Paper accepted in journal, should I remove style file for arXiv preprint? I recently sent a paper to a journal (which I put on arXiv beforehand) which has now been accepted with some corrections. I want to put the corrected version on arXiv. The corrected version is written using the style file supplied by the journal.

Should I remove this style file? Does it matter if I don't? Will the journal get mad?

Legally, the style file at first only is the software which you use to generate your paper and thus there should not be any problems in most cases, for the same reasons that you do not need to ask Microsoft for permission each time you publish something generated with Word. I see three problem cases, however:

If you use TeX, and ArXiv does not have the style file and thus you need to supply it, which would make it be published alongside your article. In this case you may be distributing a software that you are not allowed not distribute. In my experience, many style files are free to distribute though; have a look at it whether it contains some license.
The style file includes a logo or similar (e.g., Royal Society Publishing’s style file does this), which in turn may not have a license that allows you to distribute it and also probably is a problem because of the next point.
The style file makes your paper mention the journal’s name, publisher, or similar, which creates the false impression that your preprint is actually a publication of that journal.

Will the journal get mad? – Of course you need to regard the journal’s copyright agreement (which you accepted) with respect to publishing preprints in general or on ArXiv in specific (Sherpa Romeo is a database that helps you to find this out). But if the journal allows you to publish a preprint content-wise, I do not see any reasons why using its style file would enrage it, given that the above problem cases do not apply. Some journals even allow you publishing the journal’s version of the paper on ArXiv, e.g., the Physical Review series.
Finally, a stylistical argument: If the journal has a single-column layout but your paper has no long equations or something else that would make such a format a good idea, you may want to opt for a two-column layout for your preprint.


Can an emotional letter of motivation be harmful in a PhD application? Today some of my friends were discussing a motivation letter. One friend's application was rejected. One reason his friends find out is that the letter of motivation is very emotional. So I was thinking: is there no place of emotion in academia? People used to study a lot as a strong feeling works in them, inspiring them to do more and more work. This is the emotion. Can it play harmfully in a letter of motivation?

Edit: I have collected his small letter. It is included. We thought it is very emotional.

  College XY has best undergraduate mathematics department of the university of XY.
  IITX is built upon the basement of the first engineering college of Asia. I completed my B.Sc. from XY and M.Sc. from IITX. Both the times I got first class after each evaluation. I had a dream to continue my PhD studies in a good western university. I tried. My degrees are equivalent to degrees from European universities. I came to the understanding that my knowledge is not much sufficient for their requirements. Currently I am working in a project focussing on a very particular problem. I am out of touch from many interesting topics of mathematics.
  Many advanced parts of mathematics are till unknown to me which shall be very useful in my work. So I am thing for a better opportunity to revise my
  mathematical concepts in a better way and to collect new knowledge. I wish to build myself in a way that I can continue my PhD work in a good university and I can be a successful researcher. If I get the opportunity to continue the diploma hope I reach my dreams.

In brief, even after imagining that text's language cleaned up, the problem is not about "emotion" but about lack of verifiable substance. As in @aesmail's good answer, insubstantiated claims, or, worse, claims which appear to be counter to any documentable reality, are at best unpersuasive. For example, unsupported claims about the quality of one's university or department are at best pointless, and suggest that one does not know how things work. Proposing to "collect new knowledge" gives a very strange impression, as though the writer believed that learning new things was somehow unusual... while being remarkably inspecific.

That is, if I were to receive such a letter, I'd consider it basically content-free, for all practical purposes. "Emotion" is not the issue. The problem is that such letters should not be content-free, but should include tangibles, past accomplishments and connections with the future, etc. A content-free letter competes very badly with content-ful letters.


Is scooping viewed negatively in the research community? I graduated my undergrad two years ago, and I have since published 4 papers in top computer science conferences and journals. However, all my papers seem to follow a common "scooping" pattern, where I would read an interesting paper, notice some possible improvements/speed ups in the algorithm published, type up the improvement, and submit it. This seems to have worked well for me so far.
I am planning to apply to graduate school, however, an old colleague in my research lab told me some graduate school admission committees might raise an eye brow at my research, since they all seem to "scoop" other researchers work, and not come up with new/original research directions.
My question is, how truthful is this? I feel what I have done should be considered original research, and not "scooping", as the original authors did not allude in the slightest (either in the paper or on online mediums like arxiv/twitter) that they were pursuing this problem further.

What you describe isn't "scooping". Scooping is where you publish something that someone else is currently working on before they are able to publish it. Usually this is done without knowing someone else is working on it, and is something that happens to you (you were scooped), and not usually used to describe action of the publishing author (unless they did it intentionally).
The issue with your research is that, if this is your only work, it could be seen to lack novelty; it is only incrementally building on other peoples' results. That would possibly be weighed negatively in grant applications, etc.
In other words, I think that your research could hypothetically be viewed as not especially notable if you were applying for postdoc or faculty positions (I haven't seen it, and you say it was published in top journals, so this isn't necessarily the case). But

I wouldn't call this "scooping" and
I don't think this should be an issue applying for graduate school. Having publications will only be seen as a positive thing, and if they are in top journals that will look very good. No one is expecting an undergraduate to be be publishing novel research as a condition to attend graduate school.


Acceptence of cross-major master application in Germany I am planing to apply for a Master of Computer Science in Germany, as an undergrads with a major in Physics. Although I have taken a bunch of CS courses covering core concepts such as programming languages, data structures & algorithm, networking and databases, with an additional exchange experience with its major in CS, transferring from a theoretical science to a applied engineering is still not a minor gap. Some people are saying German universities are rather harsh compared to Americans in terms of openness to cross-major application. Therefore I would like to know it is really so difficult?

In such a case, I would not just apply, but talk to the faculty or institute before.
Find out (e.g. through the website) who is responsible for the Master program and contact them. Give an overview about what you have done in your undergrad studies and ask them if admission is possible. It may also be the case that you can get admission with additional requirements, like additional exams on undergrad courses.
Also check the language requirements. Even if the Master lectures are in English, undergrad lectures may not be in English and you might be required or at least advised to take some of them.


How can I accredit my Russian kandidat nauk in biology to PhD in USA? I have a kandidat nauk in biology from Russia, and as I know it's equivalent to a PhD degree outside post-Soviet countries.
My question is what do I need to do to accredit my degree in the USA? Which organization in the US do I have to contact?

The US does not have a centralized system in this regard.  Each organization decides for itself how to consider your degree.  Anyone with international awareness who hires PhDs regularly should know that your degree is equivalent, but everyone makes their own judgement; there is no centralized body.


Can I use the term 'abuse' if someone submits five papers to a conference? During my career as a researcher, I have attended many high-quality conferences in my research field and presented papers. In general there are some rules about the number of papers accepted which belong to a researcher as an author. I can take it normally one person can be an author for a paper, or two. What about five papers?

My question is;

Can I use the term abuse if someone (first author or not) submits five papers to a conference?

Why would you think of it as abuse? If the conference has rules that prohibit it then the author is breaking the rules, otherwise not. The more important question is whether the papers have merit. If they do, all is good. If not, they will be rejected in due course. In the latter case, the committee can admonish the author about a flood of junk.

The conference program committee doesn't need to accept a lot of papers from an individual and I think in most cases they would like a variety of authors to be represented, but that is their concern. It also seems a valid "policy."

The committee also needs to be prepared to review, according to their normal methods, all papers submitted. The selection, however, probably involves actually accepting fewer papers than the reviewers approve, just for time and space.

The "problem" if there is one, will resolve itself.

If the committee doesn't want this to happen in future, they can write rules into future submission criteria.


Declining funded MA offer A (after accepting) and accepting funded MA offer B after April 15th? I am an international student and I obtained funding from two sources (both homeland and US government) for one academic year to obtain a MA degree in interdisciplinary studies.

I applied to several programs, and was accepted into University A around April 12. I had two weeks to reply, and during these two weeks I tried expediting the review for my application for University B, my first choice. Both universities are in the US top 25, were A would be around 20-25 and B 1-8.

Because I was unsure about my acceptance into University B I accepted the University A offer, which came with 30% tuition refund.

Just two days after accepting offer A, I was admitted into University B for another MA program. This University is and has always been my first choice and they offer a 66% tuition refund.

I would really like to accept offer B, but I am worried about the Council of Graduate Schools Resolution. I do however wonder:

one offer was made after April 15th, and both deadlines were after
April 15th: does the CGS still apply?
it says I need a written
release: how and who do I ask for this release?
how likely is it to get such a release?

So far, I have not accepted B, but I really really want to. I know there is a serious ethical issue with accepting and later declining, thus taking another students' spot, but I saw no other way because of the university A reply deadline.
I must also admit: it did not occur to me to ask A for an extension on the reply deadline. I feel stupid not having asked, but it just seemed so impossible at the time.

Thanks

To answer your questions:

1.

  [O]ne offer was made after April 15th, and both deadlines were after April 15th: does the CGS still apply?

Yes, as is made clear in the webpage you linked to:

  However, an acceptance given or left in force after April 15 commits the student not to accept another offer without first obtaining a written release from the institution to which a commitment has been made. Similarly, an offer by an institution after April 15 is conditional on presentation by the student of the written release from any previously accepted offer.

2.

  [I]t says I need a written release: how and who do I ask for this release?

You should ask whomever it was you've been corresponding with about graduate admissions.  In particular, when you accepted an offer you probably signed a document written by a faculty member (e.g. the director of graduate studies in the department).  This is the person you should contact as soon as possible.

As to the how: you should clearly and politely explain your situation, explain that you would like to get a written release to attend University B, and ask if that will be possible.  In particular you should explain the part about B's offer coming with a 66% tuition refund rather than a 30% tuition refund.  If that financial difference is significant or critical to you, say so, but don't exaggerate the financial hardship.

  [H]ow likely is it to get such a release?

Well, I have not directly experienced this situation.  But I am the Graduate Coordinator of my department (mathematics, UGA), so I can tell you what I would do: I would release the student from their commitment unless the student's reneging would damage the program and/or the department in a specific, serious way.  (For instance, maybe if we enroll N-1 students instead of N, then we cannot run any courses for first year students.  In my department this is a far-fetched scenario, but it gives you an idea of the amount of harm that could possibly be caused by a reneging student under exactly the wrong conditions.)  On the one hand, I would understand that you would rather attend a significantly better program and pay much less tuition: so would I, and so would anyone.  On the other hand, I would understand that your "commitment" to my program can't possibly be binding for more than one semester (indeed, more students drop out in their first semester than at any other one time), and that if you don't get a release you might be spending most of your time in my program planning your escape.  Neither of those things would be good for either of us.

  So far, I have not accepted B, but I really really want to.

As we established, you absolutely cannot accept B's offer while you have already committed to another offer.  That is wholly unethical and dishonest.  You should think a bit more and come to a state where you do not "really really want to" do something so unethical that it could jeopardize your future academic career.

The CGS resolution is not a legally binding document; it's a directive.  So even if you do not get a written release from University A, it would be possible to inform them unconditionally that you are declining their offer.  If you do that without informing B about it, then you risk making a bit of a mess later on when A and B each find out what happened (as is very likely; the academic world is not that large).  So the minimally ethical action that doesn't clearly shoot yourself in the foot is to inform B that you will decline A's offer to accept theirs conditional only on this being acceptable to B.  But as I said above, I strongly advise you to seek a written release from A.

  I know there is a serious ethical issue with accepting and later declining, thus taking another student's spot, but I saw no other way because of the university A reply deadline.

You need to understand that A gave you the deadline it did because it is trying to act honorably in its dealings with a large number of students.  So I deny the slight implication here that A did something wrong or put you in a particularly difficult position: it sounds like it played the game honorably.  So you should seek to do the same.  To be sure, getting a written release from A would be honorable behavior in this circumstance, so you shouldn't feel hesitant to ask for it.


Should I be concerned about the validity of my degree if my peers in other educational systems seem to have more difficult exams? I'm an Italian student of mathematical physics at the university of Edinburgh. I have recently caught up with one of my friends and noticed that their exams in Linear algebra and calculus (analisi I, II and Geometria 1) are harder than those I have done here, which made me question how valid my university actually is. I am aware that at Edinburgh university the toughest year is supposed to be the third (unlike in Italy where the first is when most people drop out).

Does this mean that an Italian degree in physics provides a better preparation to become a theoretical physicist, or are the two qualifications equivalent?

Comparing different educational systems is frequently a futile exercise. Learning is like hiking to the top of a mountain from different trails: all of them lead to the same top, but one can be very steep at the beginning, a second one can have its steepest segment halfway to the top and a third one can have a final wall that needs an expert climber. Different educational systems can choose different paths according to different intermediate objectives.
Though it's true that some people prefer a certain type of trail with respect to another, and that along certain trails one can find more people with whom to share the joys and sorrows of hiking (learning), arriving to the top depends only on your efforts.
Now you are at the beginning of your trail. It's too early to decide whether it's a good trail or not: start hiking and enjoy the landscape, and if you think that the trail is not enough steep for your training, try to jog or run uphill. In other words, challenge yourself: you will learn much much more.

An anecdote about the appropriateness of certain steep starts. When I was a sophomore (2nd year) studying electronic engineering we had a mandatory class called Rational Mechanics, about Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics. The exam consisted in a set of problems on mechanical systems to be solved with those two formalisms, a home project in which we had to develop a numerical solver with different techniques (in Pascal), and a viva where we had to prove various theorems. It was a tough exam at the sophomore level, but mostly because no one could really get the grasp of it. I somehow managed to tunnel through the exam, even with a decent grade.
Two years later I attended a class on quantum mechanics. The first lecture the professor said something like: "Quantum mechanics is based on Hamiltonian mechanics, and since you already know it we can proceed quickly". I then timidly raised my hand and said "Er... no one in this room has the faintest idea of what Hamiltonian mechanics is. Yes, we passed the exam two years ago, but really... could you please give us a refresher?". She was astonished, but then agreed to spend a few lectures on Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics. I integrated her lectures with a classic book, and since then those topics have been among my favourites.
The above example is to say that sometimes a tough exam at the beginning is just a misplaced exam, because some topics require a certain level of scientific maturity to be properly understood.


How should I state my peer review experience in the CV? I've been invited to review manuscripts for two journals in my field frequently. I noticed in the first couple of cases my supervisor was the associate editor which has selected me in the process, but for rest of them, I was assigned to the papers by other editors (not from our network).

So, I assumed that my name should be there somewhere in a list, such that the editors may choose me when they see a paper matches my keywords or my previous review results, etc.

Now, I want to state that in my CV and in a list separate from my ad-hoc review experiences, but I do not know what suitable key phrase I should use.

For instance, can I use the following?

  Member of the review board for Journals X and Y

By the way, I work in the field of computer science.

This is the sort of thing which will vary more from field to field, and you may want to talk to other people in your field, but my general inclination is not to do so. Unless you have been specifically told that there is some review board you are on, or been invited to be on, this may not even exist. Aside from the ethics, if this is a prominent journal, and one of the editors sees your CV, they could react extremely negatively. A better solution might be that if you are going to list what journals you have reviewed for is to list how many articles you have reviewed for a journal if you have reviewed more than one.


Professor wants to change my thesis' interpretation in favor of his research. How to react? I am about to finish my undergraduate thesis. The interpretation/conclusion i wrote is basically a statement which matches well with research of other groups and has a widely accepted scientific background.

After letting my supervisor (who has been mentoring me) and then my professor(who gave me the topic and is in charge of the decisions in the group) control my thesis, my professor wants me to edit my interpretation and write one which mainly goes along his research but is not widely accepted in science.

My supervisor said I should do what my professor asks me to.
Should I?

Edit: My professor asked me to change because I had no clear evidence for my assumptions. But I would not have any evidence for his suggestions neither.

It sounds like there may be potential arguments in favour of both interpretations. First pin down what they are - then you're in a better position to have a discussion with your professor. It may turn out that one of you is unambiguously right - and that's a good way of finding out. More likely, there are arguments for both interpretations, in which case you might be best off presenting both together with some critical analysis.

TL/DR: Follow the evidence. Without providing any evidence, neither of you is demonstrably right.


How should I prepare my first PhD interview when I do not know about the research topic? I'm going to have my first Skype interview with the PhD committee, and I have not yet been told about the research topic. How long should the presentation be? Given that I have not been told about the research topic, how should I incline my presentation? Should I include my CV?

If you've not been told about the topic yet (though that's quite unusual - perhaps you can clarify why) then I would suggest examining the research interests of the department you are applying for. If you know the names of the interviewers, look up their research interest and their most recent papers. Are there any research groups within the department? Check for recent publications and recent (successful) grant applications.

In addition, think about which of these research topics you could most effectively contribute to. If you had to match your expertise and knowledge so far against any of the departmental research interests, where would you fit best and where could you contribute most effectively?

In your presentation I would suggest to demonstrate that you are aware of the research profile of the institution and how you could see yourself contribute to it. Demonstrate and describe your expertise and experience backed up with evidence, and this includes summarising or presenting your CV.


What if the production editor does not respond to important email after a few days? I sent my review of the proof for an article back to the production editor. However, due to the large amount minor corrections I made (roughly 50), I requested a second review. I sent two emails. But now it has already 4 days, and there is no response from the production editor.

I am so nervous because if the typesetter corrects the manuscript inappropriately or even publishes the paper without fully addressing the correction, it would be too late to do any further action.

Can anyone give me some suggestions?

It's been four days, and that might also include a weekend day depending on where in the world the production editor is. Have patience, and let the process work itself out :-)


How can I avoid the requirement of using friends or acquaintances to complete coursework? A friend of mine recently sent me a game he made as part of his coursework and asked me to make a Youtube video of it. He was supposed to get 3 people to do the same in order to get a better grade.

I'm happy to help my friend out this once but this is concerning for me because the professor asks non-enrolled people to do gradable work. Even if the 'external dependencies' are willing to do the work, they might not be able to due to other commitments, which could conceivably put unnecessary strain on the relationship.

I was told the video can be a short, 1 minute video, with you talking mentioning the title but the amount of work required isn't the point; the point is that any amount is required at all.

Assuming I was the student in question and asked to find reviewers for my game demo, what is the best way to refuse? I'd think the 2nd paragraph of this post is enough if reworded into an email but I'm not an academic, and there might be some nuances I'm not considering.

edit I have to clarify my objection. It's not that any work is required at all from a third party, it's that a student's grade depends on work being done by a third party that has no contract with the University and no obligation to deliver. This is different form many forms of outsourcing, be it a vendor (the student pays for something so the vendor must deliver) or an interview (the student still has to prepare for and edit the interview and still does most of the 'work')

I agree that this concrete instance is somewhat problematic, but as usual it's a sliding scale. In practice, there are certain learning objectives where you as a student can't help but interact with the outer world, which usually requires them to spend some amount of time or work on your course work.

To give another real-world example, for a teacher's education course on diversity I am currently doing I was recently asked to interview an international student w.r.t. their experiences at our university. This required me to find an international student who was willing to commit 30 - 60 minutes of their time to talk to me about diversity. I found this assignment quite reasonable, as it's clear to me that the general learning objective underlying this exercise can't really be achieved differently.

For me, the difference between your example (which I agree is problematic) and mine (which I think is not) is that in my example, the student did not actually have to do any "work" alone and by themselves. They did not write or submit anything, I actually had to do all the work related to writing up the analysis and report. The student "only" had to commit the time, which is not nothing, but the barrier is certainly lower than if the student had to, say, write a report themself.

  Assuming I was the student in question and asked to find reviewers for my game demo, what is the best way to refuse?

I would ask the teacher whether you can also do the assignment in the way that you as the student make a few review videos with your friends. Basically you would still do the assignment, but you would take over all the "work" of making, editing, and uploading the videos. Your friends would only need to commit the time to look at your game and speak their thoughts into your camera. This would sound like a sensible compromise to me, while accomplishing the same learning objectives for you as a student.


Is a humorous "easter egg" in the academic homepage acceptable? This is my current homepage at my university's website,
I've considered adding a little "humorous" thing to the homepage to make it less "boring" and more approachable (the "updated" version can be found here, click at the button on the bottom of the page - this is still not uploaded as my main homepage).

My question is, is something like that considered acceptable? will it leave any bad impression? Personally I find it quite funny and like small jokes hidden in serious websites / papers / h.w / books / etc.

The hard thing about using humor in a professional setting is that different people have different tastes, and so you're pretty much guaranteed that your joke will fall flat with a significant percentage of the people who interact with it.  That is one of the several reasons why it's generally inadvisable to use humor in an "unattended" situation like your website where you can't be judging and metering to your audience.

That said, the nice thing about a (non-offensive) little easter egg is that most of the people who won't like it are also people who won't ever notice it or click on it.  The sort of person who goes to click on a random odd little widget on a web page is the sort of person who is interested in easter eggs and wondering what they will find.  They might like it, and they might not care for it, but as long as it's innocuous, you're almost certainly not going to be doing yourself any harm.


Should I do research into the topic prior to being officially accepted as an RA? Last week, I had spoken to a professor regarding a research project (I am hoping it will get my “foot in the door” and benefit my graduate school application). I had been in contact with this professor for a few months regarding a potential research project. The professor finally got the project approved and described it to me. She then told me to think about it (it would be fairly extensive) and to get back to her. She had mentioned some things I would need to familiarize myself with before I begin. I want to do the project. So my question is, should I begin learning all of the concepts she mentioned / doing research into the topic before getting back to her? Or will I be making too many assumptions about my place in the project by doing this?

The professor got the project approved and described it to me. She told me to think about it and to get back to her. She had mentioned some things I would need to familiarize myself with before I begin.  I want to do the project. Should I begin learning all of the concepts she mentioned / doing research into the topic before getting back to her?

(1) Let her know right away that you want to do the project.  (2) Start learning some of the concepts she mentioned.  You do not need to work on this full time at this point.  Don't take time away from your other obligations, but do make a start.


Colleague asks for feedback on a paper of which I am a reviewer More than once, I have found myself with a curious ethical dilemma.  Due to the nature of the dilemma, however, I have waited quite some time to ask this question, in order to increase the anonymity of those involved.

Here is the dilemma: a colleague of mine sent me a copy of a paper currently under review, saying they thought it would be of interest and wanted to get my feedback, since it is a subject on which I am known to have expertise.  The only problem was that I was one of the reviewers for the journal (and indeed had already turned in my review before my colleague approached me).

There was no ethical conflict for me performing the review, and no impropriety on the part of my colleague for sharing the manuscript either: we have similar research interests but have never collaborated closely, and the circumstances of the sharing mean there is no reason to think this could be an attempt to influence a possible reviewer.  Still, I found it challenging to interact in such a way that it would not breach my anonymity as a reviewer.

What do you think is the best way to handle such a situation?

Have you considered writing a fresh answer to the colleague without caring that you wrote (or are writing) a review? What I mean is, just write the answer on your knowledge of the paper without caring that you are also writing a review. I think this is a natural approach and does not really have a downside.

You know the paper quite in depth, and you can provide valuable feedback. You will do so (or already have done so) in a formal way through the peer-review system, but now you have the opportunity for formulate the feedback in a more casual way (compare it with writing down results for a formal publication in a journal or at a conference and a discussion of the results on your personal blog - you describe the same things in a different way of communication). The only downside I see is, that the person will get some more clues that you may be a reviewer but I am not sure if this really is a downside at all.

Another downside may be that it costs you more time and that you don't want to allocate time to provide feedback twice. In this case, you can politely answer something like "Thanks for the paper - I try to find time to read it soon and come back to you in case I have any feedback." I guess most people understand that this can also mean that they won't hear anything more from you on that matter…


Is it true that articles cited in Wikipedia get more citations? It is famously known that “visibility” of an article influences its citation count. Is it true that articles cited in Wikipedia page get more academic citations?

There appears to be some literature comparing citations on Wikipedia to citations in academic journals, but I have not been able to find any randomised controlled trial (RCT) on the matter.  For example, in a comparison of Wikipedia citations to journal metrics, Nielsen (2018) found that "[t]he Wikipedia citation numbers showed high correlation with the [Journal Citation Report's] numbers for the total number of citations to a journal" (p. 4).  If go broader than Wikipedia, Lawrence (2011) finds that free online availability is positively correlated with citation rate.  Both of these studies use observational data and show correlation between the outcomes, but they do not rule out other causal relations that would lead to correlation (e.g., if papers are more likely to be made available online, or added as citations in Wikipedia, if they become more cited).

If there are any enterprising researchers reading this post, this sounds like a good research question for a randomised controlled trial (RCT).  Since Wikipedia can be edited with a free account, it should be possible to set up an RCT where you add a randomised set of presently uncited academic articles to Wikipedia and track their citation progress in academic journals against a control group.  First find a set of articles relevant to a subject that are not presently cited on Wikpedia; then randomise them into a control group and treatment group, and add the articles in the treatment group into Wikipedia articles; then watch changes in the citation count in the academic journals over time, and then test for a difference in the groups.


Does PowerPoint presentation require in-text referencing if there is a written script? I have to make a PowerPoint presentation for one of my subjects and it requires a written script. I will be referencing on my written script including in-text referencing. However, I’m unsure when it comes to the PowerPoint if it requires the same in-text referencing or a reference list at the very end. The thing is there will be several references and the assignment requires specifically that only 8 slides are allowed each with the intended question I’m required to talk about in each slide. I’m confused because how am I meant to include all my references and at the same fit everything into that one slide. My referencing style will be Apa 7th edition

The answer depends significantly on what your professor wants. The straightforward answer is to simply ask your professor. However, erring on the side of caution should not hurt.
You could simply add in-text citations on each slide. If you have text on your slides making claims, you can add citations right there. Then, you can have your final slide be a works cited page.
Another way to cite is to say "according to source, claim". By specifically mentioning sources when you speak, you can cite them verbally and fix this issue. This would be easier, as the audience is more likely to pick up on your sources, and you can cite claims even if they are not written on your slides.
Even if you did not need to cite sources, there would presumably be no harm in doing so.


Finding mathematics postdoc opportunities in India I am Ph.D. advisor to X, a rising 5th-year Ph.D. student in pure mathematics at a mid-tier US research university. X and I are trying to prepare for his upcoming job search.

In my opinion X is promising, talented, and hard-working, and he has not quite realized his potential yet. If he were to go on the US postdoctoral job market this year, I would estimate his chances to be low. Staying for a sixth year is a theoretical possibility, but my department is faced with budget cuts and X would probably have to finance his own studies.

It occurs to me that he might apply for postdocs (and, eventually, tenure-track positions) in his native India. He would really like to pursue a research career, and would likely be willing to accept compromises such as a low salary (by US standards).

An internet search reveals particular institutes to which one can apply, as well as postdoctoral fellowships -- but I was unable to find any general overview of the Indian job market geared towards applicants overseas.

Is there an approach to finding a mathematics job in India, better than googling and applying for individual opportunities? And is it any easier to find a job there than it is in the US (for an Indian citizen who has studied in the US)?

First of all, I am not an Indian, please take my words as a grain of salts. I'll provide what I know.

University Grants Commission (UGC)

  is a statutory body set up by the Indian Union government in accordance to the UGC Act 1956[1] under Ministry of Human Resource Development, and is charged with coordination, determination and maintenance of standards of higher education.

As far as I know, they are in charge of almost all of the high level education matters in India.

I did find one of their web pages Scholarships and Fellowships which lists many scholarships and fellowships in India, including UGC scheme for post-doctoral Fellowships (pdfs) (To be named D. S. Kothari Fellowships), POST DOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP TO WOMEN CANDIDATES (I don't know if your student is a woman or not), etc.

Hope this helps.


Which among an LoR for startup work and a "good student" LoR, will be more effective? I am applying for Master's program in CS. I have the following two alternatives:

An LoR from a startup founder for significant and relevant work. The possible problem is that the entire team consists of final-year undergraduates including founders, however they are from a relatively well-known university in the country that I am applying to (USA).
An LoR from one of my professors with whom my interactions have been only during courses and labs which are not directly relevant to my area of specialization.

Which of these would be more effective as part of my application?

My other LoRs are from a professor with whom I have worked on a relevant R&D project for almost a year, and one from a professor about coursework and labwork, which is relevant to the field.

If the startup is showing evidence of success (e.g., it's actually raising significant venture capital or making money from clients), then if it were me, I would absolutely go with the letter from the startup.  They may be have been undergraduates, but now they are a Small Business Success Story, and you are part of that story.  It will help you stand out as unique, capable of taking initiative, and capable of working on ill-bounded problems as part of a team.

If, on the other hand, the startup is still little more than a collection of nebulous hopes, dreams, and semi-finished software, the professor (who is essentially neutral as far as recommendation value goes) is a safer bet.


Putting "List of Figures, Tables, Conference Talks, etc." in thesis (Chemistry) I would like to know what people think about putting lists of figures, schemes, and tables in PhD theses. Do you think it is necessary or just seems like "page filler".

I would also like people's thoughts on putting a list of conference talks. In some fields (e.g., computer science) this is very important, however, in chemistry (my subject) publications are more important. However, giving conference talks can be considered a good thing so I am thinking about putting it into my thesis.

To note, my university has no guidelines on these so it is probably flexible.

Ok, there are two questions here, so let's go one by one:

For the list of figures I think you can put them without problem. They take maybe one or two pages, and that shouldn't make a significant difference that could be considered "page filling". If two pages are 10% of your whole thesis, then you still have work to do.
Especially if you refer to figures during your thesis, it is great to have a list, including page number, instead of having to search every time.

About conference talks: In my understanding (coming from a mathematical background), a PhD thesis is a long, more detailed (and hopefully really good) research paper, that might be read by other scientists. Thus, putting in conference talks seems like begging for a better grade, like "see how great I am, I even went to these conferences", something that has no place in a scientific work.
While going to conferences is surely important, I think it should not be put into the thesis but mentioned at a different place. As your advisor is surely aware of the conferences you visited, ask him how to best communicate this fact to the committee.


Can departmental funding combine with fellowships/grants? In trying to plan for the future and decide on preferred programs and career paths, I'm trying to figure out the seemingly Byzantine nature of how academic funding sources interact. I am particularly confused about how departmental/institutional funding effect fellowships or grant money.

To give a specific example to illustrate the general point that I'm asking about, consider this FAQ for Prospective Students at Carnegie Mellon, where it is stated anyone accepted into the PhD program can expect their tuition to be paid by the program/waived, and a stipend of ~$24k per year. The page also suggests applying for a fellowship like the PIER Program, which states it provides about a $30k stipend + $10k towards tuition. Another possibility would be something like the SMART Scholarship, which provides tuition assistance, stipend, and allows non-interfering fellowships.

This is all well and good individually, but what happens if you get department funding and a fellowship like this PIER program? Does the department keep its funding entirely and you only get the greater of the two? If your tuition is paid because of your position, does the contribution of a fellowship towards tuition just give your school some extra funding but does not effect your financial situation individually? And how does a SMART scholarship factor in?

Please note I'm not solely interested in this limited example (as it would be of interest to so few people), but more generally how this works in academia across programs and institutions. I'm in the US, though surely how this sort of thing works in other countries would be valuable to know anyway.

As a second example, consider something like a SMART scholarship and then getting a TA/RA position (which they allow) which earns tuition remittance. Does the scholarship funding source get the tuition remitted back to them, or does any part of the tuition remittance get returned to the student?

The bottom line is deciding the real affordability of various institutions and living areas if you expect to need significantly more than a single stipend amount (raising a family, helping kids pay for their college, etc), and of course to help to decide if seeking certain scholarships and fellowships has a sufficient potential ROI for the time required to seek them.

Thank you all for any help in unraveling this Gordian knot of academic finance!

In general, the rule of funding in graduate programs is that external money is used to replace internal money. That is, if your department gives a stipend of, say, $20,000 per year, and you win a fellowship that pays $15,000 per year, the $15,000 will be used to offset part of the $20,000.

However, most departments that I'm aware of will also guarantee that fellowship and grant holders don't suffer relative to their peers by bringing in outside money. That is, they guarantee to make up any shortfall between the value of an external award and the department's standard. (In the sciences and engineering, I would steer clear of any department that doesn't have such a policy!) Many departments will even incentivize bringing in outside award fellowships by giving a premium or bonus that supplements the outside award. This might be done either by multiplying the standard award by a percentage (so, for instance your total would be 125% of the department's standard), or by giving a lump sum on top of an outside award (if it exceeds the standard, for instance).

One thing to watch out for, however, are restrictions placed on the outside fellowship: your department may have to certify, for instance, that you will not be assigned teaching duties or other non-research duties during the fellowship period. If you are unable to attain such a certification, the award may not be given out.

For the PhD phase of a program, the tuition should be covered by the department and the outside fellowship; however, in general the student does not receive part of the tuition payment back. In general, the tuition charge is a negotiation between the university and the fellowship program, as this is at the graduate level usually a financial transaction. Also, if the student were to receive the tuition payment which was then forwarded to the school, this could be called taxable income, which would make things very messy for everyone.


How to find a new PhD advisor by my research interest? Currently I do not have advisor because of some problems and I can not get my PhD degree with out advisor. So I am looking for a new advisor. How can I find another advisor without the influence of my former advisor. Do you think my former advisor can have a power not to accept me by another advisor? What am I going to do in order to not to make happen this interruption? I totally do not agree with the opinion of my former advisor.

For the first part of the question on how to find a PhD advisor, you will find quite a few ways on a standard lookup. The most standard way is to go through professors' research profile and bios and see which one fits to your interests and mail them to see if you interest them.

This post ought to be of help:
How can I find a second supervisor?

If your actual question is on whether your current supervisor influence your prospective supervisor, then there are two cases you ought to look into depending on your intentions.

A new institution/department. @JeffE's comment would come into play here. As long as the new professor is in no positive relation with respect to your former advisor, the former advisor's opinions shall not interfere with your prospective advisor's decision.
The same department. This is something you might have to worry about. There would be a greater chance of interaction between the prospective advisor and the former one. This might not always be the case, but this has happened before.

Although not directly related, the following post ought to help you: Changing PhD programs: should I submit a recommendation letter from my old advisor if it's not purely positive?


What if an undergraduate concentrated on research on the account of his study? I am studying medicine. We study different disciplines and different specialties during our undergraduate years.  My subject grades aren't very good. Then, I rushed to research and biostatistics -maybe to veil my low grades- and have made a little good progress at them while I am still undergraduate. Will doing this help me in my future? (I mean if I continued doing bad at the subject exams and concentrated on research methodology and biostatistics)

When you say you're studying medicine, I take it that you hope to be a doctor.

In which case it doesn't matter how brilliant you are as a researcher, if you can't acquire the necessary medical knowledge and clinical skills you'll never be competent or safe to practise medicine and your medical career will never get started. You may have a fantastic career as eg a medical statistician awaiting you.

It's great if a doctor is research competent too, but being able to do research is not essential. Being able to examine, diagnose, and treat patients is.


Why is discrimination based on citizenship allowed in PhD funding in the UK? This question is specifically aiming at the UK PhD admission system.

Having spent roughly 6 years in the UK - 2 years A-Level and 4 years undergraduate, I am now moving forward into applying for PhD programs. To my surprise, I discovered that I would have to face a lot of difficulties regarding my eligibility for funding.

Most of the funding I applied for were strictly 'UK/EU citizens only', and it is rare to have full funding for international students. I have applied to a lot of places, and received a lot of responses in the form of "... you are a good match, but I don't have funding for overseas students...".

Having chosen the UK to study with the belief that 'as long as I am competent I should be qualified for the job', the reality has really slapped back at me.

Why such discriminations are allowed in a developed country like the UK? I made this claim knowing little to nothing about the US or other countries' systems, but lots of my friends having applied to EU PhDs received their offers without being asked whether they are 'caucasians' or not.

I wrote a pretty extensive response on this a little while ago: here and also this may be slightly relevant.

The short version is: Because they can be, and because they have to be. UK universities make money off international students; their funding is limited, and it is designed to go to domestic or European students. The funding bodies will only fund domestics because a) they're probably not allowed to fund anyone else; b) it's in their best interests to fund domestics; c) one international PhD scholarship would be equal to 2 or 3 domestic ones.

There is also the over-arching idea in the UK governmental system that students are supposed to bring in money, not take it. This idea has spiked in magnitude in the past few years.

The UK government limits the funding given to universities, and universities make up for that with international fees. We are essentially cash cows, outside the rare scholarships that are extremely competitive (Rhodes, Fullbright - the second of which neither of us is eligible for).

You also can't go for the option of naturalisation based on the time you've been in the country because -- you guessed it -- time as a student doesn't count.

Source: Same situation as you, left friends, home, and partner to do PhD in France after 5 years in Britain. I had many PhD acceptances, but none of the universities could fund me and we spent months looking at every option. Unless you're rich and you can self-fund (or you're happy to take out loans), it's unfortunately not very doable right now.

You should also keep in mind that, as a student at the end of your education, you are unfortunately likely to be targeted by the immigration police. I would advise you to not do anything like overstay, but also to not leave the UK once you have graduated until you're ready to move away before the expiry of your tier 4 visa -- because you will not be allowed back in even if your visa has months of validity on it. It happened to me. This is unrelated to your question, but it's a warning I think not enough people in our situation get.


Should I explain a single bad grade in my personal statement? Overall, I have always maintained a good standing in all of my undergrad classes. Most of my grades are either As or Bs. With only one Junior level course with a D. Is it worthwhile to explain this one bad grade? I am afraid that since all my other grades are good, I will only be highlighting that one bad grade by talking about it.

There are really two parallel circumstances to consider here:

The grade is highly relevant to the program in question. In that case, you might need to address it, as someone will be focusing on that coursework in particular - partially because they will be relying on you knowing the content of that coursework, and with that grade it's hard to argue you do. Though in this case, it's also probably a good idea to strongly consider retaking the course. In this case, you might touch on the reasons, but that should be 1) Short and 2) Be a legitimate reason why this might not accurately reflect your abilities. "I didn't like the professor" is not that reason.
It's just a random class. 'Women in Medieval Art and Literature' and you're applying to a Microbiology program. 'Calculus 1' and you're applying to a Comparative Literature program. 'German 4' and you're applying for a Computer Science program. In this case, I wouldn't draw attention to it.


Importance of Mathematical Maturity for CS Grad School Admissions I want to improve my competitiveness for grad school admissions. My intended area of study is AI/Machine Learning and possibly other math and statistics heavy fields of Computer Science.

My undergrad math grades were terrible, mostly C's and a few B's. Although my mathematical maturity improved tremendously after years passed, as you will guess I have no proof for this. So I decided to take a math class to show my skills to adcoms.

Now I have to choose exactly one from the two options available:

an undergrad MATH level mathematical analysis class following through walter rudin's PMA book or
a graduate EE level Random Processes class about stochastic processes following through Ross.

So from an admissions comittee member perspective, which class do you value more for judging a students mathematical maturity?

I'd go with the graduate-level class.  But just taking one class is not likely to make much difference.

What you really need is for your recommendation letters to specifically address this point.  Nobody will believe your claim that your grades do not accurately reflect your true level of mathematical maturity (although you can certainly demonstrate your mathematical maturity in your research statement).  But people will generally believe your references if they make the same claim, especially if they back up their claim with specific and credible evidence of your mathematical maturity, and more generally of your potential for research excellence.

This will only happen if you develop a closer collaborate relationship with your professors.  Don't just sit in the back of the random-processes class and get an A.  Talk with the instructor; ask cogent questions; ask about research opportunities, or at least directions for further study.  Impress them.  Give them proof.


“Contribution to technical achievement” in Australia for the purpose of applying for a Lecturer position For the purpose of applying for a lecturer position in Australia in computer science, what is actually a "contribution to technical achievement"? This phrase occurs among the selection criteria but seems to me way too broad from a purely linguistic viewpoint. According to the text describing the selection criteria, a "contribution to technical achievement" is supposed to be separate from research experience, teaching experience, experience outside university, creative achievements, and professional contributions – they are measured separately.

I suspect that "technical achievement", within the context of computer science, is a reference to the production and development of computer software/hardware.  Hence, "contributions to technical achievement" is a cue to allow you to give information on any contributions you have made to the development of software/hardware/computing problems (e.g., a program you wrote or helped with).  There is probably going to be some overlap with "creative achievements".


How to avoid plagiarism when including definitions and proofs from textbook? I need to include some basic definitions, and simple proofs from a standard text book to my thesis. Those definitions and proofs are very basic, e.g. probability, entropy etc. Everybody knows they should be in some text books.

Consider, for example, this proof from wiki. My questions are:

Is this plagiarism if I bring this whole proof word by word into my thesis?
If this is plagiarism, what is the method to "paraphrase" a proof? Since the derivation is straightforward, and it is very difficult to write it in a different way?

Thank you.

It is very common for theses in the mathematical sciences to spend a significant amount of time and space repeating known or even standard definitions and results.  (In fact, up through the master's level, at least in many places one can write a perfectly acceptable thesis that only does this.)  In fact this is generally viewed as a positive feature of the thesis: the candidate has taken the time and effort to synthesize a presentation which is complete and self-contained up to a certain point.  It is also generally very helpful to do so in terms of readability: a math paper that repeated nothing that was already known would be well-nigh impenetrable except (perhaps) by a select coterie of insiders.

Also the virtue of rewording is not as strong in this area.  If you are going to give the definition of, say, entropy, in a thesis, then I would say the best thing to do is to close all your textbooks and write down what you think is a good wording of the definition.  Once you've done that you check back with the sources to see that you've actually gotten the definition right, i.e., that it is mathematically equivalent to the one from the textbooks.  But if your language is similar or identical to what you found in the textbooks: okay, fine.  You don't need to change it for that purpose.   There are a lot of ways to list the axioms for a group, and if you wanted to you could pull out fifty textbooks and make sure that your wording is different from all fifty of them.  But this would be a big waste of time: it is not necessary to do so, and what do you bet that these fifty wordings capture most of those that are best in terms of efficiency, readability, and so forth?

When it comes to copying entire proofs word for word, I would pay close attention to how often you are doing this.  If you are simply copying multiple pages of proofs verbatim out of a single standard source, then you should start wondering about the value added in doing so (and, after a certain point, issues of copyright do emerge).  There is a key word that I used in the first paragraph: synthesis.  When you revisit old results, ideally you are synthesizing them: i.e., no one source has everything that you want, so you are combining multiple sources in a novel way.  Too much copying and too little synthesizing does not necessarily put you at risk for plagiarism and copyright violation -- it would have to be quite extreme for that to be an issue -- but it does not sound like the path to a strong thesis.

I hope that everyone who is writing an academic thesis has a thesis advisor.  You should talk to her about this issue.  To a certain degree, the right answer is what she thinks is best.


Can I talk about articles I'm refereeing? For the first time, I've been asked to referee an article for a journal, and a prestigious one. I work in Maths, so the article has been online as a preprint on arXiv for some time, and it was on the top of my reading list anyways. I feel very confident that I can referee the article, that's not the problem. I understand it well, I don't have a conflict of interests.

But I don't know how to handle my refereeing work socially. Can I talk about it? When my office mate asks me "I've noticed you are reading this article very carefully and you're taking a lot of notes.", what can I say? Is it ok to say that I'm refereeing the article? Can I name the journal or the editor, if the conversation continues?

I'm thinking about the article a lot, so I'll inevitably talk about its contents often with my colleagues. Can I bring up my task as a referee? If I should hide it, what are some recommendations to do it?

I also happen to know another referee of the article. Is it appropriate to bring the review process up in a conversation?

And the killer aspect: If I meet the author on a conference, is it acceptable to tell them that I was a referee?

In short, I want to know what the appropriate boundaries are when discussing my refereeing work with others.

There are different confidentiality requirements involved, some to protect the authors, some to protect the referees.

A) As a referee, you absolutely must not reveal the content of an article you are refereeing to others. In many cases, the paper will be available on the arXiv anyway, and you can speak about the contents of the arXiv preprint, even if you are refereeing the paper, but not about anything you couldn't have learned outside of the refereeing process.

R) It is not customary to reveal oneself as a referee of a specific paper, but there is no strong consensus on how strict this should be handled. It is quite certainly ok to mention that one is refereeing for a specific journal (many people list the journals they have refereed for in their CV).

To your detailed questions:

When discussing the article, do not mention that you are refereeing it. Be careful not to mention details exclusive to the submitted version and absent from the preprint.
When ask by your office mate, it is fine to say that you are refereeing. They should not pry for details. If they know which article you are refereeing, do not mention the journal. If not, you can mention the journal. Better not name the editor.
As mentioned in the comments, it is typically better if referee reports are independent. Do not discuss an ongoing referee report with your co-referees.
Some people do reveal themselves as referees to authors. In general, I would advise against it though.


Subjects lectured per week I am currently lecturing at a private tertiary education college where I am obliged to lecture, on average, 12 distinct subjects per year at both diploma and degree level. I lecture 6 to 8 subjects per week or around 4 or 5 unique subjects per day across all graduate levels (first, second and third year students). Some of these classes are repeated identically up to 7 times each week for 7 different groups of students for around 30 to 35 lecturing hours per week.

I am currently feeling a little overwhelmed by the workload. Is this normal for a private education institution?

I have never heard of an undergraduate institution inflicting this level of lecturing on a professor.  Perhaps it happens at vocational or associates degree schools, where, e.g., you might be teaching a whole bunch of sections of "database entry" or "machine operation" or something like that?

For my colleagues at institutions offering 4-year degrees, the normal range is:

1-2 classes in a semester at a research-centric institution, where the professor is expected to also be supervising Ph.D. students
3-4 classes in a semester at a teaching-centric institution, where that is expected to be the primary focus.

Depending on the format of the classes, then, that is likely to mean somewhere between 2 and 20 hours of lecturing per week, which is still far less than what you report.


Is the Nature publishing group's "Scientific Reports" journal well regarded? The Journal "Scientific Reports", published by the Nature publishing group, is gaining popularity with time (impact factor now around 5.2). It highlights its editorial policy as one that is focused on scientific rigour and validity, rather than perceived impact.

My question is:

How well regarded is "Scientific Reports" in the academic community compared to other more-traditional ones, especially in the physical sciences and engineering?
Also, does the fact that it imposes article processing charges and publishes only open-access articles reduce from its perceived rank as a journal?
Is its high impact factor a result of these factors, or is it actually due to high quality articles published in it?
Many researchers know that some well-regarded specialist journals might have relatively low impact factor, but their reputation is still top-ranked. Say, for example, that I have a paper in physics or engineering, and I could either publish it in a specialised Physical Review or IEEE journal versus Scientific Reports, which one would be more well-regarded (assuming the first two have less impact factor than Scientific Reports)?

My take: any journal that considers rigour and validity only, and not perceived impact, will be less well regarded than an equivalent journal that has a good reputation for rigour and validity and also considers impact.

On the plus side:

Page charges are normal for open access, and open access is a positive, so I don't think there's a problem there.
As a Nature journal, Scientific Reports inherits a little of the "glow" of Nature, which will lift its reputation relative to other journals that don't consider impact (e.g. Helyion and PLoS).
Nature journals employ full-time professional editors, which means that people submitting to Scientific Reports can also expect fast, professional review and editing. This help's the journal's reputation, too.

An impact factor of 5 is very high in many fields, but nothing to crow about in other fields. So I would expect this journal to attract higher quality papers from those fields in which 5 is considered a high impact factor, and lower quality articles from fields that typically have high impact factors.


Do journal editors disallow paper from college X to be reviewed by someone from college X? What is the general opinion among editors about whether my paper should be submitted to review to academics from the same University/department? Will this ever happen? If it does happen, isn't this bad for the quality of peer review because the reviewer might have a good relationship with the person who submitted the paper and may be biased consciously or unconsciously towards giving a favorable review?

Conflict of interest rules vary between journals, and some are far stricter than others.  In general, it's not clear where to draw the line for what's appropriate.  Asking someone from the same department to review their colleague's paper would generally not be done, even if no rule forbids it.  Beyond that it's a little less clear, and you can make up all sorts of borderline cases.  (It's considered fine for people from different University of California campuses to review each other's papers.  What about someone from the Harvard biology department reviewing a paper from the Harvard medical school?  I don't know, and it's not clear to me that there's a simple rule for deciding what constitutes a conflict of interest.)

Handling conflicts of interest responsibly is an important and difficult part of being a journal editor, since there are all sorts of relationships that are not as easy to detect as a shared departmental affiliation.  For example, some people have been best friends since they were in grad school, while others may be enemies or rivals.

Sometimes when evaluating a submission it's valuable to get advice from someone who has specialized knowledge you need, but who also has a conflict of interest. In that case, you should be aware of the conflict and try to adjust for it (for example, by asking the person for objective information rather than opinions). By contrast, it's much more dangerous to rely on someone who has a conflict of interest you are unaware of.


Job interview for a PhD I was recently invited to a job interview regarding a PhD. I was told to make a short presentation of a few ideas regarding the project topic. I also have received an overview over the project aims, preliminary work etc.. I must admit that I am quite clueless what to present. In this project a new simulation platform should be developed with the help of the methods already implemented by the two participating work groups in their own software. I thought about presenting some methodology, but this would largely consist of implementing methods that these both groups already published and nothing really new. Also I'm new to the simulation method that is used in this project. Do you think that it would be sufficient to list the methods that can be used for the several parts of the simulation and in which order I would plan to implement these?

What you say here is a lot of what you need to include, but what I'm missing is something about the end goal. What do you hope to learn in doing this research? How will it advance the field to know the answers, whether they are positive or negative? If you keep that goal in mind, the details of the attack can change and still make progress.
Focus a bit less on the actions and a bit more on the expected knowledge. Not that the actions are unimportant, of course.


Mistake in replies to peer review I recently submitted my replies to peer review to a journal. After submission I found out I had missed out on turning on track changes to the last part of my manuscript. Will this cause a problem? Do issues like this irritate journal editors and reviewers and lead to rejection of a manuscript?

Did they specifically ask for change tracking to be turned on?  If so, then you should contact the editor and send in an updated version that meets their requirements.  If not, then don't worry about it.

Having to handle additional versions due to an author's mistake could be a little irritating to an editor or reviewer, but if they're expecting change tracking, then it would be more irritating not to have it.  Anyway, administrative issues like this, which do not affect the content of the paper, should not be a reason for rejection.


What does "area of physics or chemistry" mean in a graduate application? On the application form (for Max Planck institute), there is a section which says "Please write a short summary of the area of physics or chemistry you find most interesting".

I am not sure what do they exactly mean by "area of physics or chemistry". Should I write a summary of the general field of my interests i.e. condensed matter physics or about the research topic on which on want to work i.e. phase transitions?

It sounds like you should write about what you want specifically want to study. Anybody can write a page or two about a general branch of either discipline—but that wouldn't help an admissions committee decide if they wanted to hire you or not. A page or two (or some other length, if listed in the question) about your particular research interests would be much more valuable to a committee.


Concerns about a very old PhD advisor? I’m thinking about taking a 70-year old math professor as my PhD advisor, in a US school. I like his teaching and research. If I don’t choose him, I would probably have to switch fields, which I can do with some pain, since I have not specialized deeply yet. My main concerns are:

As he is far more likely than a young supervisor to pass away suddenly due to his age, how should I best plan for this scenario? What will happen to me if it happens?
He is also far more likely to retire than a young supervisor – could his retirement (in the unspecified future) cause problems for my future career in academia, with respect to references and networking?

Related: How should I take a potential PhD supervisor's age into account, when planning to follow PhD with habilitation?

My PhD advisor was already retired when I started my PhD. He is in his 80s now. One of my collaborators is due to retire soon; the other is in his 90s. All I can say is that everyone of them has had a tremendous impact on me. They have been the most brilliant people I know.

So I don't see any problem at all with very old PhD advisors. In fact, my experience suggests that you should consider yourself privileged to have an old PhD advisor. A few reasons stand out, at least from my experience:

They have a wealth of experience.
Old professors are usually kind, generous, and so eager to share with you what they know.
They have nothing to lose. They don't have issues that younger professors face such as getting promoted, tenured, or the pressure to publish.
Retired professors don't have as many responsibilities as they used to, and so can devote more time advising you. Of course, they probably have other interests they would like to pursue now that they are retired, but research will always be their main interest.

All I wanted to say is that age doesn't matter when it comes to choosing an advisor. Passion is more important. Some professors manage research; some others do research. Choose the latter.


How should a PhD student deal with an unprofessional and unhelpful advisor, who misses most scheduled meetings? My advisor is extremely unhelpful and unprofessional.  I don't want to get into the details, but suffice it to say he has 0 interest in what he told me to do, and only rarely shows up for scheduled meetings,  maybe 1/4 meetings and even then many hours late.  (I came from a job in "the industry" where such behavior is completely unheard of.)

How should I deal with this?  If I was still in the industry, I would just go over my advisor's head, and explain what is happening, is this a valid strategy in academia?  (I am asking the question in the present tense, but I have already left the program).

Related question:  Is such unprofessional behavior common in the academy?  I never experienced anything close to this in my undergraduate education.

Edit:

Following the advice in a comment: I did ask for advice from the graduate committee chair and relayed some issues I had with missed meetings. His advice was more or less "work harder".  Well, I think the fact that I complained must have got back to my advisor because he was furious with me the next time we met.  Out of the blue he scolded and said something like "I meet with you every time you ask me to."  Of course this was completely false but I saw no point in arguing with it as we had plenty of other things to discuss.

If you want me to take you at face value, it's not even worth completing the Ph.D. under your current advisor. You won't get a good problem, you won't get good guidance, you'll get stuck and won't get help, and you won't get a good rec letter for your next position.

That being said, a round of basic people skills may be helpful here. Have you tried asking your advisor such basic questions as how do they think your research is going? how can it be improved? You can even ask why they're frequently late. You can ask when would be better to meet, for instance.

That failing, the standard solution is to switch advisors, even though this is costly.

No, you can't really "go above" a tenured professor in any meaningful way, and even if you could, it wouldn't help you get sincerely better advising or a strong rec letter. Please research who else you can talk to though - another professor you trust who can advise you with some safety, resources through the grad school, etc.


I couldn't negotiate my postdoc salary during HR meeting, should I try days later? (I haven't received the formal offer yet) I had a meeting with HR last week. During the meeting, the recruitment officer talked about a lot of things very quickly in the first 5 meetings: "you will receive a formal offer in the next few days, since you don't have much experience you will salary will be 30k (lowest spine point for postdocs in the UK), and for the visa...."
So, I just focused about the visa because it was most important to me. Next, I received an email reiterating these points and I just said "I'm excited for the position", I couldn't bring the topic to the PI and I don't even know if I should..
But now, days later, I don't know how I feel about the salary. It's my first postdoc after my PhD (computer science), yes I don't have experience in the industry, but I have a lot of experience for a full-time phd student (for my home country) in teaching and supervising students. For my department, I assisted professors in teaching activities in 3 classes/semesters, supersized around 10 students and I was a jury member of many graduation projection presentations. I was even hired as a fixed-term lecturer at a another university for 2 semesters (where I design my course, supervised even more students and everything). I also reviewed papers in conferences and I was a member of the organizing committee of many and many conferences.. On tap of that, noticed that it's below the average salary in Glassdoor (34k)
I really feel that I deserve more, but I am afraid it's too late and the PI might have a bad impression about me.. Should I bring this up to the HR? if so how can I approach the situation?

In the UK, it is not common for postdocs and entry-level lecturers to negotiate their salaries. This is different from the customs in the USA and some EU countries.
In the UK, the starting salary of a postdoc or a lecturer would normally be set up by HR in consultation with postdoc's PI or lecturer's HoD. As a postdoc, if you want a better offer, you have the following options:

Provide additional evidence of your relevant experience. Note that an experience of course design and "helping professors with teaching" may not be considered relevant for a research-focused postdoc position. And even if you have relevant experience, it may not be considered sufficient by the PI or HR.
Tell them that you can not accept the offer unless they raise it. This is a risky move, which can cost you an offer. Bear in mind that HRs are not really interested in hiring you, their goal is to ensure the hiring process goes smoothly and according to the rules. They may approve your claim, provided there is a budget for a raise and the PI/HoD supports it. Or they can send you a polite email starting from "We are sorry to hear that you declined our offer" and offer the job to the next candidate.

Before you proceed, note that if your postdoc salary comes from a grant, there may be a firm cap on how much the University can offer you from the limited grant budget. You may want to ask your PI if there is even any room for negotiation before discussing it with the HR.


Omitting subscripts in proofs/equations in math/computer science papers I am writing a paper that is in two column format, and I am working on a proof that I am having trouble making readable in the two column format.
Specifically, I am working with subscripts such as t-1, t, and t+1, but the subscripts t-1 and t+1 make the equations too long. If I omit the subscripts, then the proof is not clear, if I include the subscripts, the equations span many lines...
I am not sure what I should do.
Note: I am not sure if this is a proper stack exchange site.
Edit: I am deriving a function that looks like this x_{i+k} = g(x_i,\theta_{i,i+k}) where $\theta_{i,i+k}$ is a complicated parameter that take x_i to x_{i+k}. I derived earlier in the paper a recurrence x(i+1) = g(x_i, a, b, ...). So, in the proof, I am showing how to compute \theta_{i,i+k}.

Here are some ideas from a physics perspective. We often have to deal with long equations.
If you have the occasional over-long equation, then sparing use of the two-column environment or slightly smaller font size can be the good choices. (Assuming the journal accepts it.) Suppressing meaningful indices like this can be OK if they are repeated, but if the same equation contains both t-1, and t+1 you probably want to avoid it since it reduces clarity. A great alternative is to abstract more. Define new symbols containing part of your expressions, so that each shown equation becomes shorter - and if done right, easier to interpret. Of course, this comes at the cost of a higher total number of equations.
Finally, sometimes it's best to put a simplified equation in the main paper, and full expressions in the appendices. However, if the proof is central to your paper you probably don't want to do that.


Does a research professor burn his bridges (intentionally or unintentionally) when he leaves for another university? Say there is an influential and popular research professor who is moving up fast in his research areas - and that he heads a big research group at his school.  Then he gets an offer that he can't refuse - from a big time university.  He leaves six months or so later, bringing some of his doctoral students with him, too.  In general, has this professor burned his bridges with his former university?  I imagine he is bringing a lot of talented grad students and grant money in to the new school - and a lot of grant money is leaving the old school.

In principle no but in practice the decision to leave may lead to some tensions, even if @Karl and @Dan Romick rightly point out that it should not be so.

There is always a  element of risk involved in hiring someone: a department has usually invested some time and committee work to hire this person, possibly had to lobby the administration for the position, may have supported this faculty with teaching buyouts so she/he could establish a research program.  When this investment suddently disappears, very few will normally congratulate themselves at the thought of starting the process again (especially if the competition to hire the faculty now leaving was hot, and there were multiple good candidates).

Many no doubt will be sad to see a friend leave: there is no more reason to burn bridges than if a good neighbor moved to a new town.

Of course there are people who are truly hated (for legitimate or jealous reasons) and everyone's happy to see them go.  In the same category some researchers feel they are not getting the support they rightly (in their minds) deserve.  In these rarer cases, the departure can be acrimonious.


Major field of study and its specializations in the USA I am not a resident of the USA and I am not familiar with the system and the hierarchy of fields of studies and specializations.

I have several questions:

Computer Science is a Major Field of Study, right? Are Software Engineering and Computer Graphics its specializations? Or what are they?
Universities have several schools/departments. Each offers Bachelor's, Master's, PhD's programs. But these programs are called just like Master of Computer Science, for example, and there is no clarification in which specialization I can get this Master of Science degree. In my country I can apply for a Master's program, and It has a specialization, like Master of Computer Science with Software Engineering specialization, or Master of Computer Science with Information Security specialization. Why there is no such clarification? Or do I apply for a program and then select a specialization which determines the courses I will study?
Is there a complete list of fields of studies and their specializations? There is a Management specialization, how can I learn is it related to Economics field of study or Business?
Are there official codes for specializations common among all the USA universities? So I can search which universities offer this specialization, for example, Corporate Finances with code 130007? Or where can I find this information?

The goal of undergraduate education in the US (at prestigious, "4-year" schools) is to get a broad foundation in the "liberal arts." Students will choose their majors and maybe even a specialization within that major, but only a small fraction of their efforts go into advanced, specialized knowledge. Most of their efforts go toward "foundational" skills within their general area, and even "general education" requirements that have nothing to do with their long-term plans.

So, getting the degree with the exact specialization you're interested in is not so critical. Most students will have simply a "BS in Computer Science" or Computer Engineering, which will allow them to apply for jobs in dozens of computer-related skills. Specialized knowledge is usually obtained through internships or participating in undergraduate research (or on the job after graduation).

Note also that things vary by school -- different degrees, specializations, organizations, etc. all vary. You would do well to choose a school (e.g., University of [State]") and study their system -- there is certainly a way to become, say, a software engineer with a degree from that school. You should also consider whether that school will admit you, and how you will pay for it.

There are also "technical schools" and community colleges that focus more on useful skills. These tend to be cheaper and faster, and can be a better fit for someone with narrow interests and a well-defined career path. These have a rather poor reputation among academics, however, partially because they are not at all selective (most admit everyone who applies).


Can I use someone’s answer from a StackExchange site in my publication (journal paper)? I think the answer is no but I want to know more details about this.

Suppose, I asked a very complicated question on one of the Stackexchange sites (e.g, Mathematics) which relates to my research and I got a good answer from someone. I modified that answer or reframed the answer in my own words, but the idea is not from me. I now want this part of my research get published in a journal.

Should I contact the person who answered my question and get agreement or whatelse should I do? I think I cannot directly submit this work to a journal with the idea for the answer on Stack Exchange, right? So if I want the result get published, what I should do?

You should consult the Stack Exchange Network Terms of Service and read through the section 3. Subscriber Content which concerns rights of the material posted on the site.
I will specifucally reiterate the following

In the event that You post or otherwise use Subscriber Content outside of the Network or Services, with the exception of content entirely created by You, You agree that You will follow the attribution rules of the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license as follows:

You will ensure that any such use of Subscriber Content visually displays or otherwise indicates the source of the Subscriber Content as coming from the Stack Exchange Network. This requirement is satisfied with a discreet text blurb, or some other unobtrusive but clear visual indication.

You will ensure that any such Internet use of Subscriber Content includes a hyperlink directly to the original question on the source site on the Network (e.g., https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12345)

You will ensure that any such use of Subscriber Content visually display or otherwise clearly indicate the author names for every question and answer so used.

You will ensure that any such Internet use of Subscriber Content Hyperlink each author name directly back to his or her user profile page on the source site on the Network (e.g., https://stackoverflow.com/users/12345/username), directly to the Stack Exchange domain, in standard HTML (i.e. not through a Tinyurl or other such indirect hyperlink, form of obfuscation or redirection), without any “nofollow” command or any other such means of avoiding detection by search engines, and visible even with JavaScript disabled.

Apart from the specific points in the Stack Exchange Terms of Service, normal courtesy and etiquette involves always providing credit where credit is due. Even if someone posted information saying it is free for all to use, it would be appropriate to at least acknowledge the contribution by that person. In the (I assume) hypothecial case you describe in your post, contacting the person would seem like the best approach. First off, it is better to be safe than sorry, Second, by contacting the person you can avoid misconceptions or misunderstandings to accompany the post into your work and the integration fo the original idea into your work can improve. If the person upon your contact says, run with it, then fine but then you know.
So apart from avoiding to break the stated rules it is always good to contact the source and be open about the intended work or use if you work on material to be publically available through publication or otherwise.


Internships and their bearing on securing tenure track faculty positions First off, my field is computer science (data mining and machine learning). I have noticed/observed that many individuals who have secured tenured track faculty positions recently had, while in pursuit of their PhD, done at least one internship. Based on this observation I was wondering:

(a) Is it necessary/expected that, to be a top candidate for a tenure track faculty position, one should have at least one internship under their belt?

(b) If not necessary, to what degree does an internship positively impact the chances of getting a tenure track faculty job?

(c) Given the answerer's  (your) response to (a) and (b), what is the thought process associated with observing the internship experience on a job candidate's CV (e.g., "This individual worked for company X and therefore, if this person is hired, our department will have better ties to company X.")?

-- As a quick note: I'm talking about an internship at major labs such as Yahoo!, Microsoft Research, etc.

In my field of study (software engineering, distributed systems), industry internships are also exceedingly common. So common, in fact, that I would also assume without having ever actually checked that a majority of young tenure-track (TT) faculty in my fields also did internships during their PhD.

Yet, I would argue that what you observe is a classical case of correlation versus causation. Yes, TT jobs and internships are likely reasonably strongly correlated, because:

Internships are high-profile and the best PhD students (AKA those that are likely to go on to TT positions) are much more likely to get one than weaker students.
Internships are, at least in my field, often insanely productive for the student, leading to one or multiple papers of highest quality. Obviously, having one or more A+ papers (more) helps a lot when you are on the job market.
Internships establish very tight connections to one or multiple, often well-known, industrial researchers, who can write strong recommendations.
Another somewhat indirect advantage is that the close connection to industry experienced in an internship helps people get new ideas and grow as researchers, hence leading to better papers and research statements once they are back.

However, this is not to say that search committees value the internship itself. If you were on an internship, but you were pushed in by your advisor, there was no paper, you did not learn anything useful, and you did not make useful connections, then the internship will not meaningfully help you get a TT position. Conversely, if you never did an internship, but still have good connections to the community and have written great papers regardless, the lack of an internship should not hold you back.


What to do in recitation? Forgive me if this is not the right place to ask pedagogical questions, but it seemed the most appropriate.

I am a TA for a programming/CS course. This is my first time teaching recitation and I'm not really sure what the best approach is. What I've been doing is covering what the professor asked me to, with a mix of lecturing (which I don't really like as I feel the students get enough of that) and me solving problems on the board with their help (which is OK but it's usually the same students answering the questions).

I can think of several different methods of recitation:

Lecturing (elucidating ideas or going over proofs)
Solving problems with the students
Having a class discussion, which sounds great, but coming up with discussion topics for this type of course is difficult, I feel
Having the students solve worksheets (which seems unnecessary considering they already have enough homework)
Or having them work together in groups to solve more difficult problems

Can anyone provide insight for which of these ideas are most effective?

Further information: It's a summer course, so the pace is pretty fast. Furthermore there are three recitations a week, each an hour and a half. It's the second CS course, so it's mostly programming (data structures and safe code) with a bit of theory thrown in.

I train graduate students to lead biology discussion sections, but the philosophy should transfer...

I think your instincts are excellent - students do not need more lectures. What they often need help with is figuring out what they do not understand, and learning how to overcome being "stuck." That, and practice with feedback. Some suggestions, particularly since summer courses are so fast. I'm going to assume they have homework, and that the homework can be worked on in a discussion environment (you will not be "doing their homework for them").

Instruct students to bring their homework problem set. Look over the problems yourself the night before, and determine the easy ones from the hard ones, and make notes to yourself where students are likely to get stuck.
When students arrive, tell them to start work on a difficult problem. Plan on giving them 5-10 minutes -- whatever they need until many of them slow down. Walk around as they work and just see how they choose to work.
After several are stuck (it may take you practice to figure out what question to use to get this level of difficulty), have them get into groups of three and compare their techniques and what they found difficult. Walk around again and ask questions like, "Tell me how far you are. Can you show me a part that is difficult? Can you get out your lecture notes and find the section relevant to this problem?"
Usually at this point you will see a sticky point that more than one student is wrestling with. Now is a great time to pull everyone's attention back to the front of the room and you can work through that problem (or one similar) and answer questions for 5-10 minutes.
Have students return to the problem and complete it. Have them go back and do a simpler problem on their own to reinforce.
Rinse and repeat.

Using discussion time like this makes students happy because they are getting their homework done. Smarter students help slower students, which keeps them engaged. You as an instructor learn a lot about what students don't understand, which is often a complete surprise. Plus, it's active and not boring and doesn't require a huge amount of prep.

If this gets really dull, you can have small-group competitions where students have a single sheet of scratch paper and have to respond to a prompt you flash on the screen. I like to split the room into the right half (five groups of 3 students) and left half (five groups of 3 students) and have competitions like this for "basics" material. The half of the room with the groups with the most right answers gets a point for each round of competition. Everyone participates, but the answer is the group's and so shame for wrong answers is reduced.


Editor rejected for small reasons The reviewers comments are so simple that I can correct them and send them immediately. But the editor says cannot accept the manuscript. Is there any chance that if we justify the comments, there can be acceptance? Can we write to the editor in return?

First things first, you should check and see whether the editor has actually rejected the manuscript, or whether you just received a very awkwardly worded request for revisions.

The reason I say this is because the specific phrasing about "cannot accept" you use reminds me of some terrible editorial communications I have received that begin: "We cannot accept your manuscript in its current form ..." but are actually a request for revisions.  I've nearly been fooled into thinking a request for minor revision was a rejection this way, and only realized I was wrong when I noticed a date for submitting the new version at the bottom of the email.

My advice then:

Reread the email and see if you've really been rejected.  You might not be.
If yes, or if you can't tell, get in touch with the editor, express confusion and ask for help understanding the reasons.  A good explanation is appropriate.
Be prepared to take the paper elsewhere, because an editor once decided rarely changes their mind.


Does publishing in multidisciplinary journals undermine perceived work quality or impact? For example, Heliyon is Elsevier's multidisciplinary journal which I'm considering publishing in. Is publishing in a broad-scope journal such as this one or PLOS necessarily detrimental to one's career or the likelihood of the paper being impactful?

In Web of Science's Journal Citation Reports, there are 236 categories ranging from "Acoustics" to "Zoology". There is also one category called "Multidisciplinary Sciences". PLOS ONE is in that category (and Heliyon is still in the ESCI, so not assigned to a category yet).
If you sort Web of Science's list of categires by Aggregate Impact Factor, you will see that "Multidisciplinary Sciences" ranks at #10 out of 236 (as of early 2021):

Your question, it seems to me, is too general to answer properly, but perhaps this formal approach might indicate that the answer is: No, publishing in a multidisciplinary journal will not necessarily harm you. As Libor wrote in the comments, journals like Nature and Science belong to that category.
The response might be slightly different if you refer to Open Access megajournals. There are enough skeptics, I fear. But my own guess is that in the mid- to long-term, it will not harm you. The reason is the following:
Many university libraries increasingly set up bibliometric departments that analyze your scholarly outputs when you are a candidate for a research post at that university. And one of the positive indicators they look at is the share of Open Access publications. Publishing in such journals may underline your commitment to Open Science, which is a generally positive aspect. (But again, opinions may vary.)