Self-Publishing or Academic Publishing (on Springer) for Mathematics books? Book Publication Dilemma
I am looking to publish a book on mathematics this year. It is around 250 pages and the material in it is on differential forms, and very applicable to hobbyists. Choosing a publisher has been somewhat of a headache for me. I have done a fair amount of research on some of the larger publishers like Springer but am unsure if it is even worth publishing academically. In my research I have often seen that the self publication route, on Amazon, has been worthwhile under the stipulation that the publisher knows how to advertise the book; advertisement should not be an issue; the problem I have seen with Springer and the other academic publishers is that they tend to charge more per book than Amazon where you are allowed to edit the price of your work. I am not so worried about how much I make from it, but rather-so how many people read it; with a larger price point, I feel less people would read the book.
Here is a question similar to this one; it addresses the same topic but does not speak on specific publishers like Springer.
Thank you!

The problem with self publishing with Amazon or otherwise is that no one will be able to find your book unless there are some special circumstances. I've done this as well as published with large publishers, including Springer.
If you are incredibly well known in your field and have a valuable web presence and anyone who might want to find your book can find you, then it can work and you can get a lot of sales and retain more of the revenue. But otherwise the book will just get lost in the millions of others. Publishers actually, take some effort to advertise and promote the books they publish, but it is much harder for you to do so, since people know about Springer, but maybe not about Joe Doakes and what he does.
For text-book material, the big companies will travel to book exhibits at conferences that educators might attend and give their (your) materials some visibility. They might also help you attend and meet some of your potential audience. But for professional works there is less opportunity for that.
The down side of the big publishers is that they can be abusive in some ways and I found that their promotions of books was very time limited. Two years. If you had a popular book they will want a new edition in two years. If it isn't popular, then it will just disappear.
But one valuable service of the big publishers is that they can help you a lot with copyediting and such. It is very hard, I find to edit one's own work. When you read, what you "see" is what you thought you wrote, not what you actually wrote. You can pay people for this, but they need to be math "aware" for it to work out.
A minor issue, perhaps, depending on your material, is that the big outfits are likely to use better materials, such as acid-free paper, than what the in-house Amazon system does. The same is true for the quality of bindings.

I'm working a bit on a math book myself. But it is a labor of love, when I can find the energy. But I expect exactly zero sales. Mathematicians are a weird lot, I guess.


Should I apply for a master's or PhD if changing to a related field -- linguistics coming from B.A. in Spanish and Chinese? So I applied to a linguistics PhD program my senior year of undergraduate studies in Chinese and Spanish. I wasn't accepted, and the university provided the explanation that essentially I didn't have enough background/research experience in the field. I am reapplying to this graduate program now five years later, and I am wondering if I should apply directly to the PhD program again or to their master's program. My career goal is a professor, so I know I will need the PhD for that. I also know that funding preference is given to PhD admits, but I just don't know if I have a strong enough background for them to consider me.

There are prerequisites to the program that I still only fill one of unfortunately, but they do allow you to take them your first year if needed. What is new to my application is that I've taken three linguistics MOOCs (massive open online courses), audited a phonetics course in the speech language pathology department, and completed a TESOL certificate program. My work experience is as an ESL tutor. I do not have any research experience.

Thanks in advance for your time and help.

(Disclosure - I am part of the admissions staff at a linguistics department in a UK university)

Talk to the department you are applying to first. Although they won't be able to give a definitive 'no - you won't get the PhD offer if you apply', most departments (at least in the UK) will be happy to talk, informally, about whether you fulfil the prerequisites.

There are some general points to remember though. A student enrolled on a PhD will be required to submit a substantial body of scientifically original work at the end of the course, and your ability to deliver this is what the admission committee will be trying to gauge. In your case, it is worth remembering that linguistics is the scientific study of language* - and actually has a very little to do with language skills themselves. Unfortunately, knowing Chinese and Spanish, and being able to teach English as a second language, do not provide evidence of your understanding of the science of linguistics (although they clearly show your enthusiasm with languages, which will be a plus). You have gone about correcting this in the right way, by doing MOOC and phonetics courses, but this may not be enough. The committee have to be sure you will be able to write up a good scientific thesis - if you are accepted, and are subsequently unable to write a good scientific thesis, (in the UK at least) they may stand to loose funding.

You don't say where in the world you are applying, but if it is in the UK, most prospective PhD's students have decided beforehand - at least vaguely - the broad sub-field they plan to do their PhD in, so they can approach a PhD supervisor at the department they intend to join. (So, for linguistics, subfields include semantics, first language acquisition, phonetics, prosody etc). This is why masters courses are so useful as a first step before a PhD - they allow the student to be sure of the subfield they want to work in, to work out if that department has the supervisor they want, and to familiarise themselves with the field so they can locate potential supervisors in other universities.

You say you aspire to be a professor one day - if so, perhaps a masters course would help you find that subfield of linguistics you really enjoy, and to find a supervisor that will inspire you to do great science.

Good luck!

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics

EDIT: Added after further information by the original poster

  I had actually considered asking but was worried about making a poor
  first impression. I don't want to start out appearing doubtful of my
  abilities to do graduate study.

If you are asking for information about the course, or clarification about entry requirements, this will not be seen as you doubting your ability. It will be seen as you having the maturity to find and clarify the information you need to make the right decision about which course is right for you.

  I plan to apply to UC Davis - who exactly should I ask, do you think,
  about their general admission standards for MA vs PhD?

The ‘graduate administrator’. For UC Davis’ graduate linguistics programs, the name and email address of their administrator can be found at the bottom of this page: http://linguistics.ucdavis.edu/graduate-program/admission (her title is ‘graduate co-coordinator’). If you email her, then she will answer any questions you have herself or forward it on your behalf to whoever is best placed to answer them.

I agree that (to me at least) the prerequisites to this course seem a little ambiguous, saying that, if you haven’t taken some of their prerequisite undergraduate courses, you can take them during the first year – which makes it seem like they are not prerequisites at all. But this is a perfectly sensible clarification to ask by email, something along the lines of:

I am considering applying to your department for a graduate course and I am trying to decide whether your masters or PhD course is more suitable for my circumstances.
I see that the prerequisites for the PhD on your website are courses equivalent to four undergraduate classes.
I have taken the online [fill in MOOC course here] linguistics course, which covered [X] hours of teaching and [X] hours of course work. Would this set of courses fulfil the prerequisites for your PhD program?

As I say, this is a very reasonable question, and the email itself will not negatively affect your chances of getting in. There are two further pieces of advice I would give based on the information you have given:

Each course they list as a prerequisite is 3 or 4 hours each. Some include course-work or discussions. I'm afraid that, if your MOOC course was not of a similar high standard, you should be prepared for the answer to be ‘no’.
You mention that you completed a TESOL certificate. While this is a great thing to put in your application to show your enthusiasm for the subject area of second language development, I suspect the admissions committee may not feel it demonstrates your ability as a scientist in this subfield. But again, ask the department first to make sure - they may feel differently.


What is Springer's “version of record”? What is Springer's “version of record”? Is it the final originally published version of an article or book?

According to the answers that I received, yes it is.

According to this Springer document

  The "Version of Record" is defined as the final version of the Work as originally published, and as may be subsequently amended following publication in a contractually compliant manner, by or on behalf of the Publisher.


Is there such a thing called native speaker bias when publishing? This has been a subject that has occupied my thoughts for the past years but haven't really managed to formulate it completely for myself. I have this feeling (and I can't say it's more than a feeling at this point) that native speakers of English have an easier time with getting their article published.

I should make it clear, right away, that I don't mean just because you are a native speaker you can get whatever published, but given a particular project, if the main author is a native speaker the article is more likely to get accepted, or at least draw more positive reviews. I motivate the potential existence of such a bias on the fact that it's likely that a native speaker does a better job in writing than someone who has English as a foreign language.

Since I do not have any data to back this theory up, I would like to ask if you have come across any numbers/facts regarding any such bias in the publication/acceptance rates in general, as well as high-IF journals specifically.

EDIT: I should perhaps rephrase and add a bit more details to the question here. I do not refer to small grammatical mistakes, misspellings or anything of that nature. What I am referring to here, is the wider vocabulary a native-speaker has in his/her disposal, the phrases and expressions that they use that might not be readily and easily available to non-native speaker. I could perhaps summarise it the differences as the metaphorical chocolate chips that a native speaker can and most likely will bake into the cookie that is the manuscript.

I am clear on the point that the clearness criteria is still the most important and that's why I did not talk about the rejections (it's natural that non-native speakers get their papers rejected based on language more often compared to native speakers). As a non-native speaker myself, it is beyond any doubt that I need to write my manuscripts with a clearly understandable language in order for them to get published, but again that's not really what I am asking here. I am more interested in whether or not articles written by native speakers come across as "better quality" based on the fact that they are more likely to utilise their edge with the language.

There are of course other factors at play, but it would be interesting to see if there are any stats involved.

Let me share with you my personal experience and feeling about this issue. I am not a native English speaker and I am aware that my word choices and the patterns of my sentences makes it clear to my audiences and especially my readers. However, I have received several positive compliments in the referee reports of my papers about my writings. Therefore I strongly believe that people who are in charge of deciding about accepting a paper mostly consider the logical and grammatical correctness of the writing of the paper ( and of course its scientific value). So I would be very surprised if I see such a phenomenon as you described.


Is it common to ask for reference letters from members of the MSc thesis committee when applying for PhD/Scholarships? In case it varies between countries, by thesis committee I mean 2-4 professors who examine you on your MSc research after you submit your thesis, so except for your advisor, they are usually not familiar with your work prior to submission. Some of them might belong to other universities/departments and not be familiar with the student at all.

I am wondering whether such letters would be valuable. On the one hand, I feel they should be the next best thing after letters from people you've done research with, but on the other hand such letters can only refer to the quality of the outcome of your research and not your character.

What about letters from professors who have read your papers/thesis but haven't met you in person and thus haven't held a conversation regarding your research with you?

In the UK at least, when applying for research jobs soon after completing a PhD it's quite common for one of the referees to include the external examiner of your thesis (a member of the committee that is external to the institution which awards the PhD). The idea there being that as they're experts in an area in which you've worked and they've assessed a sizeable product of your research (i.e. the thesis), as well as having engaged with you during its defence, they should be in a position to speak authoritatively about your abilities as a researcher.

The professor who has only read your work is in a significantly different position. While they may have the expertise in the subject area, and the familiarity with your work, of the examiner, they've not assessed you in a formal role, nor really engaged with you as an individual.

Of course, your question is about an MSc thesis committee, rather than a PhD one. Without more specifics, you will have to judge whether the involvement of committee members is similar to the involvement of a PhD thesis committee member.


Polite rejection from adviser I am a latinamerican student and I am not sure about the responses from potential PhD adviser email responses, I had a very nice interview with one of them who told me that he enjoyed our conversation ( our interview) two days later he wrote me an email in which he said that " I enjoyed our conversation a lot" and that he decided on aother candidate. He also said " be assure that you did an excellent job I just simply had to make a decision"

Is this genuine ? or a polite way to reject me?  I would prefer the truth from a PhD adviser in order to improve other interviews!

In my Country too much politness is not used

Thanks in advance

"I enjoyed our conversation a lot" is a standard phrase and doesn't mean very much. The added "...excellent job..." probably means just that, unfortunately sometimes you get more than one good candidate and he's acknowledging that fact.


How professional it is to ask for rebate in conference registration fees? I got two papers accepted in a decent IEEE conference. My current organisation (an industrial R&D lab) says that the conference fees are way too high and they would consider approval of funds only if we get a rebate for publication.

I have two questions:

Is it normal across the globe to ask for rebate?
Even if I do so, would it be considered professional? (The conference already has a discounted price for the second paper since authors are common in both.)

It is unusual and it is likely that the organizers would see it as unprofessional, especially if such request is coming from the industry.

How valuable are these publication for your employer? You could try to speak with someone at a higher level and persuade them to pay the conference fees. Alternatively they can advise submitting the papers to another conference with fees they are willing to pay. Or if publishing benefits you more that the employer, you can perhaps cover the difference yourself.


What are the main difficulties for someone who is mute to be successful in academia? There are several posted questions regarding people who have had struggles, but ultimately were able to succeed, in academia while being blind.

My question is regarding being mute (by choice or otherwise): what are the difficulties in being successful? Are there notable examples of such people? I'm not mute myself, but I thought it was an interesting question for the following reasons.

I would think working in academia means coming up with new and interesting ideas through research, while also conveying these ideas and results in an effective manner to an audience, both through papers and giving talks. So success should be possible in some aspects of academia (such as papers), but not in others (such as giving talks).

I'll open with the obvious answer:

Usually one of the main ways of getting people to know about your work is to give talks about it, in one for or another. It might be possible to mitigate the effect of not giving any talks yourself (eg. by having co-authors doing so, or having a very visible blog), but it would certainly mean taking an unusual approach, at least in my field.


Are NSF RUI proposals evaluated separately or are they evaluated against the general pool for that program/division/directorate? I am preparing to write and submit a grant proposal to the US National Science Foundation (NSF) through the Research at Undergraduate Institutions (RUI) program. This will be my first submission to this program.

From my understanding, proposals submitted through RUI are sent to the appropriate program in the appropriate division and directorate. Since my project involves synthetic chemistry in alternative reaction media, my proposal would probably go to the Chemical Synthesis (SYN) program in the Division of Chemistry under the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences.

My colleagues, both in chemistry and in other disciplines, have shared conflicting reports about how RUI proposals are evaluated. Will my proposal be evaluated against the entire pool of proposals in the SYN program from all institutions? Or, are RUI proposals evaluated separately?

I am hoping that RUI proposals are evaluated separately, since I do not have access to the same research infrastructure that someone at a research institution does.

At least in mathematics (and presumably in other fields, although I have no direct experience with that), they are evaluated in the same pool as all the other proposals.  In practice, there seem to be two key differences in how they are treated:

Panel members can be a little more forgiving for certain aspects of RUI proposals.  For example, if the PI publishes excellent papers but not very many of them, then this low publication rate would probably be considered a bigger drawback in a non-RUI proposal.
The NSF may give some degree of preference to a few RUI proposals, as described below.

The review panel classifies proposals into three categories: roughly 10% that are highly recommended for funding, 30-40% that are recommended for funding, and 50-60% that are not.  The available funding is never sufficient to cover all the proposals recommended for funding, so further decisions need to be made after the panel.

The ones not recommended for funding are automatically eliminated, and the ones highly recommended for funding are more or less guaranteed to be funded.  The ones in the middle are ranked in order by the panel, but the NSF is not required to follow this ranking.  They largely follow it, but they adjust it based on their own criteria (for example, balance of fields, geographical diversity, etc.).  My understanding is that if no RUI proposal in a given panel would otherwise be funded, then the highest-ranked RUI proposal may be bumped up in the rankings.  However, this is not guaranteed, and it depends on having a high enough ranking from the panel.  The program officers may also compare how panels in different areas ranked their RUI proposals, to see which ones seem most worthy of funding.  However, there is no RUI-only panel.


When to publish a book? I am presently doing MSc (Information Technology) in India. I really like teaching and have a passion for it. Based on my Masters degree I will get a designation of Assistant professor (hope so I get it!), but to be a Professor we need a PhD degree, so I was thinking of doing a Phd (Computer Science) not right after the Masters but after some years of teaching experience. At present I don't have much knowledge about PhD (nearly zero).

I know we need to publish the thesis in PhD,but my question is do we have to publish books (about courses like Java, Operating System etc, since I am talking about IT/CS i gave these subjects) in PhD? This is because right now in my Masters I was thinking of publishing a book for a local course of Bachelors (BSc IT) in my region.

So if we need to publish certain number books in PhD, then I should wait for writing and publishing that local book till I join a PhD or should I start writing and publish it right in my Masters and this published book will be considered in my PhD?

No.  Absolutely not.

Do not even start writing a book until you have tenure, unless publishing a book is a requirement for tenure (which would be very strange for computer science).  Writing books well is extremely hard; it requires significant time away from your research (which you need to finish your PhD, get a job, and get tenure), teaching, paper-writing, professional networking, job-hunting, proposal writing, and advising.  And writing books badly can only hurt you.


Is there a general way to find or get notified of relevant conferences and meetings in your field? Here's the problem: I don't know what are the relevant conferences and meetings for me to potentially attend/present in. Every conference I've been so far has been passed down to me by a much older professor who knows it by experience.

I feel like this is an important topic, and yet all the tools I tried to use to find conferences (such as allconferences and conferecealerts) fail to find me relevant things.

Is there a method to reliably find relevant for you conferences worldwide?
Ideally it would be good to get notified when a new relevant conference is announced.

I know there are some websites (such as arxiv-sanity and google Scholar) that suggest papers for you to read based on previously loaded papers, so I wouldn't be surprised if there was some similar tool where you put some conferences with a few keywords and it spits out suggestions.

Cheers

Many professional societies publish lists of upcoming conferences in their magazines and/or journals, and send monthly emails with information that usually includes calls for papers for future conferences. I assume one would be interested only in conferences in one's field. I would expect that one would know about the professional societies in one's field and how to receive notifications, although in many if not most cases such notifications go only to the society members.

Moreover, other conferences in one's field can be identified in Google Scholar by where the relevant papers have been published. Then the most recent (at least) web site for such conferences can be found with Google. The date and venue for the next conference in that series is sometimes posted on that web site.


Research Information System My employer is considering implementing Atira PURE to help manage grant applications and grant funding at the university level.
Seems like it might have some benefits... but could also add a costly and unnecessary layer of overhead.

Any experience with this or the equivalent?

We use pure at our university to register publications. Maybe we also use it for other purposes, but I have only been affected by the publication part.

The registration of publications is a necessity, because the university uses this information to distribute money to different research groups (e.g. each year there is a bonus based on the number of published peer-reviewed articles in a recognised journal.

I've occasionally been assigned the task for my group to make sure all our articles were "registered in pure", and I can say that it works reasonably well. The interface is not superb, and I wouldn't like to work with it all day, but it gets the job done. I don't know anything about the alternatives.

It does also generate a fancy and completely useless person graph.


How do I tell my adviser that group meetings may be too time-consuming in my last year of my PhD? I am finishing up my PhD this year and my adviser has recently recruited two new PhDs to our research group. I am the adviser's first student. Up until this year, we have had consistent individual research meetings weekly. Now, the adviser wants to incorporate weekly group meetings in addition to individual meetings. I think this can benefit some PhDs. However, I don't feel that these weekly group meetings will be particularly valuable to me. This is because I have a clear research agenda that is my top priority right now. I am wrapping up two manuscripts to incorporate into my dissertation, while also applying to jobs and post-docs, to finish my PhD in less than a year.

I am not discounting the importance of reading new research articles or the importance of collaboration between group members. However, I think the mismatch in PhD progression -- me, a finishing PhD with several first-author manuscripts with multiple collaborators, and the 2 new students, starting to test out and find research ideas -- will take away from my priority, finishing the PhD and wrapping up my thesis while also being a potentially stressful, time sink. This is tied into the fact that my adviser often has poor time management skills, allowing meetings to run for over 3 hours.

How do I tell my adviser, in a respectful manner, that I cannot attend all of the group meetings? Or, that I think prioritizing my final two manuscripts and dissertation are a more valuable use of my time?

Thank you for the advice! Let me know if I can clarify anything.

You don't tell him that at all.  You go and contribute as best you can.

Even if the meetings are of no value to you, your presence may be very helpful to your adviser and the newer students. That alone should be sufficient reason to attend. It's not always about what you personally can get out of something. Sometimes it's about what you can contribute.  It's also sometimes about just doing things for people who've done things for you.

If you feel the meetings could be better run, consider what you might do to become a more helpful participant, facilitating discussions and consensus outcomes that don't take 3 hours to get nowhere.  Ask questions that invite others into the discussion, offer your own ideas, propose plans or assignments.  If you were there 3 hours and nothing happened, consider the possibility that may also have been 3 hours when you didn't do much either.


At what stage should acknowledgements be inserted into the paper if review is not double-blind? When the review process is double-blind, I guess (although I have not read this anywhere) that acknowledgements should not be written in the submitted paper, as this might break anonimity. They should only be inserted into the camera-ready version, after the paper is accepted.

What is the custom when the review process is not double-blind? Should I write the acknowledgements in the submitted version, or wait to the camera-ready version?

If it's not double-blind, then it generally doesn't matter whether the acknowledgements are in the initial version or not: the reviewers will simply ignore them.

When there are page limits involved, however, I like to put the acknowledgements in as early as possible.  That way, their size is built in from the beginning and we don't have to figure out how to fit the extra space during the revision.


Academic job search: writing sample In many, if not most, advertisements for academic positions, specifically for postdoctoral and junior faculty positions, I see a requirement of including a writing sample as part of application documents package. My problem is that, at the present time, I don't have a separate research paper (neither working, nor accepted or published). I certainly plan to convert my dissertation into several papers and/or, perhaps, a book chapter, but it will take quite some time to do that. Being in this situation, I'm thinking about extracting a chapter from my dissertation (most likely, introduction or review of literature) and including it in application documents package as a required writing sample.

Questions: 1) is it appropriate; 2) are there any reasons to prefer literature review to introduction or vice versa; 3) is there a benefit of doing so, even when a writing sample is not required?

Note: My field is Information Systems, a discipline, which can be considered as a sub-domain of Management Science, which, in turn, is a social sciences discipline (my focus is socio-technical).

1) is it appropriate;

I'd consider this the second best. Postdoctoral and faculty are mostly valued by how well and efficiently they can write and publish academic papers so having some published work to show is the best, and if there isn't any, then having an excerpt from the dissertation would also help.

However, do not just "extract" without making any change. Introduction in thesis may not be the nicest thing to keep readers' attention. Instead, use this chance to draft a paper, and write it out like a synopsis or executive summary. This way, you can showcase what you did in your previous study and also give the committee a writing example.

  2) are there any reasons to prefer literature review to introduction
  or vice versa;

The ultimate goals are to show your mastery of English and expressions of concepts and arguments. I personally do not think an introduction without any review is convincing enough, nor a literature review without any big picture is descriptive enough. Thinking as a committee member, I want to see a self-contained story rather than parts that are abruptly chopped off from bigger chunk of works.

  3) is there a benefit of doing so, even when a writing sample is not
  required?

There are two approaches, both I'd consider acceptable.

Acknowledge that you currently are working on publishing your works (so no publication yet,) then proceed to present a writing example for their reference.
Include it in the appendix, or in the letter explain that writing examples are available upon request.

The way I evaluate it is: does the whole application look tailored to what the committee asks for? You need to show that you have put together a package according to their ad, and not merely changing the school, department, and the chair's name in a mass production.

  I certainly plan to convert my dissertation into several papers
  and/or, perhaps, a book chapter, but it will take quite some time to
  do that.

Do it now. Really. Everything about writing will "take some time" and it's the famous last word for many researchers. Make the time and get them done. Once you're in the new position all those thoughts and details will be forgotten very quickly; the interest to publish them will fade and guilt will grow. Use this application time as a motivation. Postdocs or new faculty members with publication history does distinct themselves from the rest of the pool; please use this chance to make a start.


What to do when phd advisor wants me to work on side projects but i'm starting a post-doc? I'm currently finishing up writing my PhD while starting a post-doc at another university in another country. The post doc is a great opportunity at a top tier university. Between finishing my dissertation, trying to get started in this new lab, and moving to an apartment in another country that requires I start from scratch, my time is super limited and everything is hectic.

I made sure my post-doc advisor was aware that I'm finishing my dissertation , and would be doing so for the beginning of the post-doc, from the get-go as I informed him during interviews for the position and when I accepted the job. He has been fine with this and held the position for me for as long as he could because as he said I'm a perfect fit for the position and he really wanted me to be his post-doc, so I'm super grateful for that. Plus, there is enough crossover in the project that my PhD advisor made him a collaborator on the chapter that I'm finishing up while starting the post-doc position.

My PhD advisor recently reached out to me about a side project I had been working on for him previously and had written up with me as the first author. This paper was rejected from the previous journal we submitted to and we received this notice around the time I was getting ready to move. Because of this, he offered to re-work the manuscript results/discussion sections after I re-did the analysis and sent him the new results, which I did. Now, he is saying that he doesn't have time anymore and that I need to set aside my work to make this a priority.

The other relevant background information is that my PhD advisor is in trouble with the university because he is so absent when it comes to his students. He had another PhD student who started at the same time as me defend her dissertation before she was ready, and the defense was so bad that department members outside the committee were asking how she was allowed to defend and it got to the department head. Now he is in trouble of losing teaching assistantships for future students. I have been independent for my PhD and have worked on many side projects for him. Just 6 months ago, again while I was trying to finish up my thesis because of the post-doc position, a similar thing occurred where I was asked to set aside everything to devote my time to a project I was a co-author on and it ended up being 2 months of re-doing the entire analysis, results, and discussion and with me being a co-first author on the paper, which was published after my rewrite. I have also worked on numerous other projects for him over the years. I have been very independent in my PhD, not relying on him for much as I came up with the question, methods, and interpretation of my PhD project - my independence (a byproduct of his absence) yet success with this project is a part of the reason why I got an amazing post-doc position.

I think realistically this re-write would be ~1-2 weeks and I know that I was first author on the manuscript and the major person behind the project, but I just don't have the time. I proposed to have a student from our collaborating lab that also did a lot of the work on it just finish the re-working of the results/discussion and to make him co-first author, but my PhD advisor wouldn't entertain the idea. I think he needs more papers coming from his students alone.

What do I do? Should I bring this up with my new post-doc advisor? If I do this I either won't have time to work on any new stuff with him or I won't be able to work on my dissertation and will fall behind there. Should I say no to my PhD advisor, and if so, how?

I am currently in a similar position to the one you describe, except that in my case I agreed to take on a brand new side project with my previous supervisor. I spoke to my postdoc supervisor about the project as soon as I started and received his go-ahead to spend some of my time working on it. In my experience, it seemed like my postdoc supervisor thought this was totally normal and expected after a PhD.

In your position, I would agree to the rewrite (after verifying with the postdoc supervisor that this is not an issue) because it seems like it will not be too significant a time sink - you already know the work and have a reasonable estimate of how long it will take. It is always nice to publish your work. Note that you do not need to spend the first two weeks of your postdoc on it - you can allocate some time each day to it and then you will still have time to do new stuff.

I have one caveat based on my own experience which is that even if you have permission to spend some time finishing up old work, it is quite difficult to commit to doing this because it feels like you are not putting 100% into the new project. It can also be tiring to have a task that needs extra work after hours when you are trying to get established in a new place. Thus, I would limit the number of "side projects" you agree to bring along from your PhD and try to make a realistic plan for how you will finish them quickly.


Whose responsibility to detect plagiarism during peer review: editor or referee? Around a month ago, I was requested to review a paper submitted to a well-known APS journal. The main idea introduced in the paper was nice and the experimental implementation had fairly good results. I therefore sent my approval with some minor revisions.

Last week, I was shocked to find (through a poster presented at an international conference) that the idea in the work I refereed had been blatantly plagiarized from another work published earlier this year. In fact, a few sentences had even been simply copy-pasted.

In the course of reviewing, I had checked all the references in the paper and not surprisingly, the original work had not been cited.

I immediately sent a correspondence via the APS referee interface to revert my earlier decision and reject the paper outrightly. The editor later sent me a detailed reply saying that the paper has been rejected by the journal and the authors have been made aware of the original work.

But anyhow, the question I wish to raise here is: whose responsibility should it be to find out if a work submitted for publication is an act of plagiarism ?

While I feel both referees and editors must work on this aspect, I think the primary onus should be on the editors/publishing team. They have far more resources to investigate plagiarism. Furthermore, in contrast to editors, referees do not get paid and are doing this job mainly because of their belief in the edifice of peer-review, to add to their CV, etc.

Perhaps the experts and experienced researchers can give their opinion here?

Well, we now have two opposing views, so I'll add a third: Neither.

I don't think that either the editor or the reviewer has a responsibility to try to detect plagiarism.  When I read a journal, I don't assume that anyone has taken explicit steps to check for plagiarism.  I don't see it as incumbent on either of them to take steps like matching against a database of previous papers (indeed I think such things cause more trouble than they are worth; see arXiv's "textual overlap" detector).

If a plagiarized paper should make it into print, I blame the author, but I don't blame the editor or referee for not catching it.  They are victims of the plagiarist, along with the rest of the community.

The referee is typically asked to judge the novelty of the paper, so they should be reasonably familiar with the existing literature (if not, they should decline to review the paper).  If the paper seems very reminiscent of a paper they've seen before, then they should certainly compare them, but not so much to check for plagiarism as to better understand the innovations of the new paper.

That said, the referee certainly has a responsibility to report plagiarism if they do notice it, and the editor has a responsibility to thoroughly investigate any reports or allegations of plagiarism, and take prompt and decisive action if warranted.


Is it my responsibility as an undergrad student to figure out if my thesis is affordable? I have an undergrad thesis idea that involves transformers. I am trying to take the lead on the idea before I contact a professor about it - i.e. figuring out exactly how I'd make it happen, and if it is realistic. The problem is that because of covid, the largest research funding I can get from my university as an UG is $500. I read a paper about a type of transformer, and I would like to apply that to an area it hasn't been applied before (my interest area). However, it seems like transformer based research is expensive.
I am worried about two things:

I don't want the professor to think I am idiot for suggesting an idea that might be big in scope / too expensive, but I truly do not know how to determine if it is too expensive / out of scope
I do want to publish first author. If this idea is too expensive, am I allowed to ask if he has any other projects for me (I can also provide him with my other interests).

Is it my responsibility as an undergrad student to figure out if my thesis is affordable?

Usually, no.  This is an example of where your faculty advisor should help you.
Do take a few minutes to research costs before discussing it with your advisor.
There might be exceptions if, based on your area of study, you were expected to know about costs already.


Can a highly experimental paper with potentially controversial concepts published on a preprint server (not in a journal) damage one's career? Imagine a paper which has unconventional ideas which could be controversial. Does publishing it on a preprint server have the same negative career implications as publishing in a journal? Or is a preprint server actually an appropriate place to get feedback on this type of paper?

Imagine a paper which has unconventional ideas which could be controversial. Does publishing it on a preprint server have the same negative career implications as publishing in a journal?

Yes, potentially. You are making your thoughts and beliefs about a certain subject known publicly. Depending on what those thoughts and beliefs are, this can damage one’s career even if done in a tweet, email, stack exchange post (hmm...) or any other medium of expression. A preprint server is no different.

Or is a preprint server actually an appropriate place to get feedback on this type of paper?

A preprint server is an appropriate place to get feedback on scientific work that’s maybe incomplete but is very close to being complete. Nonetheless, the potential for career damage if the work is of very low quality or reveals you to be a delusional or incompetent person still exists. If that is a concern, consider looking for feedback in more discreet ways.


“making it look good”- is it always important? Recently I created a project report for the project that me and my classmate are working on. The project report goes to the external examiner to whom later we have to give a demo on our project.

Me being inclined to designing (web designing, graphic design, etc) I decided to make the project report look really good. A nice clean report with good choice of paper. And care taken while choosing font etc.

It turned out to be much much better than anyone else's report. BUT! The first thing I heard from other classmates was. "Making project report look good is of NO USE. Your project (Application) should be good enough and it's all that matters"

Is it true? from a general perspective of people. Does "making it look good"  matter at all?

I couldn't find any other section more relevant enough to discuss this question. Please let me know if there is any.

A good-looking report will put me in the mindset that you took the assignment seriously, and aimed to turn in quality work. I think that counts for something, not nothing.

That said, if a report is just that – good looking, with little substance behind it – I will see through the façade very quickly, and all those superficial niceties might even count against you.

Assuming that's not the case, though, if two people turn in equally good work, yet one is formatted much more professionally than the other, that might earn an extra point or two – assuming I'm grading with some level of subjectivity, and not merely following a strict rubric. Shame on me, though, if I let mere appearance carry much more weight than that.

That all said, your classmates seem to be very shortsighted. Okay, maybe your extra effort will get you a 94 instead of a 93. Or maybe you'll just get a 93, with nothing more than a mental note that I thought your report looked really good. However, what you do in my classroom might – and perhaps should – extend far beyond my class. Presumably, you're in my class for an education, not merely for 3 or 4 credits. Get in the habit of turning in good work, and that might turn into something that translates into a valuable life skill.

One more thought: what's going to happen after you graduate, when all those folks from human resources ask you to include the names of three professors on your job applications?  One of them might well call me, and ask, “What do you remember about this guy?”

Perhaps I'll answer, “Oh, I remember him. He always turned in exceptional work.”

Those two sentences might prove to be worth far more than an extra point or two on an assignment.

Incidentally, I had one student bring her term project into a job interview. They hired her, largely based on what they saw in that class project. Just a couple weeks ago, another student asked if my name could be listed as a reference.

“I hope they call me,” I replied in my email. “I distinctly remember how your work always seemed to go above and beyond what everyone else was turning in.” Imagine how that will sound in the ear of a corporate recruiter who is sifting through a pile of job applications.

It's your call. It's also your future.


Will these "errors" in my advisor's letter raise red flags when I apply for academic faculty positions? I am currently on the job market. One of the positions uses the online application system where I am able to open the letters of recommendation and read them. I found out that there are "errors" in my advisor's letter.

First, she put the name of University A in the letter that goes out to University B.
Second, she wrote that I have successfully defended this month when her letter was dated June, which I worry is going to give the search committees the impression that I defended my dissertation in June when in fact I had defended in May.

I conveyed this to her; she offered to fix the name of the university. But what if the same error is repeated in her second letter, or worse, she adds more errors in her second letter?

So my questions are:

Will these errors raise any red flags in the eyes of the search committees?
Will these errors give me enough reason to not to use my advisor's letter?

I am contemplating not to list my advisor as one of my references. I have read the responses to a question similar to mine in this forum, so I understand that I am taking a risk and I will have to explain it if I choose not to list my advisor as one of my references.

If I were your advisor, I would fix these typos before sending out any more letters (i.e., to other schools).  If there is an online system where I can instantly and unobtrusively replace a letter with a fresh copy, then I would do it.  Otherwise I would let it go.

These are not serious enough for you to worry about.  The impression that this will make on the reader is that your advisor is a human being, perhaps a human being who is rather busy.  Ideally your advisor will be someone whose reputation is known to the readers, so cannot be spoiled by a few careless typos.

  One of the positions uses the online application system where I am able to open the letters of recommendation and read them.

This concerns me...but you didn't ask about it.

Added: I missed at first this part of your question:

  [W]ill these errors give me enough reason to not to use my advisor's letter? I am contemplating not to list my advisor as one of my references, and I have read the responses to a question similar to mine in this forum, so I understand I am taking a risk and I will have to explain it if I choose not to list my advisor as one of my references.

Heck no.  Not getting a letter from your advisor upon graduation is a very bad idea in almost all cases.


How does academia handle those with test anxieties? Suppose you truly know the material but cannot perform well in a testing setting because you have real diagnosed anxiety or testophobia. How is it accommodated?

I was considering this for someone who has to take the qualifying exams as well.

So how do professors and administrators handle testophobia/test anxiety?

There are several options, applied as they wish by the institutions.

These include (not an exhaustive list as based on experience from places I have been):

1) extra time ie 20% or more longer.

2) separate room - fewer people ie quieter.

3) a « coach » does not provide answers but helps student « think » and structure response.

4) a scribe, who writes the answer but does not provide the answer, just transcribes the words of the student.

5) providing "oral" based exams ie questions prepared to read to the student and responses written for the student.

The choice of strategy depends on an assessment of the student. This assessment is usually completed by a "Student Learning Officer" or equivalent, who can assess the student’s learning impairment & needs and decide accordingly.

Some of these require a huge effort for implementation ie option 5 means the professor gets to write a unique exam which takes a lot of time...


Applied clinical research clinical trials and regulatory affairs Is this journal a legitimate one with impact factor or is it a fraud?

This journal is not indexed in any reputable database, or at least i couldn't find it. It has no Impact factor according to the updated listed shared by thomson and reuter.

Before submitting my manuscript i will alyways check if the journal i am targeting is indexed in a reputable database like scopus, web of sciences and etc.

And you should also check the publishing house/company that journal belongs to, check other journals belong to that publishing house.


Traditional career paths post post-doc I am in the process of submitting my PhD thesis, and have been offered a 1yr post-doc role at my current institution. If it matters, I am in UK and work in applied mathematics at a well-known faculty.

My question relates to "traditional" career paths after the initial post-doc, or more specifically what are good reasons (or the only reason) for embarking on post-doc research? The reason I am asking this question is because I switched from industry (after 5 years experience) to research in order to carry out my PhD, which happens to be on a topic relevant to both industry and academia. So I have come to research and academia in a bit of a backwards way.

Like many other researchers, I found thesis work hard-going and throughout much of my PhD assumed I would simply slip back into industry after completion. But as my thesis began to reach the closing stages, and I reflect upon my work, I realised that there are numerous aspects of research that I genuinely enjoy, and value. But I do not know if this is a good enough reason to continue with post-doc research.

Thinking beyond my current offer, during my investigations for post-doc roles I have been struck by how transient, or temporary, many roles are (at least in my area). So my question is what are the traditional "end goal(s)" of a series of temporary post-doc positions? Am I correct in thinking that I should only be doing this if I fully intend on seeking a full-time salaried academic position? How long does this take, and what is the "success rate" of post-doc to full-time academic?

The thought of job-hunting every year, or few years, for the next X years seems quite...daunting. And I worry that if there is a high chance I will return to industry in X years time (for whatever reason) - then I probably need to factor that in to my decision making now.

The reason to do a postdoc is because you want to continue to do academic research.  This might be a short-term goal, or a long-term goal, or exploratory (you're not sure what you want to do long-term).  The latter two are the usual reasons.

Lots of people go into industry after doing postdocs (either because they decided they prefer that or couldn't find an academic job they wanted), so that's no issue.  Keep in mind that it's generally easier to go from academia to industry than industry back to academia.

How long it takes to transition from post-doc to a permanent faculty position depends on the field and type of job you want.  In math, 3-4 years (1-2 postdocs) is normal before getting a permanent research job and 0-3 is common for moving into primarily teaching jobs.

As for "success" rates from postdoc to permanent faculty, I think they're reasonably good, say over 50%.  I quoted some relevant data from the AMS in this answer, though I don't think the right data is there to give you a precise number.  If you take into account that a large fraction of these people want to leave academia, the success rate should look quite good.


How to cite a reformulation of an older theorem? I'm currently in a position where I need a result from a paper where the formulation is a little unwieldy, in that it depends on some notations and concepts that aren't useful to my work. I found a reformulation of this result in a book (not a new result, just restating the same theorem in different words) that uses different notations and is easier for me to relate to what I'm doing.

Is it appropriate in this situation to cite both the original and the reformulation like this:

"Theorem X, formulation from Y, based on Z"?

I recommend restating the theorem in your own paper.  You can then say: "We now restate a theorem of X [citation], since in this context, it is more convenient to write it in different terms/notation. The version we give here is based on the book of Y [citation].

Theorem: ....."


Correlation between GRE Scores and Profile I have recently taken GRE general and GRE subject tests and going to apply to US universities for Ph. D. in mathematics. My GRE general score is bad (verbal 138 + quant 163). My GRE subject mathematics score is 810 with 79 percentile.

My question is how do these scores affect my profile for getting admission? Is there any hope of getting a good university at all? Thanks to everyone.

It will really depend on the university. Some universities look closely at the GRE score, others, like the one I teach at, require the GRE but only use it for borderline admission cases. There's a growing trend among universities to ignore the GRE altogether, since it doesn't correlate well with success in postgrad.


At what stage of computer science PhD should you start looking for post-doc? I am exactly mid-way in my PhD in computer science. Is this the right time to start looking for a post doc?

Around your last year.

So much of this comes from networking though, so it is important to be meeting people at conferences long before you are about to graduate.

In the US, many postdoc positions are filled quite late (often after faculty offers have gone out, so mid to late Spring, maybe even early Summer) but you should start talking to potential postdoc advisors maybe a year before your graduation to put a bug in their ear.


Unclear answer from my prospective PhD Supervisor Is it positive to get the first reply from potential PhD Supervisor such as this:

“Thank you for your interest in our PhD programme. I take it that you have looked at our admission criteria. If not, I suggest you do so. Otherwise, it will be nice to discuss your research idea.

I am a bit confused as to how to correspond to this reply, whether he interested or not?

I would guess that you received the professor's standard (if poorly worded) reply to prospective Ph.D. students. Of course, it is also possible that the professor looked at your CV or resume and doubts you fulfill the admissions requirement, but I would not read that far into the reply.

Regardless, be sure  to cover the following points in your reply:

Reiterate your interest in the program.
Indicate how you fulfill each criterion for admission to the Ph.D. program (attaching a resume or CV if you did not do so in your initial email).
Identify potential research threads that you would be interested in working on with the potential adviser.

The goal is to convert this cryptic email exchange into a productive correspondence that makes a potential supervisor excited to work with you. Addressing the three points above would likely achieve that goal.


What license to use while putting papers on the Arxiv? I am new to this and not sure what to make of all the options available. I am interested in putting a machine-learning-related preprint, which will potentially be submitted to places like NIPS/ICLR/ICML in the future.

arXiv.org perpetual, non-exclusive license to distribute this article (Minimal rights required by arXiv.org)
Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY 4.0)
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Creative Commons Public Domain Declaration (CC0 1.0)

This is the right license that you can always safely pick (assuming you can submit to arXiv at all):

  arXiv.org perpetual, non-exclusive license to distribute this article (Minimal rights required by arXiv.org)


How do I get my paper sent to the right editor? Suppose I have found the perfect journal for my manuscript.  That journal has 50 editors.  Editor A is an expert in the subject of my manuscript.  What can I do to get my paper handled by Editor A, instead of one of the other editors?

This is going to depend on how the journal is set up, but two suggestions:

Suggest in the cover letter that Editor A handle your manuscript.
When asked to classify your manuscript choose keywords that closely match Editor A's expertise. (You probably are doing this already anyway.)

Note that it's not a guarantee that Editor A handles your manuscript even if he/she is perfect for the role - it's conceivable Editor A is too busy, is on holiday, etc.


Referring to the work of other academics in interview with potential supervisor? In an interview with a potential PhD supervisor, is it ok to refer to papers published by a different academic, or should I mainly talk about the potential supervisor's papers?

thanks

There's no ideal answer here—it really all depends on the ego of the potential supervisor. A good potential advisor not only teaches her students, but is willing to learn from them as well. If you know something that touches on the topic you're talking with a potential supervisor about, I see no reason not to mention it. You're demonstrating familiarity with research in the field, and that shows you're willing to put in the work to learn, which is an important part of becoming a good researcher. I'd prefer that a candidate tell me what she knows, rather than hide it for fear I'll be mad about the fact that she mentioned someone else's work.


Database of final BA/MA papers? Is there any open database(s) that offer access to Bachelor or Masters level final papers? Especially interested in top universities and computer science related papers.
The thing is that other day I browsed through BA level papers defended in my university and many of them seemed to be a little too trivial. I'd like to see what is quality of papers produced by those who attend top universities.

Increasingly, individual universities are requiring students to submit digital versions of theses (particularly at masters level and above). However, as far as I know this is generally organised by each university individually, often under the auspices of the university library. I am not aware of any large centralised databases, though these might exist for particular subjects. A Google search for "student thesis database" or "student thesis < institution>" seems your best bet.

Do bear in mind that different institutions may have different requirements, particularly in the amount of time students are expected to spend on their thesis project: quality may not be directly comparable!


Tuning the PhD journey for Industry jobs I have just started my PhD and although I love research and everything that accompanies it but I am put off by Academia a bit and would prefer an Industry job at the end of my PhD.

What can I do differently during my PhD years with this ambition in mind?

I have read "PhD Grind" by Philip Guo wherein he states that at the end, he disliked Academia and thus his motives at conferences and other events changed from "crazy networking". Further, he spent more summers working in companies (Google and Microsoft Research, in his case) than with other research groups.

Specifically, should I handle the following any differently:

Relation with Advisor
How I spend my summers
Conferences
Publications

If your goal after grad school is to get a job, then during grad school

you should do the things needed to impress the people you want to hire you and to be accepted and esteemed in their community.
Slightly more concretely, find people who now have the career that you would like to have, and during grad school do stuff that they have done.

I still think networking is key, but now you may be networking with a different group of people.


If I saw a research result similar to mine from my PC/editing duties, should and how should I contact the authors? It happened many times that I saw a paper submitted to a conference where I am on the PC, or a journal where I am editing, and such paper had something similar to what I am working on. The situation is worse when I already have something better.

Of course I should declare a conflict of interest and should let others handle the paper. But I always wonder whether I should contact the authors.

If I don't contact the authors, they might doubt the independence of my paper from theirs when I publish my paper (since my name is shown in the conference/journal they submitted their paper to). This will be worse if their paper was not published at that point (perhaps it got rejected several times).
If I do contact the them, they may feel that I push them to do something they don't want to, such as making their paper public or collaborating with me.

There are more pros and cons, but I will stop here to keep the question short.

If you have already read the paper, do not contact the authors. Here's why:

You would have to admit to them you read the paper. Since that is a conflict of interest (and you should have recused yourself), you would essentially be outing yourself and the journal for less than ethical reviewing.
You would be providing an incomplete opinion on their results. Your paper hasn't been published yet, so you don't know for a fact that your results/contribution are considered more valuable than theirs. Telling them of your research may sway them to continue or abandon their work unfairly.

Going forward, make sure to recuse yourself from editing before you read the paper. When the editor/assigner emails you about the assignment, make sure to read the abstract thoroughly. If one is not provided, email back and ask for one. If the abstract suggests a line of research that appears close to yours, recuse yourself at that point -- before reading the full submission. If you have any doubts about how close it is, I would recuse myself anyway. Most editors appreciate this.


H-1B Visa Sponsorship by Universities The statements of

"Applicants who are invited to campus for interviews must be able to show proof that they will be eligible and qualified to work in the United States by the time of hire."

is almost associated with every open academic positions in US and I am wondering what does this statement clearly mean?
As far as I know, academic positions in US are opened to the scientifically eligible candidates worldwide, but receiving US work permit requires a sponsor (employer) inside US who should initiate visa application.
My 1st question: Does this sentence show unwillingness of the employer (university in this case) to support applicants' visa application? Does this position only open to those residing in US? or work permit holders?
From the immigration website, I learnt that there are some costs for the employer who is offering job to an outsider. But, universities are exempted from paying the biggest chunk ($1500).
My 2nd question: Considering low visa petition cost, what else is the problem that US-based universities are hesitant to hire such candidates.
My 3rd question: Is faculty selection in US-based universities based on candidate's merit or there are other parameters when selecting them.
Edit: I think the email received from UW can be of help to get better idea of the situation.

Dear XYZ,
When completing your application for employment at the University of Washington you were asked to complete the US Work Authorization Assessment. The second question asked was:
To legally work in the United States, will you require University of Washington sponsorship for an H1-B, other UW sponsored visa, or UW sponsored green card now or in the future?
You responded yes, that you would need sponsorship, either now or in the future. As a result you are not eligible for employment in staff positions at the University.

I emailed to HR of UW for clarification with this note:

Does UW consider only those foreigners for staff position who are currently having work permit in US? Those who are willing to obtain work permit based on the UW job offer are ineligible to work in UW?

UW Reply (Though I think the reply is by a robot):

Unfortunately, the UW does not provide sponsorship for Green Cards( or HB-1 visas, or any other type of work authorization requiring sponsorship.) for staff positions.

EDIT 2: Though my question is about academic staff position, about university of washington, I applied for research scientist. Here is the link to the job opening.

My suspicion is that this phrase is primarily to cover the university legally in case the person hired in fact does not have the eligibility to work in the US. In such a case, without this clause, the person could make the argument that the university is in breach of contract for not hiring them and doing whatever is necessary in order to make them eligible. But IANAL !

In general I'd imagine only very small universities or places with limited resources would have trouble sponsoring a candidate for an H1-B. Certainly not a university like UW. Most universities are quite willing and able to sponsor new applicants for H1Bs and green cards.

The correct interpretation here is I think as is mentioned in the comments: the candidate should be eligible to work in that they can get an H1B visa.


Who should write references for me in a mid-career job search? I am a tenured professor planning about seven years past the Ph.D. Over the past few years, I've applied to a handful of jobs (I haven't been looking aggressively -- just applied to the good opportunities that came up, along with 500 other people).

My references usually come from:
1) My Ph.D. advisor (who has moved to a new institution since I finished my Ph.D.).
2) another professor who taught me in graduate school.
3) a mid-career professor from another institution who has read some of my publications.  He's not a super-star academic that anyone from any field inmy discipline will know, but he is established and well known within my particular field.
4) (for jobs requiring four reference letters) another professor from my graduate institution.

This is basically the same set of letters I have used since I was on the market as an ABD student seven years ago.  They worked back then for finding a tenure-track job, but I'm wondering now if I should shake things up -- perhaps get away from having any letters from people at my graduate institution other than my Ph.D. advisor, for example.  I worry that the letters from professors who only knew me in graduate school will seem stale (and frankly, I haven't had much contact with these people since I graduated, so they probably can't comment in detail on what I have been up to since I was a student).

If I don't continue to rely largely on letters from professor at my graduate institution, whose letters should I replace them with?  People who I think were anonymous reviewers for my books and articles?  People who I think wrote letters for my tenure review?  People in my current department whom I trust (this is tricky, of course, since I don't want to advertise too loudly within the department that I am applying for new jobs)?

I'm in the humanities, for what that's worth.

At 7 years post PhD, your letters are getting stale, in that your PhD advisor, probably is no longer the person most familiar with your work. The person who taught you in grad school is definitely not going to be the most familiar with your work. It sounds like you did not provide a list of names when you went up for T&P. If you did, you should reconsider those names.

Some possible ideas of letter writers:

Find someone who is teaching from your book(s)
The person you most like having a beverage with when at a conference
The person who has, or that you would ask, to write a blurb for your book jacket
Someone who has invited you to give a research seminar or be on their conference panel
A trusted colleague in your department or at your university


Can I, when writing a book, make use of a physical model made up by someone else? Currently, I'm writing a book about everything from A to Z [physics, the science of the brain, AI, many more scientific topics, the "philosophy" (the workings) of the sciences, economy, the destruction of Nature and can she still be saved for future generations, the place of the sciences in society, etc.].
I'm a big fan of a certain physical model: The Rishon model, invented by Haïm Harari. Can I use his theory without further consequences? Or is it good propaganda for his theory?

Anyone can use anyone else’s published theory as long as they cite their sources and don’t try to falsely claim ownership of the ideas of others. So yes, if you present it honestly as Harari’s theory then of course you can use it in your book.


Back door route to top research schools? Is there a way to gain admission to these institutions by getting paid experience prior to applying?

I have a friend who graduated from a top 150ish school in the US and did moderately well (biochemistry, 3.8 GPA). He had some research experience on hand during his undergraduate career, but didn't have publications. He had about 2 year's worth of research, and maybe ~5 poster presentations at conferences. He did a summer internship at a medical research institution where he now works as a research assistant (after he graduated). After catching up with him and talking, he admitted to me he could not get PhD admissions to top tier universities with rudimentary statistics straight out of underad. He spent about 2 years working at said medical research institution, got I believe 4 papers under his belt, took his GRE, did moderately well but not amazing, and applied.

Now he's been receiving admission into institutions such as MIT, Stanford, etc. Institutions by his own admission that he could not get into with a snowball's chance in hell before he started working/publishing. I was curious, what was the catalyst? Did paid experience prove he was worthy of the skills and not cheap undergraduate level (aka solidify he was "the real deal")? Was it the papers? Was it him now riding the prestige of his employer and not his undergrad? Was it him being 24/25 and a little more mature/realistic in interviews as opposed to the bulk of his 21 year old competition? Was it showing graduate schools that his 2 years of succeeding at his institution meant he's more likely to succeed into graduate school life? This whole idea got me curious if it's possible to massively increase one's chances at admissions to higher tier or even above average graduate schools in the sciences if one is patient and willing to wait enough to gain experience once they're done with their undergraduate career. Academics of SE, could I have your input?

I wouldn't call this a backdoor route.

It takes time to get quality publications and letters of recommendation yet undergrad goes by fast. Your friend also wasn't from a top university which makes these opportunities even harder to come upon.

There are a lot of details missing here (what were his letters of rec like, quality of publications, etc.) but it sounded like your friend did some good work and got accepted because of it. Whether you do this work during undergrad or after you graduate, doesn't necessarily matter.


How to politely reject co-authorship offer from a colleague? I work in computer science. I wrote few simulation programs, designed the experiment for a chemistry work with my colleague. I have no idea about the principal aim of the research; I was only involved with simulations and computer experiments. Also, I know that this publication (paper) will not advance my career option.

Recently, I have been offered to become a co-author of the article about the analysis of the results of my experiments. I understand that quantum of my contribution is reasonable; I am wishing not to co-author the work.

How to say politely reject this co-authorship request?

Note: There was no discussion related to co-authorship before I started writing the computer experiments.

Related, but very different questions:

Is it common to claim co-authorship by helping writing a paper without doing any research
Should a colleague receive authorship for identifying a research gap and reviewing a manuscript?

I don’t think the question of how to “politely” decline the coauthorship is really worth fussing about. If you want to decline the coauthorship, that’s absolutely okay, just say so in plain words and explain that you don’t think your contribution was great enough to be a coauthor. I can’t imagine anyone ever being offended by this, as long as you don’t imply that you think the paper is worthless.

With that being said, I do think you are perhaps a bit misguided in where you are perceiving the bar for coauthorship to be compared to where it actually is. Everyone knows that being a coauthor can mean a variety of things, which can range anywhere between “I wrote the whole damn thing myself and my coauthors just answered a couple of questions I sent them over email” and “I just answered a couple of emails”. So, if someone asks about the paper in your viva, just tell the truth and say that your involvement was minimal - that is nothing to be ashamed of, but also doesn’t mean that it’s unreasonable for you to be a coauthor.

To summarize, as I said it’s absolutely fine if you wish to decline, but it’s best if that decision should be fully informed and based on an accurate understanding of what coauthorship is understood to imply.


I am not sure whether this is a serious typos in a published article Just now i found few short form typos in my published articles few years ago.The mistakes is almost like this: If I declare my first sentences Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) is one of the most important topics in high energy physics, but i state in same paragraph in second sentences and i type the short form QDC (wrongly) is a is the theory of the strong interaction between quarks and gluons......, i wonder is it consider serious typo? Thank you.

If readers or the editor have not complained to you - they probably smiled to themselves and continued reading - likely thinking "ha, done that typo myself"...

So, unless you have been contacted don't worry.


Are these good reasons for starting a new PhD project? If have just finished the first year of my PhD studies in mathematics at a German university. After my master's, which I have done in representation theory, I had started a PhD in a more applied field, partly because my current supervisor pointed to the necessity for knowledge in representation theory in his field. However, I have been feeling disappointed since almost the beginning. The reasons are as follows:

For the problems I work on, my supervisor can barely act as an advisor. He has almost no expertise in what he asks me to do. If I talk to him about a point where I have no clue how to proceed, I have to explain basic material to him instead of obtaining useful hints.
He is unwilling or unable to provide me with suggestions on what to try, whom to ask, what to read etc. Probably, I should be able to do all these things on my own. In the case that the expectation is that I should state my research questions, find helpful material, and solve them completely without any advise, I am suspecting that I am not apt for pursuing a PhD.
There is also no vivid exchange between me and the other PhD students. This is mostly due to the fact that my supervisor has hired students from completely different backgrounds to work on very unrelated problems, which only have in common that he is no expert in any of the fields he has hired students from. However, when talking to my colleagues, it seems that I am the only one suffering from this isolation.
It is hard for me to spot and solve problems completely on my own. When starting my PhD, I had hoped for an opportunity to learn new things. Until now, I haven't learned anything. That I have my background in a different field does not make things easier, but I think that I would also struggle in my original field if I constantly have no one to talk to.
The social climate in the group is quite cold, also apart from talking about mathematics. Again, my colleagues seem to be fine with this solitude. This is fine, and, to be honest, I actually envy them for not needing exchange, company or just some chatting about what they do. I have the impression that I cannot live that way, which more and more seems like a deficiency to me.

These are the reasons why I have applied for two opened PhD positions I have found in January, both in representation theory. Contrary to my expectations, both have offered me the position. However, I hesitate to accept one of these positions because:

How can I be certain that I am good enough for these positions? Yes, they have judged my application, based on a talk I gave there and based on what I wrote in my master's thesis, they are experienced professors, but how can I be certain that I am good, creative, persevering etc. enough?
How can I be certain that the reason for my distress is not my working group, professor etc., but my lack of aptitude for doing a PhD? Shouldn't I be able to work independently, without the need for talking to others about what I do? Shouldn't I know of my own which questions I want and can work on?
How can I be certain that I will feel better if I start a new project?

Apart from these work-related questions, other aspects that make me hesitate are:

If I quit, I will be 31 or 32 when I finish the new project.
Exchanging a PhD on applied questions from a well-known university for a purely abstract PhD at some less-known university does not sound like a good thing to do with your CV.
For a PhD, the salary and other benefits I obtain know are perfect. This could not be any better and would certainly degrade if I quit.
Arriving in a new town, getting to know new people etc. has always put a lot of pressure on me. It has always taken me monthsto get to make new friends  after having moved to somewhere else.

I am aware that I should try not to take these aspects into account, but I have mentioned them for completeness.

Question: How can I take a good decision?

There are dozens of parameters that seem to be influencing this decision. I will try to touch on a few points as best as I am able:

Coming up with a PhD topic is hard for a lot of PhD students. This is a common feeling; it does not mean you cannot succeed as a PhD student.
How does representation theory relate to your current subject? Are there papers connecting the two subjects? If so, what do they say? If not, can you discover a link between the two subjects (representation theory and applied?) Your advisor seems to think there is a link. What is that link? (These are questions I would be asking myself as a way to try and discover a dissertation direction).
Graduate students are sometimes distant with one another. They all have their own projects to be doing. That's the reality. I would look for social connections outside of your department if necessary.
It may be easier to change advisors internally, if possible, than switching universities. Being from the US, I have no idea how feasible this is in your case.
In my opinion, passion for your subject is overrated as a PhD student. Graduate students I have advised are rarely deeply passionate about our research. But they realize that it is 4-5 years of learning and thinking about a subject in order to develop the ability to perform independent research.
I work at a national lab in the US now. No one cares about the topic of my PhD (probability theory). My master's degree was in representation theory. I never use these topics in my current work. But I've proven that I can think about math and statistics, and I use these skills in my job now as a researcher. I do not know your goals (academia or industry), but industry usually only cares if you have a PhD in a generally relevant field and if you can program. It is that binary.
Being in your early 30s when you finish a PhD is somewhat normal. There is nothing magical about being 27 and having a PhD. It just means that you have to start going to a full time job earlier in life. If your finances are in okay shape, finishing a PhD at 32 is not the end of the world.
We speak of a PhD being able to do "independent research." This does not mean you never need help or collaboration. I have a PhD. I collaborate with other researchers. Sometimes I come up with an idea, sometimes they do. And some of their ideas blow my mind--I would never have thought of them in a millions years.
Being honest, it sounds like your advisor may not be the best advisor on the planet. At least not for your case. Some students really like a hands off advisor, some do not. Both types of PhD students exist and both are successful. Changing universities to get to a better advisor position may not be as huge of a deal as you think. It might actually make your work more enjoyable.


How to deal with consequential rounding errors when verifying the works of others? to give a stupid example of a rounding error: on a test, the student is asked to calculate the circumference of a circle with radius 6.2. You personally did the math with π rounded to 3.14 and calculated 38.936, but one of your students rounded to 3.14159, and because of that their result is 38.955716.

Now, I doubt any decent teacher would discard this result as wrong, since the math itself was correct. However, what if this calculation was part of a much larger series of calculations for an academic paper, and the resulting rounding error throws off the entire result? It's easy to just come out and say "if you round X to 15 places instead of 14, your formula makes the English channel 10 meters wider" or "you rounded to 5 places, but if you round Y to 6 places, your result is no longer statistically significant", but it just seems like such a cheap way to give feedback for academics. Another example: "by rounding X to Y+1 places (or Y-1 places) in our formula to determine whether an event happened, we managed to shift 90% of our test group from 'happens 25% of the attempts' to 'happens 75% of the attempts'". It's an extreme example, but something like that

I know that such a remark can be seen as a meaningful one since it's a viable concern, but it's still quite a nitpick, and there's probably a reason why X was rounded to 14 places. Still, I can't help but think that a formula should work regardless of how many places you round X to.

If an academic paper you are reviewing could change result or even be invalidated due to rounding differently, how should that be handled in a peer review?

Now, I doubt any decent teacher would discard this result as wrong

I'm generally considered a decent teacher, and, yes, I'd consider that result partly wrong and I'd remove a mark or two, because students, especially from certain fields (e.g. engineering), should learn to get the values right, also, not only the math.

There are mathematical tools that allow to evaluate the effect of rounding errors and to deal with uncertainty of parameters in general: if in an academic paper, the authors overlooked the effect of the rounding errors (getting the wrong result or suggesting a model excessively sensitive to the parameters), I'd suggest to reject the paper asking for major revisions, pointing out at the proper literature.


Submitting An Extended Abstract To Conference, But Later Changing The Methodology and Research Question Context: MSc student, first time having a paper accepted to a conference.

I submitted an extended abstract to two conferences which were ultimately accepted. In the original extended abstract, I did not yet have results. The original extended abstract was also based on a particular methodology (optimization), but I ran into some computational complications solving my problem, so I had to change my methodology to 'simulation', and ultimately, my research question had to be adapted to the new methodology.

So now I am in a position where my original extended abstract was accepted on the premise of the original methodology and research question, but now when I present at the conference I will have to present on a new question based on a different methodology.

I feel like this 'bait-and-switch' is a bit of a slippery thing to do and my inexperience in publishing research and being involved with conferences probably influences that feeling, but my advisor said it isn't a big deal and now I find myself conflicted. From the perspective of my supervisor, they said that most conferences are understanding that research can change on the fly, which is why I should not be overly concerned that i'm presenting on something adjacent (but still very much related) to my original question and methodology. Additionally, the current title of my work is based on the original submission and uses a key-word in my field that signals to the readership that an 'optimization' methodology is going to be used (key word is "optimal").

I am wondering if I should reach out to the conference organizers and inform them of this change, particularly in regards to changing the title of the original paper. Or, perhaps this really isn't much of a big deal at all and this situation that I have described above is more common than I currently understand, in which case I can just leave it alone.

Depends strongly on the conference. It't not unusual (maybe 10% of papers) for presenters to present a paper on a substantially different topic than their accepted abstract at one of the most important conferences in my discipline. That's because it's considered a work in progress and discuss conference, so it's completely accepted that the question you thought about six months prior didn't actually work out.


How widespread are electronic-only dissertations? My university currently archives all our graduate dissertations as bound volumes in the library.  We are considering dropping this practice and archiving them electronically only.

How common is this practice among respected research universities?  Is there any data?

(Some of my colleagues feel that having paper dissertations on the shelves is an important mark of a serious research university, and that dropping them will harm our institutional reputation.  So it would be helpful to have data to indicate whether such a policy would be "mainstream" or "fringe".)

The first page of a Google search shows UVA and USC do this already.  You could try contacting colleagues at those schools and see how the experience has been.  (Sorry, I don't have a statistic.)

P.s. I am sympathetic to those who prefer the bound volumes.  I think you can in some ways scan a text and multiple texts more easily in the hard copy than electronic.  Also, there are excellent arguments that books on acid free paper are a superior storage media than computer files (longer lasting, safer, future readable).  Finally I think that the granting university is more likely to have future students working in the same general area.  Thus they benefit especially from a printout.


Should I cite the interviewer or the interviewee when citing a news article? I was wondering what would be the appropriate technique to cite an interviewee from a news article. I would imagine this is fairly common in some texts, but I could neither find any mention of it in my school's guidelines nor in stackexchange or google.

So for example, if I was to quote Edward Snowden from an article written by someone else, would I reference (Snowden, 2015) or (Palmer, 2015) or something else?

I'm currently using APA style it must be noted.

Palmer, D. (2015, June 2). Snowden slams UK governments attempts to secretly pass legislation allowing GCHQ to ‘hack anybody’s computer’. Computing.co.uk. Retrieved from http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/2411261/snowden-slams-uk-government-attempts-to-secretly-pass-legislation-allowing-gchq-to-hack-anybodys-computer on 13th November, 2015.

A standard MLA method for citing a published interview is described here:

  [Interviewer]. Interview with [Interviewee]. [venue] (year): [pages]. [medium].

e.g.,

  Lois Lane.  Interview with Superman. Daily Planet (1963): 12-13. Print.

As noted in the comments, you would then refer to it in text using per the style with whatever prose is most clear and lucid, e.g., "In an interview with Lois Lane (Lane, 1963), Superman claimed that his only weakness was kryptonite."

Citing in the APA style appears to be similar, and all other styles should have an equivalent as well.


How prevalent are abusive advisors? I have read lots of posts here about abusive advisors, and I have heard about and even experienced some similar experiences in my own academic life.
Is there any data available for how prevalent this problem is? I am interested in quantitative, objective data to the extent that it is possible to quantify these kinds of things.
To clarify slightly, the kinds of things I would consider abusive could be:

Verbal abuse where the advisor puts their students down in unnecessary and unproductive ways, like name-calling.

Not giving the student due credit for their work or somehow preventing them from making progress.

Discrimination based on race or sexuality. Similarly, discussing or trying to get involved in the student's personal life in an unhealthy way.

Any behavior that normally qualifies as abuse in other relationships and generally shows that the advisor is not interested in advising their students and helping them become a successful academic.

I am not really talking about absentee advisors or advisors who are just kind of blunt that don't display these qualities.

From PhDs: the tortuous truth:

Overall, 21% of respondents said they had personally experienced
harassment or discrimination, and the same proportion reported
experiencing bullying. One-quarter of respondents who identified as
female reported personally experiencing harassment or discrimination
compared with 16% of those identifying as men. The highest rates of
harassment or discrimination (24%) were reported in North America, and
the lowest (18%) came from Australasia.
...
In the survey, 57% of students who said they had experienced bullying reported feeling unable to discuss their situation without fear of personal repercussions.

From A message for mentors from dissatisfied graduate students:

In the survey, 21% of respondents reported experiencing discrimination or harassment. The same percentage also reported bullying. Of those, nearly half said that their supervisor was the perpetrator

It looks like, by the numbers, 1 in 10 PhD students will be harassed or abused in some way by their supervisor. Anecdotally I think that abusive advisors burn through students at a higher rate that normal advisors, so I'd actually guess about 5% of PhD advisors are a serious problem.
I will note that your experience will vary wildly based on gender and race. You are much more likely to find that inappropriate or abusive behavior from faculty as a woman, for example. It's hard to generalize because an advisor who is perfect for male students may be abusive to female or non-binary students.
That said, the abusive part of academia is smaller than the part that isn't abusive, but will apologize for it and gaslight victims into silence. That's the fraction I'd be more interested in quantifying.


Is it better to negotiate a faculty offer by email or phone? When negotiating a faculty offer with a search committee chair, is it better to do it via email or phone? Which one is more efficient and can get better results? For example, email have the advantage of written points, while in phone you can sense the other person feedback.

Negotiating the conditions of any future employment is an important conversation.

Most of human communication is non-verbal. We communicate a lot through our voice tone and body language.

Some people avoid face-to-face, or telephone conversations, as they find the interaction awkward. Ask yourself:- if you were the search committee chair, would you want to employ someone as a lecturer who was uncomfortable in face-to-face communication?

At least offer to have a telephone conversation, or Skype, or video conference with the other party, if a face-to-face meeting is impractical or inappropriate. This shows you are keen to engage in the most efficient means of human-to-human communication. Then follow this up with an email clarifying the main points of your conversation.


Is it unfair to regrade prior work after detecting cheating? I teach various undergraduate courses. I make the cheating policies clear on the first day of lectures, check the student's understanding of this with an on-line quiz, and remind students of the policy almost weekly in class. I try hard to detect cheating, but cannot catch everyone.

Sometimes I discover cheating mid-way through the semester. For example, I caught some students submitting duplicate assignments. After making the discovery, I looked back to past work that they submitted to the course Web site, and found the students sent identical papers for all past assignments, but I already awarded them A's.

Is it unfair of me to go back and regrade prior assignments when students cheated?

Looking over previous assignments after detecting cheating is perfectly reasonable.  In fact, I'd advise that you should do it if you can.

Revising previous judgment calls about the quality of a student's work could be unfair, or at least extremely upsetting to the student.  For example, it wouldn't be reasonable to say "Remember that paper I gave you an A- on?  After thinking about it a little more, I've decided that I was too generous and your work deserved a B+ instead, so I'm changing your grade."

However, looking for evidence of cheating is different from reconsidering your grading standards.  You aren't changing your opinion of the grade the work would deserve if it was properly done.  Instead, you are trying to figure out whether it was in fact properly done.  If not, then the student never earned the grade in the first place and has no cause to complain about unfairness.

In other words, there's no statute of limitations for cheating.  Just because a grade has already been assigned, it doesn't mean you can't be found guilty of cheating, in which case the previous grade becomes irrelevant.


Can I conduct psychology research involving my restaurant customers without their explicit consent? I will be working as a waiter to make extra money, but I am also an ardent academic. I want to know if I can make audio and/or visual recordings of interactions with customers without having them sign some sort of waiver. Thus I won't necessarily have the names of participants.

Can I later publish some papers without actual evidence other then someone listening to the tapes and concluding they are not all me pretending to do different voices?  It's in the interest of social psychology - will anybody consider this too invasive without permission? And is it less invasive and acceptable if i just try and conduct research on game theory (e.g., possibly trying to manipulate purchases between two customers as competitive relations)? Will it just be considered anonymous contribution, or am I soliciting information while withholding my actual objectives during interaction?

I have no ethics committee monitoring me.

There are 3 days before I start my job.

What does your advisor thinks of that?
What does your ethics committee thinks of that?

Because, as far as I know, every and all experiments that remotely involve humans need to be approved by an ethics committee.

I'm from computer science but I had a few experiments involving people and that is usually the rule...

And remember, each country has its own set of laws, make sure you know yours!

Apart from that, my first impression was "bad idea". Even if it is, by some weird loophole, legal, it is not very ethical, at least IMHO...