Is it wise for researchers to thank Alexandra Elbakyan (founder of Sci-Hub) in the paper acknowledgements? Alexandra Elbakyan founded the site Sci-Hub, which allows bypassing publisher paywalls.

If this service is used by researchers to access papers that would otherwise be out of their reach - due to their university not having subscribed to publishers or not being able to buy papers due to budget constraints - is it a good idea / wise to thank Alexandra in the Acknowledgement section of a paper citing the otherwise unattainable papers?

For example, "We would like to thank Alexandra Elbakyan for her work / contributions to science" without explicitly mentioning any specifics.

A similar question was already asked with the top rated answer pointing out that it would be unwise for paper authors to admit to illegal activity in a formal document.
This seems like a reasonable point.

Reseachers thanking someone for their contribution to science does not seem illegal and might get some readers of a paper to research the background of the acknowledgement.

I'm hoping here that you want to express your opinion that we need a site on which broad copyright license is granted by authors, rather than held closely. I hope you aren't expressing favor of a site in which copyrights of others are simply ignored and not respected and on which illegal activities occur.

I, too, think a site on which people voluntarily agree to a broad license to their work is granted would be a very valued thing. But I wouldn't praise any site that actively encourages the disrespect of authors and their rights.

I don't have a lot of use, either, for journals and other publishers that demand the rights from authors, but that is a different problem.

But, to answer the question directly, associating yourself professionally with behavior treated by many as unethical and even illegal, is probably a mistake. Tactical, if nothing else. You won't really effect the needed change that way.


I graduated last year and my advisor passed away unexpectedly soon after. What should I do now for subsequent academic job searches? I received a PhD in mathematics last May. Last December, my advisor passed away quite unexpectedly.

My advisor was an extraordinary person; in addition to being a fantastic advisor mathematically, he was a wonderful mentor who I always thought of as a friend – this is very much a personal loss for me. My initial emotional response was that I should clearly leave mathematics forever. Rationally, that seems uncalled for. Before all of this, I had been aiming for academic jobs in mathematics. However, I expect that a recommendation (as well as other help) from one's advisor is a significant part of an academic job application (for example, this recent answer states that the letter from one's advisor is read first even when applying for a tenure-track job after a postdoc).

How does one go about an academic job search when one's advisor has passed away?

For example, my advisor wrote a letter for me for my job search out of grad school. Does one try to use that letter (via perhaps my graduate department) for subsequent job applications? Do I mention in every cover letter from now on end that my advisor has died (that seems horrifying, since I like my vague sense of denial)?

I am in the first year of a (3-year) postdoc, so I won't be on the job market for a while (in fact, it seems simultaneously very soon and too far away). Of course I can tell that my productivity and motivation have slumped in the last few months, and I know that I should try to get back into gear as soon as possible.

PS: It’s entirely possibly that there’s no ‘practical’ difference between this situation and other situations where one doesn't have a letter from an advisor (as commentor Sumyrda has said), in which case that would be a perfectly reasonable answer that I would happily accept.

Related questions:

While in more of a 'denial' stage, I asked this question to try to get at this.

The analogous question for current graduate students was asked here and here.

There are several questions about dealing with not having a letter from one's PhD advisor on this site, such as this one, or this one, or this one.

This is a very difficult situation. As per the comment by Andy Putman, let your other letter writers explain the situation. Considering you got the Postdoc job, your current supervisor must have been impressed with what your advisor said in his letter. Your current supervisor can include a personal story about something your advisor said about you or even include a few of his favorite verbatim quotes about you from the letter of recommendation for your current postdoc. Anyone on a hiring committee will understand, and will possibly even be personally touched. This will not count against you.

I wouldn't send a copy of your postdoc letter in your application materials If your postdoc supervisor highlighted the strongest quotes from the advisor's letter. If he chooses not to do this or if your advisor's letter in its entirety is much stronger than the best few quotes from it and your postdoc supervisor still has the letter he could send it along with his letter.(note that in other fields this letter may be a bit inappropriate because it could contain a lot of detailed information about how you are a great fit for the particular postdoc position but as Pete points out this usually is not true in pure math).

Unfortunately this does not heal any wounds caused by the unfortunate passing away of your advisor and life long friend, but you should not worry about the letter writing situation. I can't say that I even begin to imagine the emotional pain of losing an advisor so close to graduation, but as someone who lost a parent while in college I greatly sympathize with you and I can think of no greater honor to your advisor than to continue in academia and continue doing great work.


Admission offer deadline extension I received an admit (tuition fee waiver + TA) from a university for PhD in Physics. I was offered in the last month, and I replied the graduate admission director that I will inform him regarding 'accepting or declining' the offer around end of the march.
(the deadline for accepting the offer on April 15)

I thought I will get maximum decisions in March but few of the universities have put me on their waiting lists and probably they will decide by April 15.

Should I email the graduate admission  director  to extend the days? I mean, I will ask him that I inform him by April 15.

OR, as the deadline is 15th April, it is not necessary to email him to extend the date?

I think a very short email saying you are going to wait until the deadline for accepting the offer, with no further explanation, would be enough. You are not doing anything wrong and April 15th is the original deadline.

Perhaps it wouldn't even be necessary to explain anything. However my suggestion is that it is always better to be wrong on the well-mannered/ cautious side, than thinking "it is not necessary" and then find out it actually was.


Taking credit for supervising a PhD student while I am a postdoc I am nearly done with my PhD and I am excited to the phase where I supervise PhD theses. However in Germany, I can be the official supervisor of a PhD student only if I am a professor.

I will probably write project proposals for grants and such, and hopefully through those I can hire PhD students. And I am sure my current supervisor would be happy if I share with him the load of supervising new PhD students.

Let's say I start supervising (or co-supervising) a PhD student after one of those two scenarios above. The question is, how can I take credit for supervising that student if I am not yet a professor?

Surely we'll be writing papers together and I'll benefit from that. But I wonder if it would be okay to say in a future interview or in my CV: I supervised a PhD student while I was a post doc.

If you are not yet a professor, you will most likely not yet be the sole one supervising, so there should be a professor who is officially assigned to supervise this student. It might be that you do all the work and the professor is only there on paper, however, he is still the one responsible.
Thus, I would suggest to state in the CV that you assisted professor X in supervising PhD students. Most people will be well aware that this means that you did most of the supervising work, however doing it this way you do not claim something that you (officially) shouldn't be doing.
If you want, ask the professor to write a letter of recommendation emphasizing the fact that you did most of the work.


Is there a viable path to a top Math PhD program through a non-flagship state school I know this is a topic frequently talked about here, but I'm coming from a different point than any of the posts I've found so I figured I'd ask.

This post is less of a "can I do it?" question and more of a "what do I have to do to do it?".

Currently I'm finishing up my 3rd year of high school, but graduating a year early because my school doesn't have any more courses along my paths of interest (Math, Physics, Comp Sci). While applying for colleges, I decided to go to UTSA because of some meetings I had with a few of the professors there who said they'd be glad to mentor me into mathematics and that there would be plenty of research opportunities (one of the main focus's of their honors college), and while I know it's not a top 20 school, I really enjoyed my experience there. I'll be entering taking Calc 3, Linear Algebra, and a Proofs course because the school wouldn't let me skip any more than that on my first year before I prove that I can handle it.

Over this last school year I've taught myself Calc 1/2/3, Linear Algebra, and basic proofs and set theory. (Apostol Calc 1/2, Spivak Calc, Velleman Proofs, Greub/Werner Linear Algebra) and want to continue self studying (under supervision of a prof hopefully) while taking my courses. If I spent a solid 6-8 hours a day basically everyday working towards progressing so I can take graduate courses as soon as I can, do you think this would be enough to be able to weasel into a good graduate program assuming I have good test scores, GPA, as much research as I'm able to help with, and participating in the campus math clubs.

Basically, I'm wondering how much I have to make up for a lackluster high school career. During middle school I was near the top of the state in UIL and Mathcouts consistently, but my high school did not have any academics math teams so I missed out on all that.

Another possibility would be to transfer to UT Austin after my first year to their mathematics program, but I'm not so sure that would be beneficial.

Ultimately, academia is the dream, so I'm willing to dedicate myself to seeing it happen if it's possible.

Thank you for your help!

It's too early to stress about grad schools in your situation. But let me share a few observations I have made being a student at a top 10 Math PhD program in the U.S

In every incoming class of last 3 years, there were a number of American students that came from a no-name schools such as a tiny liberal arts college nobody heard or a low ranked stated university. This means that if you are the best student in your university and make good friends with your professors, there is a decent chance to go to a much better school. I specified American students because international students pretty much all come from premier institutions.
Do an REU in your sophomore or junior summer. The point of REU is not to prove something new, but to expose you to the research world. Ideally, impress your REU supervisor well enough to ask for a recommendation letter from him/her.
Do not underestimate the Math GRE. Take your time to practice and get 800 minimum - 760 at the very least.


Is it a normal process if all changes by "Track Change" function in Word of my revised manuscript are visible after being built in Elsevier? I got a revision reply and the editor wanted me to use "track change" in Word to do changes in manuscript. I completed the revision for manuscript and responses to reviewers file. I re-submitted and got a PDF file (built through Elsevier system).

My revised manuscript showed full red lines and a disorder of lines and between revised figures and original figures. I am sure that the reviewers will be unable to see my revised part and get mad at me immediately.

If i do submit my Word revised manuscript which did accept all changes i implemented in manuscript.My revised manuscript is presented as final document. It will be good for reviewers to have a look on my revised paper. But how come the editor can see changes and modification in my manuscript?

If anyone coped with this process, please give me some advices and suggestion to built a correct PDF file based on Elsevier establishment.

Thank you very much.

I think the comments and changes should have been accepted and then sent to the reviewers for them to appraise as necessary.


How to get enrolled into a PhD program without a reference letter from a PI with whom you have worked for 2 years? Right after I graduated by BSc degree in Chemistry, I joined the group of a professor as a research-assistant who was willing to work with me for a few publications before I could be admitted since I only had a second-lower honours degree. Long story short, I worked there for two years, and at the end of that, I had a episode of mental breakdown where I needed to be hospitalised. With all the stigma surrounding mental health,my PI just didn't believe me, saying "I don't think your problem is that important", and  "you may take leave if you want since it is your right, but there will be consequences to this". I ended up leaving, did a Masters degree, and am now trying to look for PhD positions.

I am now trying to look for PhD positions again, but I found out that my old prof has been speaking to other professors about me in particular. My old PI also hasn't published any of my work, and nor has he published any work since 2016. I happen to be in some city in Asia where the scientific circle is really small, so almost everyone knows one another.

Every time I get interviewed for a position, I inevitably get asked why I left my old prof. How am I supposed to explain this away?

If you are going to reveal your past mental health issues as part of the application process then you may as well also say that your past PI reacted unreasonably to your leaving. I don't think you need to "explain that away." Not everyone acts correctly and it sounds like you were treated badly.

It only becomes an issue, I think, if you don't want to reveal that past, for whatever reason. That is your right, of course. In that case, you should depend on recommendations from others to carry you forward, as well as the publications you developed under this PI. Your written materials need not necessarily mention that he was, in fact a PI. However, if it comes up in an interview, you can mention as much of the past as you need to. His name will likely be present somewhere in your materials and it is possible he will be contacted, so be prepared for a full explanation even if you don't introduce it yourself.

But if you are asked directly why you left, you can start with "an unresolvable conflict with the PI." Whether that is enough or not depends, but what you decide to say further is up to you.

But a lot of questions on this site detail various kinds of unreasonable conflict with advisors and PIs. so it isn't a unique problem. Your application materials need to stress that you will be a success.

While your geographic constraint seems to work against you here, it may also be that the opinion of the PI isn't necessarily very positive. So the fact that he is talking about you may not matter as much as you fear. But the only way to find out is to get out there and speak for yourself.


Published papers with incorrect solutions of famous problems: how to raise concerns with editors? I recently discovered the following two papers:

Bruckman, Paul S. A proof of the Collatz conjecture. Internat. J. Math. Ed. Sci. Tech. 39 (2008), no. 3, 403–407, DOI: 10.1080/00207390701691574.
Bruckman, Paul S. A proof of the strong Goldbach conjecture. Internat. J. Math. Ed. Sci. Tech. 39 (2008), no. 8, 1102–1109, DOI: 10.1080/00207390802136560.

Mathematicians probably do not need to read any further to see where I am going with this.
For non-mathematicians, the Collatz and Goldbach conjectures are two of the most famous unsolved problems in mathematics. In addition to being the focus of active research, they are also popular targets for non-experts, who have proposed countless numbers of erroneous proofs over the years.
The MathSciNet reviews for the two articles (Collatz, Goldbach), which are written after publication by independent reviewers, identify a critical error in each, which invalidates their results.
The journal in question is apparently reputable (otherwise I would not bother) and is published by a major commercial academic publisher, though its main focus is on topics in mathematics education rather than pure mathematics.  It appears that the chief editor has been in charge since before 2008.  I did not find any errata or editor's notes regarding these papers.  (A corrigendum of the Collatz paper was published, but it fixes minor typos only, and the MathSciNet reviewer apparently took these corrections into account.)
It seems to me that the papers cannot have ever undergone proper peer review - the titles alone should have subjected them to extremely close scrutiny - and that they ought to have been retracted long ago.   But in light of their age, I wonder if it is it still appropriate to raise the issue with the journal's editor, or if people will just see it as "water under the bridge".
I am also not quite sure how to explain the issue tactfully.  I think with most professional mathematicians, I could just show them the citations with no further explanation, and they'd immediately understand why this is bad.  Obviously that didn't happen in the first place, but I'm not really sure how much more background I can give the editor without potentially appearing condescending or insulting.
I saw the question I found a published paper that looks dodgy. What to do? But I think this case is more egregious than that one, in that the papers are not merely "dodgy" but in fact flatly wrong, and frankly, an embarrassment to the journal.  The two answers there suggest "comment on PubPeer" and "do nothing", neither of which seem adequate.

It is a strange case.  You say that the author of the two papers is deceased.  Given that and the other facts you have presented -- in particular both papers were published almost ten years ago, their flaws would be immediately suspected by any mathematician and are documented in the MathSciNet reviews -- it seems to me that the principal culprit and the principal victim are both the International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology (IJMEST).

  The journal in question is apparently reputable (otherwise I would not bother)

Is it reputable, though?  I hadn't heard of it before.  Taking a look now, it is hard for me to tell.

  and is published by a major commercial academic publisher,

Come now: we all know that being published by a major commercial academic publisher is no certificate of quality.  Elsevier was caught publishing a several journals that were essentially reprinted advertisements for medical and pharmaceutical companies.  That's memorably egregious, but other big companies have skullduggeries of their own.  Conversely, big companies which do some really shady things also put out some really good journals, Elsevier being a good example.  Taylor and Francis is a less good example: of the 46 journals they publish in mathematics and statistics, I only myself recognize three as being good...but three is enough.  So major publishing companies publish good journals and bad journals: I don't think one can deduce much from this.

Back to the journal.  I looked into IJMEST, and I find it a bit strange.  The journal's aims and scope center it on (a kind of) mathematics and science education:

  Contributions will be welcomed from lecturers, teachers and users of mathematics at all levels on the contents of syllabuses and methods of presentation. Increasing use of technology is being made in the teaching, learning, assessment and presentation of mathematics today; original and interesting contributions in this rapidly developing area will be especially welcome. Mathematical models arising from real situations, the use of computers, new teaching aids and techniques also form an important feature. Discussion will be encouraged on methods of widening applications throughout science and technology. The need for communication between teacher and user will be emphasized and reports of relevant conferences and meetings will be included.

I wanted to remark that I have a colleague who is (to say the least) active in the mathematics education field, so I know that the above description is not really that of a modern research journal in mathematics / science education.  It is more along the lines of creating a shared community for mathematical teachers (which is also a worthy goal, and one that my colleague is interested in).

But the above description does not seem to be a good match for the papers in which IJMEST has published in recent years.  These papers seem to be almost entirely in the field of mathematics itself: most papers state theorems and give proofs.  Sometimes they knowingly give proofs of old theorems and their angle is to give new proofs, often accompanied by the claim that they will be easier for the student to understand (although in my experience as a mathematician it is common for new proofs to be accompanied by such claims).  But many, perhaps a majority, of the articles, seem to be entirely devoted to mathematics, usually of the kind that is broadly understandable: e.g. lots of Fibonacci numbers.  So the published work of the journal looks to be a lot closer to what is published by the Mathematical Association of America (MAA)...but without nearly as much attention to the quality of the exposition as given by articles published in MAA journals.

So something has gone terribly wrong for this journal to publish proofs of major open problems like Collatz or Goldbach: such papers should be out of scope of the journal.  As @Corvus points out, submitting a paper claiming a proof of something like Goldbach to a journal like this just doesn't make any sense: such a paper should be published not only in a math journal but in one of the very top math journals, first because a correct proof of Goldbach merits publication there (such a proof would rank among the great mathematical achievements of all time!) and second because a top journal can get the top experts in the field to the vet the paper, which is needed in order for the community to accept the result.

When the editorial board of a journal like IJMEST receives a paper claiming a proof of a major conjecture, they should (I think) do one of the following things:

(i) Bounce the paper back immediately as being out of scope for the journal, or

(ii) Engage in a preliminary refereeing job to see if the paper looks serious.  If so, they should reach out to the editorial board at an appropriate journal -- i.e., a top mathematics journal -- and try to do a handover of some kind.

I've thought it over for a while now (slow internet connection...), and although in general I believe strongly that any interested party can contact editors and try to get published results corrected, in this case I just don't see why that would be a helpful thing to do.  I realize that I now believe that publishing short, fallacious proofs of two major conjectures in the same year is enough to irreparably damage the reputability of a mathematics education  journal in my eyes.  Either they are so far outside of the mathematical community that they don't understand the significance of problems like Goldbach to the mathematical community and how they have to be handled or they know and don't care: in particular, they don't really care whether the mathematics they publish is correct.  I don't see how to fix either of those problems.


Are there published mathematics research papers that contribute a new approach for understanding a known result, rather than new theorems? Are there research papers which are written on understanding (rather than deriving  new facts and theorems) of topics of Mathematics in some new and unique approach not used before?

For example, a paper that would give a new type of proof of a known result and things like this.

If the answer to this question is 'Yes', then how much weightage is given to such a research paper in terms of its acceptance and publication in a reputed journal?

There are many papers out there that give a new proof of a previously-existing theorem. You can search for "a new proof of" in mathscinet (or even google) and find lots of good papers in respectable journals.

However, the new proof must provide new insight to be worth publishing. Two proofs can look different but actually be very similar, in the sense that they are relying on the same key ideas. This can be a bit subtle (and even subjective in edge cases), so it's a good idea if possible to consult with an expert in your field before making your findings public.

But if you manage to prove the result in a more elementary way than the original proof, that's a big point in your favor. It's always good to know that a result can be proven without appealing to a powerful theorem. If you go in the opposite direction (e.g. showing that a theorem from the 1950s also follows from Fermat's Last Theorem), you're less likely to impress people.


What does "awaiting reviewer reply" mean? What does "awaiting reviewer reply" mean? Is it same as "under review" and "awaiting reviewer scores"?"

It means reviewers have been invited but have not responded to the invitation.

It's not necessarily the same as 'under review' and 'awaiting reviewer scores'. The latter is a clear term that means reviewers have agreed to review the article, but have not provided a report yet. The former is a vague term that could mean anything: reviewer has been invited, reviewer has agreed to review, maybe even reviewer has submitted a review but there're other reviewers who have not yet completed their reviews.

In any case, there's nothing to do except wait.


Has it ever happened that one paper's findings were contradicted by another? Since reviewers don't check the experimental results by trying to reproduce the experiment, is it possible for someone to submit a paper which basically says "Method X was proposed in paper Y and according to them it improved performance by 15% as compared to baseline. However when we tried it, it didn't work so well (only 2% improvement). Hence we propose its modification which actually achieves 14% improvement as compared to baseline on the same train/test data."?

Make sure the difference comes from the experimentation not from the
adopted technique/method.
Make sure you have the same settings as the other paper. Sometimes
people make assumptions for the sake of simplicity in
experimentations. For example, I remember I did experimentation
assuming acyclic graph exists.
Do you have some kind of randomness (i.e. generating random
instances of the problem)? If yes, revise
its output. Sometimes you examine easy instances while others base
their experimentations on hard instances of the problem.
In some areas, there are benchmarks and robust solvers for particular
problems/structures. If your field have benchmarks, try to compare your method against it.

Either way, I am sure you have important parameters to control the experimentation (i.e. number of variables..etc). check their role.

Most importantly, you need to theoretically justify why your method will save 14% while other method saves only 2% in practice.


Rebuttal is limited to 500 words, but the reviewers asked almost 20 questions I have got a rebuttal for the conference and require to respond the questions reviewers asked. However, the response section says "Your response must contain at most 500 words." How can I answer almost 20 reviewers questions in 500 words? Any suggestions?

I suspect I know which conference you are talking about (I am in the Program Committee) :)

Answering questions in the rebuttal phase of conferences is a newly emerging skill. Almost any paper faces the issue that you are facing - rebuttals are strictly word-limited, and the reviews / questions are waaaaay too long to clarify everything.

A good strategy for dealing with this depends on you understanding how the rebuttal will actually be used in the final phase of reviewing. Essentially, after your rebuttal, there will be a final phase of (online or physical) discussion among the reviewers and PC chairs to decide if the merits of your paper outweight its limitations, if the paper is important enough to warrant presentation at the conference, and so on. Many papers have nobody really willing to fight for it (i.e., everybody mostly sees limitations), and for these papers your rebuttal will not change anything. A handful of papers will only have people positive about the work, and in these rather rare cases the paper will be accepted no matter what you write. Some papers will have one or more quite positive people ("champions") and one or more people who are sceptical or downright negative. In these cases your rebuttal can play a major role in how the discussion goes.

Your rebuttal should be written for this specific case, and it should be written to give the champion(s) the best possible ammunition to counter the arguments of the sceptical crowd. That means:

Answer questions where you have a really convincing answer, especially if they come from the most positive reviewers.
If you identify factual mistakes or misunderstandings, clarify them directly and without the polite hollering one tends to do during journal reviews.
Focus on questions or concerns that multiple reviewers have, especially if you have a good argument.
Focus on concerns regarding methodology, validity, or importance of the work. Don't focus on presentation-level issues (the champion can always make an argument that these can be fixed in the camera-ready version, you don't have to point this out).
Remember that you don't get an actual revision for most conferences. Do not agree that some additional work will be needed (even if it's small), this will work against you.
Do not get into discussions that are a matter of taste or subjectivity (you won't change anybody's mind on those).
Do not feel like you need to address everything.
Skip polite phraseology ("Dear Reviewers, we are very grateful that you took the time to ..."). Get to the point.

Importantly, it's not similar to a response letter for a journal. You do not have to convince every single reviewer. Counter-intuitively, you need to focus your attention on the reviewers that may fight for your paper, and the ones that could realistically change their mind (in that order). Don't worry too much about a single reviewer that will never love your paper (especially one that does not like the kind of work you do or doesn't think it's important). You won't change their mind, and if the others champion your paper the PC chairs will likely side with the positive reviewers. Whereas in a response letter you will often "agree" with certain reviewer comments and fix them in the revision (even if you don't really agree), your goal here is to convince at least a subset of the reviewers that your current version is good as it is. Agreeing with the reviewer's concern may or may not get you sympathy points, but it will definitely not help you get the paper accepted.


Is it possible to get a book category based on ISBN? Libraries organize non-fiction books in category with sub-categories, using a hierarchical system, that makes it possible to find books on a specific subject.
Is there some lookup service, for example web page or database, that can provide category with sub-categories based on a books ISBN number?

The Google Books API offers a category-field.
Example: https://www.googleapis.com/books/v1/volumes?q=isbn:055380457X (Business & Economics being the category).
Another example would be WorldCat. Just type in the ISBN in the search for books, and you will find categories or topics associated with that book. (They also have a machine-readable API, but you will need to register, as far as I know.)
But note that normally every library uses its own curated hierarchy of tags.


Is providing more references than the required number in my PhD application acceptable? I'm applying for a PhD program which lists "Two references" in their required documents. The general university online application portal lets me submit details of more than two referees though.

I really want to provide three references for this course. Technically I do have two technical referees in the system already, but while quite ok, I expect their references to be a bit flat and generic - given we worked together not that much, two years ago and in a different field. I know academic references have priority over professional ones. However, my technical project manager in my job (software), I know would write me an absolutely smashing reference (because I saw their annual review feedback of me). The PhD is in robotics so software experience is not irrelevant.

Is it acceptable for me to add this one more referee to the application, even though the program requires only two?

UPDATE: I've emailed the program people and they've replied that 3 references would be very much ok, especially if I think it will paint a clearer picture of me as a candidate!

It's usually best to carefully read the application's supporting materials (FAQ, 'help' section, explanation pages, etc.), as some programs I've seen explicitly say "please do not send more than 2 [or usually 3 in the US]". Some programs require 2, but allow 3 (I've seen fellowships accept up to 5, but not a PhD program that does that).

However, I mainly answered to suggest you carefully consider how you pick your two "guaranteed" reference letters. If you are going into a program that is friendly towards industry practitioners, and your job and experience is relevant, and if your industry writer would be in a position to talk about relevant aspects of your application (technical skills desirable to the program, work ethic, reliability, etc), then it is possible that such a letter is actually better than a bland academic one by itself. This varies heavily by field, but if the program explicitly says something about how to professional references are OK (often with a stipulation that at least 1 be from an academic), then I think there's a case for you to go with one academic and one professional letter. Then you can put the 3rd in, if the system allows it, as your additional academic reference.

This can be very field and program specific, so I'd advise you to try to get some more guidance from someone closer your target program to give you there advice. But some fields - especially in applied areas of computer science, like many robotics programs, software engineering, etc - are far more appreciative of certain kind of professional reference letters than others.


Is it early to try to read Articles for an undergrad As an undergrad student. I would like to read articles but i am not sure how to.
So is it early to try to read articles or how to?

I'm assuming you mean by "articles" research articles in published journals and the like.

In that case, it depends a lot on the field of study and where you are in your undergraduate education. For example, in math there are articles which are genuine research and could be read by any dedicated undergrad willing to put in the effort and maybe look a few terms up. This is very common in graph theory for example. But in number theory, while there are many very elementary articles, there are others which use deep, sophisticated techniques. And then you have areas like much of topology where almost any serious research article will be completely inaccessible to someone without a lot of prior training. In other fields, the situation is similar, with specific subfields ranging a lot. That said, some areas are easier to read than others. For example a lot of articles from the social sciences and humanities are easy to read if one has taken a basic introductory course in the relevant topic.

In general, if there's a specific topic that interests you, you can try to read an article and see how much work is involved in understanding it.


How to write teaching philosophy and research statement? I am applying for faculty positions in the US. Almost all of them require teaching philosophy and research statements. I have read some examples, but still do not understand what should I write.

Should they be about my past experiences or future plans?
Should they be evidence-based or just my ideas?
How they should be categorized (e.g., different topics that I
taught or my teaching methods; different research topics or
research strategy)?

I know that this question is too broad, but honestly I am deeply confused. How can I highlight my teaching/research potential to attract their attention?

Many successful teaching and research statements do the same basic three things:

Describe broad themes or approaches that tie together your research or teaching.
Narrate specific relevant examples of your achievements related to these themes or approaches that illustrate your experience and qualifications.
Describe your aspirations and future directions in terms of your research or teaching.

It might help to think of the research and teaching statements in terms of other items in your packet. For example, your writing samples will provide concrete examples of your work as a scholar so don't need to prove this in a research statement. Similarly, your CV will show your publication and teaching record so you don't need to reiterate this either. Instead, provide a high-level overview of your approaches to research or teaching while referring to examples from your experience that help make the case for your excellence in each area.

Statements also provide a space for you to explain what you hope to do in the future. I used my teaching statement to describe examples of graduate and undergraduate classes I could teach that were on the books at the department I was applying to and that I would design from scratch. I used my research statement to explain the areas of research I was hoping to move into in the future.

Your goals with the statement may also be to address potential weaknesses in your application. For example, if you have little teaching experience, your teaching statement is an opportunity to show that you have thought deeply about teaching and that you have gained relevant skills through experience like mentorship that might not show up on your CV.

Specific expectations, in terms of of teaching and research statements, may vary from field to field and even within fields, but you can generally assume that authors have quite a bit of latitude. Look for examples online and, perhaps, more usefully, contact successful recent job market candidates you know to ask their materials.


What reference style is this? Below is a reference of an article cited as footnote on a page of a book. I'm not familiar with this style so just want to know.

Anne Nguyen. Cultural and Social Attitudes Towards Mental Illness in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Stanford University Research Journal 2003: 27-31.

And here's a reference for a book:

Richard Keller. Colonial Madness: Psychiatry in French North Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007, 89.

The style seems to be a slight variation to Chicago notes style (as opposed to the bibliography style). In strict Chicago the journal article would be:

  Anne Nguyen, "Cultural and Social Attitudes Towards Mental Illness in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam," Stanford University Research Journal (2003): 27-31.

With the key differences being a comma instead of a period after the author, quotes around the title followed by a comma and parenthesis around the year.

Similarly for the book it would be:

  Richard Keller, Colonial Madness: Psychiatry in French North Africa. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 89.

with a comma instead of a period after the author and the press and year in parenthesis.


How much should I charge a colleague for a translation project? I have come across a situation that I'm not entirely sure how to handle and am curious if there are any norms in the United States for it.

I teach in my university's foreign language department.  A colleague in another department approached me to see if I could assist in translating an article for a book that he was working on.  The article is in the language that I specialize in and also very closely related to my research area.

If it were just a paragraph, I would of course do it without question.  However, given its length (about 13k words), I'm not sure how to approach.  He has offered to pay, but is it normal to charge the same amount as I would were it a private business?  Or is it expected to offer a reduced rate in the name of "service"?

I imagine the answer here is slightly subjective, but my personal thoughts are that you should charge whatever you feel your time is worth. The industry price is probably a good starting point -- don't undervalue your time for sure. And remember the time and energy that went into developing your language skills too, not just the time it will take you to translate the article.

That being said, the industry price is just that -- a starting point. If you want to reduce the price for a colleague, you can certainly do so. You may have political reasons for doing so (you want their support on something within the university), or they may have services to offer you in return (as in a barter economy). I'd caution you against reducing your price too much -- you don't want to be inundated with requests like this in the future.


Master thesis: should I say that some results are a novelty in the field? I am nearly at the end of my master thesis and, according to my research, the last part of it deals with something that has not been treated before in any paper/book I have found.

To make things more clear: in my thesis I am applying a method well known in literature, which has been applied many times on simple structural elements built on purpose to validate the method. In my thesis I have started applying the method on simple structures too, to be sure I have implemented it correctly. Then, in the last part, I apply it on a real-world structure using real measurements (not numerical generated ones).

The problem is that I am not sure if I should underline this fact as a novelty in the method application. According to my literature research, this approach has not been tried yet, but I can speak only 2 languages, therefore I looked for books/papers written in those 2 languages only.

What if this thing has been already done by someone else on a paper written in another language? Then my results will not be a novelty anymore, so I should not mention it in my thesis and this will also affect the 'goodness' of my work too (because my thesis will not actually add any useful information to the already existing literature).

How can I deal with this situation?

This is a common situation, since it really isn't possible to be absolutely certain that nobody has done this work before. What I find people usually do is:

Do the best literature search you can. As for references in other languages, in many fields it's  common that papers written in, say, French, will have an abstract in English, so you'd have a chance of finding them even if you can't read French. But if you find a French paper whose abstract suggests that it may contain similar results to yours, then it is your duty to find a way to read it (look for a translation, ask a colleague to translate, learn some French yourself if necessary) and make sure.
Once you are satisfied you have done a diligent search, write something like "this result appears to be new" or "as far as we know, this result has not been obtained previously".
If it later turns out that your result was already known, be prepared to acknowledge that the other author had priority, and to be able to show that although you did a reasonably diligent search, you did not find the prior paper, and that your result was truly obtained independently (not plagiarized).


What are the cons of studying in a Ph.D. program that takes much time to confer the degree (about 1 year and a half or 2 years, after dissertation)? Currently, I am in the second year of a Ph.D. program. However, I am really worried about the amount of time Faculty takes to confer the degree, since It could be detrimental to my academic and professional future.

Many academic positions after graduation are dependent on proof of degree completion, so this could potentially be a problem.  The NSF math postdocs, for example, require a signature from the school that you've completed your degree, and some positions explicitly require a copy of your transcript or diploma that indicate your completion of a Ph.D. program.  The institution where I completed a postdoc was in this latter category, and would only issue an informal offer (and not an official contract) until they received final documentation of my degree, which in my case took several months to arrive after graduation.  One practical problem I faced as a result was difficulty arranging for housing at my postdoc institution; most rental companies want to see their tenant's signed contract as proof of income.  I am also aware of tenure track jobs where the contract specified that the tenure clock only started after conferral of a degree.  I suspect some institutions would be willing to bend the rules a bit in unusual circumstances, but it certainly could be a problem.  (Note that this answer is based on experiences of myself and colleagues in the US.  I have no idea how this practice varies in other countries.)


Do editors choose reviewers based on the quality of manuscripts? When the editor receives a manuscript, he/she has to find a couple of suitable reviewers. I was wondering if the they were choosing the reviewers in order to match the expected manuscript quality?

What I mean is the following: if the editor receives a manuscript that seems to describe a major breakthrough, will he/she choose preferentially well known scientists to review it? On the other hand, if the manuscript does not seems good, will he/she prefer younger, less experienced researchers?

Editors try to maintain a good status of papers published in "their" journal. There is no obvious point in using different standards for different papers and I am sure that such differences are not concious decisions if they appear. If an editor receives a paper that is outside of their comfort zone, it is of course possible they are not aware of possible good reviewers and may make seemingly odd choices. How common this is will be difficult to assess but that it occurs is certain.

In the specific of receiving something of breakthrough character, the procedure should normally be the same. However, an editor always has the choice of adding as many reviewers as they see fit. If a controversial paper appears, it will likely receive quite varying reviews and adding additional reviewers may be useful to get a sense of the quality of the work. This does not necessarily mean an editor will go for specific names but I can see that it may be the case that one would go for prominent names for such a paper.

In my experience as editor and author (and reviewer) I often get the sense that good science receives far harsher reviews than poorer. I do not think this is because the good stuff are assigned to "better" scientists, I actually think it is because a good paper is easier to fault be cause it is more transparent than poor papers which are muddled.

So, in short, there are many aspects to how papers are run through a review process. Choice of reviewers is not generally done after quality of the paper although it can happen. In the end a journal, through its editors, want to retain its status and letting poor papers through, does not serve such a purpose.


Does changing major if you’re not passionate about a good idea or should I accept what I have and live with it? I’m a 26 yo with a BA in English. While studying and even the 3 years after I never felt EL fits me the best but still finished it with the hope of studying again the major I like (and trust me it was a hard decision to take as doing another 4 years is unacceptable here especially people here (including my family) thinks of getting job and live with it to the end. Now I'm studying CS. but felt like… What the hell am I doing with my life? Students with me are 8-9 years younger and i feel like i'm chasing something i won't catch.

I don’t really hate my major and I’m thankful I learned a bit of English which allowed me to develop myself in math, physics and coding (which I’m into) but I feel like I want more… now it seems like the way is too long, 4 years plus I want to do master and PhD so 9 years sounds terrifying

So am in front of 2 choices, 9 years to follow my goal or just doing master and doctorate in my already-have major (5 years) and accept being stuck with what i have

I know this is too long but, Please, any advice would appreciate it, a few words of wisdom, anything, really, anything would help me out.

As a software developer turned college teacher, I advise a lot of students in my Information Technology program and I like to tell my students "begin with the end in mind". If I want to go to my friend's house, do I go outside and start walking/driving and just turn left and right hoping that one day I will get to their house? Or do I ask my friend where they live, and get a map so that I know how to get there?

Why masters and PhD? Does that help you get to where you want to go? Or are those just streets and turns that you just happen to see in front of you?

Students I work with say "I want to get a job as a developer." If that's the case, I work with them to find some job postings, look at what they require, and figure out what knowledge and skills they need to get that job, and work backwards and plan out their degree or coursework.

I recommend you think about "where you want to be". It's a difficult question to answer for many people and sometimes it's worthwhile to talk to people in the field about what they like and don't like about their job and lifestyle and what they would recommend if they were you. Once you have an "end in mind", you can then work backwards and figure out a map as to how to get there.

Hope this helps!


How can I signal that I don't intend to follow up the items in my "Future Work" section? I'm currently writing a paper that is based on work that I won't be following up on, as I'm changing career directions. I believe that the work raises a number of questions and ideas for future work, and my program solves a number of the boring problems without getting into the interesting applications. However, I've previously been told that raising an idea in a "Future Work" section effectively 'reserves' that work for me, and it would be considered rude for readers to begin research on those areas.

How can I signal (without flat out saying that I don't care) that I hope others will pick up and run with the ideas I'm presenting?

If it's of any importance, it's a Computer Science paper.

I've never heard this about "Future Work".  Items that you put in this section are simply things that you are currently considering, and someone else who does them should at least cite your original work.  However, anyone who beats you to actually doing the work should be able to publish it.

If you want to make it absolutely clear that you do not intend to work on this material (and, you never know, you might end up going back to it later anyway!), simply call the section "Further discussion" or just "Discussion".


'Etiquette' of including course lecturer as author in a paper Consider please the two following cases:

I took a graduate course, and I naturally did the final project on something related to my research subject. I got a nice conclusion from it. It wasn't nearly enough for publication, but I later on wrote a paper that had included material I got doing my course project. The 'size' of contribution (if that has any relevance) was about half a column from the entire paper. The course lecturer hadn't helped me especially, i.e. we didn't remotely discuss publishing anything.
I did another graduate course, in which the lecturer talked about his own research. Later on, unrelated to the course, I used the methods he taught and wrote a paper based on it.

These are two unrelated cases.

I was wondering if the lecturers should be included as authors in a paper in either case.

Authorship is reserved for people who contribute to the scientific output of the article. It is not clear to me that the cases you mention qualify although they could. The Vancouver Protocol (here as given by the ICMJE) provide a good basis for assessing authorship. If your course lecturer fulfil these criteria and thus actively participate in the creation of the article then all is fine. If the lecturer takes no active part then the appropriate way would be to place a note in the acknowledgement of the contribution.


How to handle student plagiarism appropriately? I am nearing the end of teaching a course for first year students with a fellow student.

We assigned a paper and 2 students have submitted almost identical papers. The policy is that if a student is caught they get a 0 and possible legal action on a case-by-case basis governed by department heads.

I know that one of these students is a 4.0 students and it seems odd that she would either share or copy her paper from another student. I'll refer to her as student A. Student B's paper is about a 90% copy and normally cases where this happened it's evident that the students are friends and socialize during classes. I have never seen Student A and B talk to one another and I find it hard to believe student A would plagiarize off of another student.

I do not want to have to fail both students if only 1 copied off the other without the other's knowledge. How can I appropriately handle the situation without seeming like there is a favoritism towards student A? Student B has been on the lower end of the class grade wise but is still a passing student.

Usually, the way to handle this is to ask both students to come in at the same time. And then in separate rooms, ask them to articulate one of the key points of the essay. It's usually simple to determine who wrote the paper and understood the ideas and who merely copied the text.

However, the key issue doesn't seem to be just whether B copied from A, but whether:

A allowed B to copy the material willingly (perhaps for remuneration)
A allowed it to be copied by B accidentally or through neglect (e.g., A left a draft on a public computer); or,
B copied it by malicious action  (B hacked into A's computer).

(There is a fourth possibility: that both B and A used source C and both are plagiarists.)

It would be unfair to punish just B and let A go without proving A's innocence or culpability.

That all being said, untangling this is non-trivial and at this point, I'd declare it above my pay grade and send it up the chain of command to the university committee responsible for student ethics and misconduct (via the instructor on record if you're a teaching assistant).


Commercial publication of your PhD thesis I'm wondering what it is like to publish a PhD thesis commercially?
Has anyone done that before? What would the contract be with the publisher regarding sales profits?

The answer to this question is very field- and country-dependent.  In the sciences, a thesis is very rarely transformed into a book (except in certain locations, such as Germany), while in the humanities it is a relatively common end for high-quality theses.  To a first approximation, this is because science theses are often best "republished" or "prepublished" as a set of several peer-reviewed journal papers, whereas it is more common for a humanities work to be a single large monograph not suitable for such sub-publication.

There are a large number of pseudo-scam organizations which will contact you and offer to turn your thesis into a book.  Don't bother with them: they will merely waste your time and taint your reputation.

Instead, I would recommend beginning with a discussion with your advisor, who will know the common practices in your field, and may be able to help assess whether it is a good idea to publish your thesis as a book at all.  You may also contact a reputable university press, who can help assess your work and guide you through the process of transforming it.

No matter what, however, don't expect to make any significant amount of money from such a venture.


Can research breadth be a downside when applying for doctoral positions? I'm going to apply for a doctorate position in mathematics soon, and I'm wondering if my breadth can be of any disadvantage. I have two MSc degrees, in mathematics and engineering respectively. The past years I've coauthored papers in different field on the side, all of which had novel content. My work has ranged from pure math, nanotechnology, to high performance computing and numerical analysis.

I'm wondering if this can be held against me when applying for a more "pure" math doctorate. As a side note, in my country a doctorate is the latter part of an American PhD, after you're done with the coursework and you mainly do research. So, the main focus will, of course, be on my research aptitude. I have demonstrated this through my work, and also by participating in competitions/conferences.

By the time they decide I will also have had some applied/industrial math experience, working for a research institute, and I have teaching experience with undergraduate courses.

Would I seem a much less interesting applicant than someone who has only focused on pure math, but doesn't have the same research experience (which is often the case)?

You could say something like:

"I've done a pretty wide range of different things, trying to find out where my true passion lies. Getting multiple masters degrees shows that I'm not a dilettante, I get stuff done. And it's been an enriching experience, letting me see the connections between different fields. But after long consideration I've decided pure math is what I want to settle down on."

And it has the virtue of being true (from what I read in your question).

Consider what a professor might think, while reviewing two candidates, one pure math straight up, and you who's tried several different things and finished them.

The pure math student might have a lead on you in pure math.
You've demonstrated persistence and an ability to get things done. Likely, you will also get a PhD done.
You've shown that you're mentally flexible enough to master multiple different subject fields.
The math student might at some point decide he's not seen enough of the rest of the world and worry if staying cocooned in pure math is really what he wants. You on the other hand have tasted the various forbidden fruits and decided this is really the one you want.

Just on the surface like that, you look like a candidate worth interviewing.


Almost all of the Postdoctoral positions requires to attach publications while contacting. Can a manuscript under review be sent to address this? I have submitted my PhD thesis and am searching for postdoc positions. However, every position has something on the lines of "Postdoctoral applicants should also attach your most important publications." I had published a work from my PhD two years back, while one is under review at the moment. The one under review being the accurate representative of the novelty of work done in my PhD.

My question is: Can I send the manuscript under review as an example of my work? Is there an accepted/legal way of doing it, like sending the submitted copy generated by the journal?

You can send it if you clearly label it as under review and not yet accepted. Name the journal reviewing it as well.

I don't see any problem with this as long as you are honest about its current status. Of course you should also include other publications if available. But in your labeling of this paper you can give your personal assessment of its importance in your work. People can do their own evaluation.


First year PhD without advisor, or experience, or a clue about research TL; DR    How can I go about either convincing this unwilling advisor or others in my department to keep me despite poor performance?

*Thank you so much for your comments. It's beyond valuable that you are taking the time to read and share opinions. *

Background: I started PhD in management in a reputable institution in US, immediately after undergrad in a small university in Europe. The system works much more differently than I was used to and now I have invested all I can to this area. However, I lack prior experience in research, and especially when changing areas like this, need to develop very specific skills that were hard for me so far. Now I'm pretty beaten up and discouraged by potential advisors to go for a PhD.

The catch is when I applied, one senior faculty jointly appointed with this program and others was my primary "advisor"-candidate- and a second one supported this. Now, the second one has left the institution without any progress with research; and no one else in my department with similar topics is willing to advise me or fund any research I want to do. Without guidance or funding, this seems like a no way out. I really love the research the primary "advisor" is doing and want to continue on the topic I am in, but the topic is not the most common to find among researchers in my field.

My primary "advisor" is already planning to work with other students and my funding is not covering more than tuition after this first year. I really need someone to support me, and help me figure academia out as my first year was really bumpy. The department liaison and chairs are encouraging me to drop out and keep their money in...

Have a careful think: what makes you think that you will make a success of the PhD? I don't mean that in a harsh way, but as a genuine question. Your potential advisors seem to be recommending that you don't pursue the PhD, presumably based on their assessment of your performance over the first year. But perhaps you have abilities that they haven't really seen yet, or perhaps there were mitigating circumstances that led to poor performance, but you believe you will be able to turn it around. Once you have made this honest assessment, you can then make your case to your potential advisors to try and persuade them that you will be able to make a success of the PhD.

Of course, you also need to consider the possibility that these academics are right, and that you don't have what it takes to succeed in a PhD at this point in time. While it's not easy to face if this is something that you have set your heart on, they may have your best interests in mind. PhDs are hard, and are not for everyone. It might be the wrong thing to do to start off on a tough course, struggle through for a year or two more, and then discover that it really is not working out. Or you might stick it all the way, scrape through, but emerge exhausted and disillusioned. This may be what your potential advisors are trying to avoid, they have probably been through similar things in the past. I'm not saying they are right - they might not be. But equally, they might be. And perhaps your strengths are elsewhere, and they would be doing you a huge favour in directing you towards a more productive route.

You mention that you found it a big step up from your undergraduate studies, and that you lack research experience. Perhaps one option is to consider a research-based Masters course? This would provide you with something of an intermediate step, helping to clarify whether you are "cut out" for research, and giving you that vital experience. If successful, it would be a great way to provide clear evidence that you have some of the skills necessary for a PhD.

Again, please don't take any of this as a personal judgement. I don't know you, and I have no idea of your strengths and abilities. I just think it will be important for you to take a step back and make an honest appraisal rather than pressing forward with a single plan no matter what.


Can I submit a paper to a call for paper and a call for workshops for the same conference? I am applying to a top tier ML/Data-Science Conference and I feel that I might have a higher probability getting accepted in the call for workshops over the call for papers.
Can I submit the same idea/algorithm to both the call for papers and the call for workshops?

Well, since papers are generally for finished work, and workshops are for improving work in progress, it might be looked at as an odd situation. If you submit a paper for what you have done already and a workshop proposal that is related, but, perhaps, an extension to the other then it would be more natural.

So, in the exact form you suggest, I'd recommend not, but a variation might work out for you. A workshop is also valuable in that it would put you in contact with other researches with similar interests.


Is it correct to use citations as nouns for scientific papers, such as dissertations of articles? Which of these two is better accepted, or preferred, for scientific papers?
THIS
The model detaches the calculation of the vertical velocity from the
equations system, and focuses on the longitudinal velocities instead, leaving the model
as a 2D equations system. [Mintgen, 2018] provides a description for the properties, characteristics and limitations of SWE in a detailed manner, some of which will be further addressed an extended for a deeper analysis in Section 2.1.
OR
The model detaches the calculation of the vertical velocity from the
equations system, and focuses on the longitudinal velocities instead, leaving the model
as a 2D equations system. In his dissertation, Florian Mintgen [Mintgen, 2018] provides a description for the properties, characteristics and limitations of SWE in a detailed manner, some of which will be further addressed an extended for a deeper analysis in Section 2.1.
Or if you have any other accepted way of doing it, please feel free. Thank you
References
[Mintgen, 2018] Mintgen, G. F. (2018). Coupling of Shallow and Non-Shallow Flow Solvers An
Open Source Framework. Dissertation, Technische Universitaet Muenchen, Muenchen.

There’s no unique answer to this as citation styles (in text or in bibliography) are somewhat personal or institutional.  Some good ways of getting guidance include

Get one or more previous theses on the same topic and follow those models,
Look up established journals in the field and use their models (if they have a common one).

I personally prefer your second alternative but would then use numbered referencing to avoid name repetition, v.g. “In his dissertation [1], Mintgen ...”


Who funded research before 1800? The Von Humboldt model of a university came about in the early 1800's. Von Humboldt's thought that the fundamental purpose of the university was to promote scientific inquiry and to unify teaching and research. This idea implies, of course, that the purpose of a university is to create new knowledge

However, a previous SE question touches upon the idea that the initial goal of a university was not to discover new knowledge (as was Humboldt's view) but to transmit older knowledge.

With these ideas as context, where exactly were scientific advancements pursued prior to the Von Humboldt model?

In general, there was no central source of funding for research until recently.

If you were engaged in scientific research before modern times, you usually fell into one of a few categories:

You had an official position, such as Royal Astronomer in the UK and other countries, that provided you with a salary in exchange for doing research.
You had your own independent source of wealth that allowed you to survive.
You worked another job, and "dabbled" in research in your "spare time."
You were part of the church (e.g., Gregor Mendel) and did your studies and experiments in your free time.

Industry played at most a small role in funding research, directly or indirectly.


How to judge the reputation of a potential advisor or research group for good quality research for PhD? I am planning my PhD and am applying to various labs and professors.

I am getting positive responses, but I am having trouble making a decision as to which lab to go for. How can I judge the quality of research of a group? What parameters shall be kept in mind while making a decision? I usually look for relevant research interests.

How can I judge the quality of research of a group?

This is the wrong question.

What you should be asking is "How can I judge which research group will best support my educational and career goals?"  And yes, this is a very different question.  And while lab productivity may be correlated with the future career prospects of its members, the two are not identical.  Some great researchers are terrible advisors.

Are the lab's students happy?
Do the lab's students have a consistent strong track record of publishing new results?
Are the lab's students strongly represented at conferences, workshops, and the like?  In particular: Are the lab's students given ample opportunity to present their research outside their home department?
Are the lab's students given ample mentoring and support, both in developing their own research agendas and in applying for external fellowships, lab exchanges, internships, postdoctoral positions, faculty positions, and so on?
Are the lab's students given ample opportunity for substantial intellectual contributions to the lab's published research, or are they just lab/code monkeys?
Does the lab's research agenda closely match your own research interests and abilities?
Most importantly: Where do the lab's former students work now?  (The worst possible answer is "We don't know.")

Almost none of these questions can be answered accurately without physically visiting the lab and talking directly to the students without the PI present.  If travel is impractical, use Skype / Google hangout / Facetime / whatever.  Or telephone.  Or, if all else fails, email.


Selecting the Theory Underpinning the Research Project Sorry about the breadth and complexity of this question. I realise that for most people this question irrelevant as most projects or PhDs are predetermined and that theories and methodologies for each discipline or topic are quite limited. However, for me that is not the case. My research topic is rather broad, and I was keen to explore the topic from different angles before deciding on a specific angle. When the angle was decided, it was not clear which theory to use and whether the project should be one of theory development or theory testing. I have since decided which theory to use but I would like to apply more intellectually rigour to my project.

Anyways, my broad question is directed to people and researchers who have experience or had to decide which theories to use for their project or PhD. What influenced your decision-making and what factors were relevant? I could not find any books or resources that helped me go through my consideration process, so I apologise for this question.

More specifically my topic is broadly about new migrants. I was keen to explore whether migrants who are new to Australia found or felt there are educational differences in the way they are taught in the workplace. Obviously, learning theories are relevant, acculturation theories less so, etc.

Whenever you have a problem you can't solve, solve any part of it, then take another look at the problem and see if the partial answer has helped. (I can't find the exact source of this formula, but I think it's R.A. Heinlein.)

First, what sort of methodology are you considering? Interviews? Surveys? Online or in person? What sort of statistics are you contemplating, if any? How will you assure you have something representative rather than the result of a small number of people with unusual opinions? How will you select your subjects? Is there any method to deal with self-selection? For example, people who are unusually happy or unusually unhappy are possibly more likely to want to talk about their experiences.

You write of differences. How will you determine the situation before they migrated in order to observe the difference? Suppose, for example, that you had a significant number of people with very little work experience outside of Australia, maybe because they migrated in the age range of 10 to 18, and so didn't have jobs previously. How would you discern "coming of age" factors from "changing culture" factors? Possibly you need to do some research on the situation in the places the migrants migrated from. Possibly you need to compare to the perception of experiences of non-migrants in the same age range. Possibly you need to control for financial status, education status, etc.

How will you detect the just so story in your work? If you do detect it, what will you do about it?

There are a bunch more such questions you could ask yourself. I'm a humble safety analyst, so I know very little about sociological studies. I do know something about how to avoid fooling yourself.

Once you have some notion of that, then you can look at theories that you could possibly test using such methods. Then you can refine your methods to target specific hypotheses. Be sure that the research you propose has a reasonable expectation of actually testing your hypotheses. Also, have some thought as to whether there might be alternate hypotheses that have similar explanatory power.

And after you've done all that then stand back and critically examine the whole thing. Maybe there are other methods that would be a similar amount of work (or even less work), but that would test these hypotheses more accurately. Maybe there is already a block of research that tests them. Maybe there is some reason to think some of your hypotheses are wildly wrong before you even start.


How is the PhDs' (in Logics in Math) employment rate? I am an undergraduate student who is majored in Math now. I plan to continue my phD degree in Logics in Math. My ultimate job plan is to be professor (I know instructor first). So I really want to learn the employment of PhDs in this major.

Thank you for your time.

For mathematics in the US, the American Mathematical Society collects a great deal of data (about employment among many other things) in their Annual Survey of the Mathematical Sciences.

With respect to your specific question, unfortunately they lump logic together with discrete mathematics, combinatorics, and computer science; presumably logic alone would have too few data points to be very informative.  (The inclusion of computer science here doesn't mean the AMS thinks that computer science is one small subfield of mathematics.  That refers, I think, only to people working on theoretical computer science who received their degrees in departments of mathematics.)

This pdf has the table that most directly addresses your question, for 2014-15 doctoral recipients.


How to prevent physical/psychological health side effects of workaholism in academia and research? As a research student, I spend most of my time working on my research career, even when I am at home, I am awake until 3 or 4 A.M just doing my research-chores.

As a matter of fact, long-term having not enough sleep, putting myself under huge amount of stress and hard work and more important, not getting enough exercise will directly put the person's health in to danger.

Q: How should a researcher balance their life to both maintain their health and do their academic job?

I am wondering whether professionals and scientists really hardly worked this much and how their healthy and balanced academic/work life-style is.

I put my health first by committing to healthy activities that involve other people, so I will have to stick to them.

For example, I

Have a standing weekly running appointment with a faculty member at my school. I won't cancel this appointment because she will be disappointed.
Have a standing non-academic volunteer commitment one afternoon each week (giving back to my community is essential for my mental health). I won't cancel this because there's a classroom full of 12-year-old girls waiting for me to come help them with their homework.
Spend 25 hours each week, from Friday night to Saturday night, completely disconnected from the Internet and anything work related. (I do this as a religious observance, but it's definitely good for my physical health, too!)
Hold meetings with students and faculty in other buildings in their offices, not mine, so that I am forced to occasionally go outside during daylight hours (if only to walk from one building to the next).

All of these things are non-negotiable to me. That is, no matter what how busy I am or what deadlines are coming up, I will not compromise on any of these things. They're essential to my health and well-being, I arranged them so that other people are depending on me, and so I prioritize them.


What's the difference between Machine Learning classifications in Computer Science and Statistics on arXiv? I notice that there are minor classifications called Machine Learning in both classifications of Computer Science and Statistics respective named cs.LG and stat.ML on arXiv, what is the difference between these 2? What's different about the papers posted to them? if I want to submit an article on machine learning to one of them, how should I choose the appropriate classification based on the content of the article?

The cs.LG category has a broader scope. As per arXiv's category taxonomy, the category descriptions are:

stat.ML (Machine Learning) -
Classification, Graphical Models, High Dimensional Inference

and

cs.LG (Machine Learning) -
Papers on all aspects of machine learning research (supervised, unsupervised, reinforcement learning, bandit problems, and so on) including also robustness, explanation, fairness, and methodology. cs.LG is also an appropriate primary category for applications of machine learning methods.

More specifically, in this page, an additional guideline for cs.LG is provided (emphasis mine):

Relationship to other categories: If the primary domain of the application is available as another category in arXiv and readers of that category would be the main audience, that category should be primary. Examples include applications to computer vision (cs.CV), natural language processing (cs.CL), speech recognition (eess.AS), information retrieval (cs.IR; includes document classification and topic modeling), crowdsourcing (cs.HC), quantitative finance (q-fin), and quantitative biology (q-bio). Papers discussing the foundations of neural network architectures (activation functions, spiking neurons, etc.) should list cs.NE as primary, as should papers applying biologically-inspired optimization techniques such as evolutionary methods. Papers working with the properties of specific signal types (e.g., sound, EEG, hyperspectral, ultrasound) should consider cs.SD (sound, including music), eess.IV (images and video), or eess.SP as primary. cs.LG is not appropriate for papers studying human learning such as computer-aided instruction, where cs.CY is a better fit. Papers categorized with cs.LG as primary are automatically cross-listed as stat.ML and vice versa.

So, based on the content of your paper, you can follow these guidelines to decide the appropriate category. For papers applying machine learning to other fields, such as computer vision, neither would be the primary category, but can be present in the cross-list.
However, if you need to select one of these two as the primary category, then as per the last line in the quoted paragraph above, no matter which one you choose, the other will always be listed in the cross-list. So, the paper will end up appearing in both categories.


Am I too late to get research experience before applying for a master program (Canada) I mistakenly waited too long before I really looked into general expectations before graduate school applications. Research experience was something I always saw only as a bonus to applications if you were able to get any. Recently I have been reading up on the subject more and many things I have been seeing seem to heavily indicate I really should be having some form of research experience to show interest in/preparation for graduate school.

My current situation:
I am a Canadian student currently in a 16 month long SE internship that will end August 2020, after which I will be finishing my last year of University.

I plan to apply for a masters program at U of Waterloo fall of 2020 for the computer science quantum information program

Overall GPA: 3.91 (last 2 years probably increases it by 0.01)
TA experience: was a TA for two CS courses, believe I can get good LOR from these professors
Worked experience: 16 month internship in a general development position
 not related to my field of interest
Research experience: None

Since I will be working until august, and applying by december, I don't see it as a possibility I can get research experience in time, especially before contacting possible supervisors. Is there any advice that can be given to attempt to improve this gap? I am currently trying to heavily study up on the relevant material, but this is informal and doubtfully worth much outside of conversations with supervisors, if it gets there.

I appreciate any help, and I'm sorry for another "grad school chances" thread. (I am not expecting an answer on whether I have a chance as I know that is not a question that could be answered)

I don't know any specific expectations in Canada but I doubt the expectations about research experience are very high when applying for a Master. Also you seem to assume that informal experience doesn't count, but it probably does: for instance you could do a small project, e.g. reproducing state of the arts results for a problem of interest and analyzing the results. It might not count as much as a formal research internship but it certainly qualifies as research experience. If a professor accepts to guide you in such a project and gives you a good LOR at the end, then it's virtually equivalent to a research internship. At least that's how I would interpret it, but you should discuss this with somebody involved in this particular Master programme.


Would it be a good idea to drop out of my Bachelor's program and look for scholarships to restart abroad? Currently, I study BA in Mathematics, and because of some problems related to the environment I found myself in, I cannot complete my studies in this place.
I studied most of the courses, except Topology, Fields & Rings, Real Analysis 2, Numerical Analysis, and some elective courses. In general the education level here is not that good, so I have decided to drop it and start again in another (good) place.
But, if I do this, I don't know if it will be good for me and for my journey. I plan to move from the Middle East either to Europe or the USA, to study there and start the bachelor's again. Moreover, I'm 23 years old now. and I don't know if my age will cause a problem.
Any advice?

Different countries in Europe have a different opinion on what constitutes "old" for a student. There are countries where 23 would still be quite young.
You may want to have a look into whether programmes in the EU or USA would allow you to transfer (part of) the credits for courses you already passed. Some programs will, some programs won't. If you find a program that allows this, it might make your journey substantially smoother.


Can you describe a required online science course that used discussion well? I am re-designing an introductory biology course for an online summer session - five weeks of hard work for the students. They are mostly lower-division students who are re-taking the class or are adding bio as a minor.

I can transmit content no problem with videos and outlines. What I'm hoping to do is also present students with problems to solve and encourage them to work together through these difficult, new presentations of the material and help each other. I'm using Moodle, so this will likely happen in the discussion fora -- though I'm open to using a third-party tool.

Generally, students are not motivated by the joy of discovery, particularly in a double-time online environment. But they are willing to do work if it is clearly related to how well they will do on exams. I'm looking for data - has anyone taken (or taught) an online SCIENCE class that had group and application work they felt really improved their understanding of the material? If so, please describe.

The best experiences I have had in working in group, in terms of exogenous motivation, were encouraging competition: define a problem, divide your students into groups, set a time limit and give a reward to the first/best/any-criteria-you-consider group.

Live discussions/meetings can be more helpful that a forum in this sense: the probabilities of engaging in a fruitful dialog increase.

You may also want to take a look to gamification techniques:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamification
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamification_of_learning

If students are not motivated by themselves, the internal pulse of "trying to win" at something may do it, gaining knowledge along the way, without having the feeling of "doing homework".


How to follow up with potential PhD advisor met at conference? I recently attended a conference and met a professor who I would be interested in working with for my PhD. One of his students introduced us, and I mentioned some of my research interests, and he asked me about my GPA and GRE scores, and encouraged me to check the school website for application instructions and more information. He didn't seem very interested in talking more then, and I was not very familiar with his research, so I ended the conversation by asking if I could email him if I had any more questions.
Now that I am back from the conference, I am wanting to follow up with him. I have read some of his papers now and was planning to ask a question about his research, but I was wondering if I should try to get a more committed response as to whether he would be interested in having me join his group? How should I bring this up?

Simply ask. Of course, your email should take in consideration PhD application instructions at his institution. If you can be admitted without an advisor, it changes the context.

"Dear Dr. X,

It was a pleasure to meet you at conference Y and to discuss about Z.

Since we met, I have read about your research area and [Insert question or comment].

Would it be possible to meet/skype to discuss the possibility of pursuing a PhD in your lab?"


PhD Perfect fit topic + insecure funds vs. non-optimal topic + secure funds This is probably more of a request for an advice than a pinpoint question.
Nevertheless I'm interested in hearing the take of others on the topic.

Background:

I have graduated in Germany, 2 years ago, with an excellent master's grade (converting to GPA: 4.0)
in theoretical physics (c.f. Alleviating Dunning-Kruger effect without running into impostor syndrome)
My work has no practical applications but I liked the theory and math. It took a while to
get started looking for a PhD position, but I've been looking for one for ~ 1 1/2 yrs,
first for publicly listed ones, then actively suggesting research topics myself.
Unfortunately those who were interested in my suggestions had no funding available.
Since my former adviser had no real external relations he could not suggest anybody to
me to check for an open PhD position and I've been looking on my own.

Status:

Over the past months I have found one position in Austria where the topic fits to a T.
It will be very mathematical and concern fundamental research (light-space-matter) with no immediate practical
applications and possibly no immediate experimental verification (unless I can find
collaborators to perform some experiments).
Simultaneously I got an offer for a PhD at a large research association in Germany (Helmholtz society)
in a field I am not familiar, but am interested in. I got the offer after expanding my criteria
though. This position would require a very nice mix of theoretical physics,
mathematics and talking with experimentalists to compare theoretical predictions
to experimental results.

Problem:

The position in Austria fits perfectly to my interests, although I have (and always had) doubts as
to whether I can handle the math. BUT funding is definitely available only for 1/2 year. Afterwards
the continuation would be conditioned on a) the adviser being happy with my work and b) whether
further funding will be available.

The position with Helmholtz does not fit perfectly to my physics interests. The funding and
additional benefits are available for 3-4 years and I have no doubts that I can handle the topic.
Its major "Pro" (apart from job security) is the active collaboration
of different research fields, something I've been trying to foster during my M.Sc. (in vain I think).

I can not guarantee, that I will be able to supply the funds (self-fund a part of the PhD) should
the funding run out, so my ideal position becomes quite a risky option. Given the assurance
of availability of funds I would take that position without a second thought, but
I very much want to avoid having to stress myself out after 6 mo. looking for a new position - again.

Query:

Is it advisable to choose a PhD position where the topic fits, but the financial security
of the position is questionable?
Or would it be more prudent to select the more secure position even at the cost of it not
being a perfect fit?
How easy/hard is it to get a post-doc position in a topic which is not perfectly aligned (still physics though)
with the PhD one has done?

Complication:

I might be able to secure some funding through an ongoing collaboration
on a different topic (a pet project), but that will definitely not be 1 FTE (maybe 0.25-0.5 FTE).

If you are anything like the numerous phd students before you, myself included, your interests are very likely to change as you are exposed to different ideas from new colleagues.

The Helmholtz position sounds like a great place to do a PhD. Firstly, you get funding. That is important. Secondly, you get a large group of colleagues where you will be exposed to new ideas and ways of doing things. You might find that your knowledge of things like gradient descent and differential equations fits perfectly with machine learning. You might discover you have a love for programming when scripting simulations.
You might even be like a friend who decided to leave theoretical physics and pursue finance in New York.

And there is nothing to stop you from pursuing your interests during your phd career or even in a postdoc.

As for your post-doc position, it depends on the position. Sometimes a PI wants a post doc with a very specific set of skills and knowledge. Sometimes a PI wants a post doc with a lot of potential who is also hungry and hard working. Sometimes a PI wants a post doc with a proven research production stream.


Is it weird to visit a scientific conference as an undergraduate student? I'm an undergraduate (Bachelor's) student and I'm thinking about attending a conference which exactly matches the topic of a research project that I'm working on at the moment. I have never attended a real conference.

I wouldn't go to present anything, but just because I have a great personal interest in the topic and because I would like to know about the recent developments. Would it be weird if I attend this conference alone? It is a small conference but there is a special student's price, which makes me think that I might be welcome.

Would it be weird if I attend this conference alone?

Probably, as an undergraduate, you won't be able to connect too much with the more senior researchers, but there's nothing weird at all. So, if you can, go for it, and enjoy your first conference!


Copy/paste from the PhD thesis into my future publication I am writing my PhD thesis right now. I do not have any published paper by now, but a manuscript which will be published probably after or at the same time of my defense. Can I just Copy/ Paste some parts (discussion for example) from my manuscript in thesis? Would be any problem afterwards for publishing this manuscript? In other words, I am afraid if the reviewers of paper say that “you cannot Copy and Paste the discussion of your thesis, without rephrasing it”.

It is not uncommon to hear about thesis that are based on published papers or drafts of future papers. What I have seen for those thesis is that the author puts a footnote at the beginning of each chapter. The note indicates the journal/conference where the information pertaining to that chapter has been published/presented. You could use this as a guide when writing your thesis.

The most important thing is to make sure that you cite properly everything and that you demonstrate intellectual ownership of the information presented in your thesis.


Requesting the mentor regarding the PhD research topic selection One of my friends is doing PhD under a good faculty from one year.

The mentor wants to give PhD only if the student writes two papers in SCI journals. The student wants to do his PhD on number theory conjectures. The mentor is saying that the PhD and groundbreaking research work are independent and hence the mentor saying my friend to work on small incremental work that will give papers quickly.

How to make it allowed to work under the same mentor (mentor is good enough and one year completed)?

It is a mistake for most students (Ramanujan excepted) to go against his or her advisor. I'm sure that the advisors complete thoughts are more complex than you present here, but probably involve the risk of taking on a big project as a student and ending up with nothing - no results and no degree. Some problems are hard and take years-decades-centuries to resolve.

The advisor is giving good advice and following it will put him or her on the side of the student.

If "your friend" wants to take on the big project there is no problem, but will be working from a stronger position by finishing the doctorate first.

Take the advice. It is the faster path to success.


Listing publications for a non-tenure track teaching job? I do not have a stellar first authored publication record as I am finishing towards earning a PhD in environmental science. I do have several conference abstracts and a few coauthored publications, however. I came across a non-tenure track academic job that is purely focused on teaching elementary environment science courses with an additional academic management role. Assuming the search committee is primarily interested in my teaching experiences, is it worthwhile to list my publications/proceedings in my CV? What are the pros and cons? My fear is that the search committee might flag me as a candidate who is occupying the position temporarily (they are looking for someone permanent) based on publications/research interests. I am genuinely interested in the job to gain teaching experience no matter how much I love doing research. Thanks in advance!

A PhD is a research degree. To earn it you need to publish, even if just the thesis, that is considered a publication. If the job requires a doctorate then they are explicitly asking for trained researchers who want to switch to teaching. They consider it valuable to the job, presumably. And it probably is.

Either way though, your CV should include everything you've done. It does not have to be tailored to a job. You do that with your cover letter, and research/teaching statements if you want. At least you will show, that while you weren't getting specifically-applicable experience, you're a productive worker who will devote yourself to whatever you do.

Teaching positions at universities and colleges are also typically very competitive, and you will have a disadvantage versus those who already have teaching experience. You need to highlight everything that helps you. Including your research. For example note how you would like to leverage your research experience in your coursework in some way, such as help provide motivation or course projects. You need to give this kind of thing a lot of thought and show that you have done so. Consider the specific courses and the syllabus you would create (perhaps create some materials to show them). This will help even if they will provide you with materials to use.