ABC. We found that the HTR data has X-property among Y observations.

However, this might be cumbersome and become repetitive at some point. If this HTR data is the only type of data in your paper, it would be an option to refer simply to the data since no confusion can occur about the data being High Time Resolution instead of some other type.


Quitting PhD for a job, how to tell advisor? I've started a PhD last year but due to financial reasons I don't think I can stay for the whole program since it's not fully funded. I've received a job offer from a very reputable company which solves my money problem & looks like a promising career path. I've accepted the offer several months ago and so I've thought very carefully about it and my mind is made up.

How do I tell my university and more importantly supervisor without causing any havoc or emotional strains since they've both been very supportive so far. Another thing is that I'm on a student visa and need to obtain a work permit which requires the school's help so it's very important that I maintain a good relationship even though I'm quitting.

Thank you very much.

Whenever a professor takes on a grad student, there is no guarantee that the student will be able to complete the program.  The vast majority of people (advisors included) understand financial hardship.

Ask to have a face-to-face meeting with your advisor.  Be honest about your reason(s).  Your advisor is likely to be willing to keep working with you as long as you are able to.  If you're worried about how to word what you will say to your advisor, something like "I wish I could have completed the program, but, due to financial burdens, I won't be able to.  I've enjoyed my time and got a lot of out the experience."  (Expand and reword as needed.)  And then give details about dates and answer questions.  If you've maintained a good working relationship with your advisor, they will likely be able to help you navigate dealing with the university.


Do all countries have the same gender imbalance in science? Do all countries have the same gender imbalance in science?

That is, while some countries may have a higher proportion of women in science, while others have a lower proportion of women in science, if you compared the gender ratio in physics compared to the gender ratio of biology in a country, would you always see the same or similar results? Or could you see a higher proportion of women in physics compared to biology in one country, but see a higher proportion of women in biology compared to physics in another country?

Within Europe alone there are huge variations in the number of female mathematicians as documented with lots of graphs and maps here.


Is this plagiarism or something similar in a master's project? I am a master's student in 3rd world Asian country. My master's thesis guide (who was from a different institute) abandoned me after giving a research paper to read. Now, with no guidance left as no-one in my institute works in analytic number theory, I began reading the papers related to the first paper. I read 5 papers in total and in my thesis I will write in detail about the details which were not covered in the papers (like detailed steps and proofs).

But, as I had no help I posted questions on mathstackexchange and some which were not answered on MSE were subsequently posted on Mathoverflow. I am really thankful to the community because without their help it wouldn't be possible to completely understand the papers. One professor in combinatorial number theory (who recommended me to another professor) agreed that I could write his name as a supervisor (my institute has rules that he had to be made a co-guide earlier even when I didn't know my  guide will not work with me).

I don't want to write in my master's thesis that I took help from Mathstackexchange and Mathoverflow because it could create an impression that I don't know enough mathematics. But if I don't acknowledge it, is this plagiarism? It doesn't seem right that I write the names of all the users as I have asked about 10-12 questions there. I think writing all those names will create a bad impression of me. The evaluators in my university may not understand the situation. I have worked really hard on thesis despite the trauma of my guide not replying to any of my email.

Can anyone please tell me whether I am plagiarising?

Passing off others' work as your own is plagiarism, acknowledge the help you were given, there's no shame, on the contrary, you'll be praised for initiative.

You needn't necessarily* provide references to individual posts or your account, which will avoid privacy issues.

You can provide the names of those that helped. If that poses a privacy concern (e.g., you can be identified, because the group that helped you didn't help any other individual), then you could omit some names (e.g., names with lower reputation) and mention that you've done so for anonymity.

You could offer to privately reveal direct references to your examiners, as long as those references are kept confidential.

* Case-by-case decisions should be made on whether an individual post merits referencing directly.


How was higher education done before the university system? I know the university system as it is understood today dates at least as far back as the 13th century or perhaps even to the time of Charlemagne, Alcuin of York, et al., but how was higher education handled before universities? Was it by private tutoring?

As with many things the history of higher education is not well known since accounts may be scarce or missing altogether. Early evidence indicate that schools existed in Egypt where, primarily, boys would learn to read and write etc. One has to remember that such skills were not for the masses. Religiously connected schools also emerged where religious texts were handled and copied. Theological and medical teaching was also done but very little else. evidence of mathematics have been found so there were also schools, perhaps aiming at architecture, astronomy , etc. relevant for the culture. None of these has a degree at the end but was likely based on apprenticeship and mastery evaluated by the teachers. Similar evidence for teaching exists in all older cultures and seem to focus on maintaining order in the social and cultural basis for society.

There seems to be a big step when considering Greek education which was far more comprehensive than the pragmatic education earlier. In the city states of ancient Greece specialized schools emerged where teaching circled around very specific topics such as the Hippocratic school of medicine on Cos. This specialization seems to have continued with the well known Greek philosophers/scientists such as Aristotle, Plato etc. and teaching progressed in directions envisioned by these founders. In other words, there was no single systematic way for schools to teach and operate.

In the Roman world subjects were ordered in groups that we can recognize today: I grammar rhetoric, dialectic; II geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, music; III medicine, architecture. This was how the liberal arts (defined as theoretical and intellectual activities by the Greeks) were seen. The subjects have of course survived to modern times although organisation has changed. So education became more organised but the education was not open and still served a purpose for maintaining government rule. Out of the post-Roman world came the first universities as stated in the question where education became even more organized and eventually including fixed degrees.

This answer is loosely based on the excellent book: The first universities by Olaf Pedersen, Cambridge UP, 1997. I strongly recommend it!


Is it common for a university to remain unresponsive to queries? I'm planning to study in the u.k. I've never been to the u.k. but is it common there to remain unresponsive to the students' queries?
I've sent a few emails to the student service team for some queries. They replied me once or twice and on one of them, idk if they forwarded it by accident ot not, they sent me the conversation they had about me through emails including the answer to my query. They were complaining to each other how I email multiple ppl at the same time. I'm not sure if that's a professional way to deal with anyone even though I'm a student.
After that, I sent a few emails because I urgently need to work on my visa, and they haven't answered to any of them. It's been roughly 9days since I sent my unanswered query.
Could they be ignoring my emails on purpose?
I've been informed that an organisation is to take certain period of time to reply before when I was emailling other institutes, but never experienced this unresponsive instutue...

They complained that you've emailed multiple people; maybe that breaks some organisational hierarchy and given they are British, they might be too serious about the hierarchy thing.
You should probably send one more short email to exactly one specific, most relevant recipient, apologize for any mistake in correspondence on your part and politely share your query again while mentioning the urgency.


PhD in the Netherlands: Can I negotiate the starting step in my salary scale? I am going to join a PhD position in one of the TUs in the Netherlands. This question pertains to the salary I can expect. I have worked 2 years after my bachelors and 3 years after my masters. For the doctoral candidates, according to Collective Labour Agreement by Dutch universities, the initial salary step is P0 and it climbs to P3 in the final year of a 4 year PhD program.
I think I am entitled to start at P1 (or P2 if I can stretch it), based on my experience, which is one of the reasons I got selected. Can I push the HR and ask to start at higher level (P1 or P2 instead of P0)? Any insights will be welcome.

Short answer, no.
Every PhD student starts at the same level, I have never heard of anyone negotiating a higher salary (I did my PhD in the Netherlands). The only two exceptions I am aware of are a) medical doctors doing a PhD - they start at a higher salary - and b) people funded by an outside source like a foreign government or company, where the outside source stipulates and pays the salary.
But a higher salary based on work experience: no. I don't suppose there's any harm in asking if you have already accepted the PhD position, but don't get your hopes up. I actually know one PhD student who has tried it, but she got shut down fast by HR.


Copyright for lectures, slides and textbook: university or professor? I'll be starting as an adjunct professor soon at a smaller university, and I'm starting to prepare lectures and slides for teaching there.

In the future, I'm also thinking of publishing a textbook based on the lectures and slides I prepare.

I'm trying to find out who owns the copyright to the lectures, slides (and possibly textbook) that I prepare. It doesn't seem clear to me who owns the copyright - is it the university or the professor?

One of my professor friends told me that she prepared the slides for her own course over many years to replace the publisher slides, and she has a copyright on the slides, though of course not on the standard textbook she's using.

This answer is about the US only. United States copyright law has a concept called "work for hire." The copyright of a work for hire belongs to the employer, if the work fits in one of the following categories:

  1) a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; or (2) a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire.

Materials such as lecture notes or scholarly papers have traditionally never been considered works for hire. This is sometimes referred to as the "teacher exception." For some history and explanation, see this AAUP page. There are a couple of legal precedents described in the same AAUP article, Weinstein v. University of Illinois and Hays v. Sony Corp. These court decisions say that materials like scholarly papers are not a "requirement or duty" of the job, and that a school doesn't "supervise its faculty" in writing this kind of thing. A later Supreme Court ruling in 1989,  Community for Non-Violence v. Reid, was not specifically about academic work, but is important because it changed the criteria that had been assumed in Weinstein. The 2006 case Bosch v Ball-Kell reaffirmed the teacher exception, but may have had a negative effect on teachers' rights because it held that fair use applied to lectures. The AAUP article also describes some good reasons why the school probably doesn't even want ownership of the copyright. It is not well positioned to benefit from ownership, and ownership could entangle it in legal disputes.

Many schools have policies in which they attempt to lay out what they consider to be a work for hire. These policies have little legal force, because under US law, work for hire is defined by the law. A work cannot be made into a work for hire by the unilateral declaration of an employer that it is so, and even an agreement between the employer and employee may have no legal effect. Usually a school's policies simply reads like a summary of the law and historical practices.

All of this was basically settled law for many decades, until distance education became a big thing. At that point, many schools started to envision an online course as a type of commodity that they could own and exploit, and they started to get more aggressive about trying to call online course materials works for hire.

But in general, any lectures, slides, textbooks, or scholarly articles you write belong to you and not your school, and this is true regardless of whether the school posts a policy on its web site claiming otherwise, and possibly even regardless of whether they get you to sign a contract stating otherwise. You are on the strongest ground if your work is not written to the school's specification and if the school never had any say over whether the result was OK.

Putting your byline or a copyright message on materials such as lecture slides has no real effect on anything. You own the copyright automatically as soon as an original, copyright-eligible work is written down, assuming it's not a work for hire. By modern copyright law, the only real purpose of a copyright notice is that if you have to sue an infringer, it makes it harder for them to make the defense that they didn't know the work was copyrighted -- but that's a flimsy defense in any case, since copyright is automatic these days.

If you want to prevent the university from using your materials under the fair use exception to copyright, an analysis of Bosch v Ball-Kell gives the following guidance:

  This case also suggests that publishing teaching materials, documented plans to use them in research or a textbook, or other demonstration of market value can give faculty greater control of their teaching materials if a dispute arises over them.