In what ways would co-authoring a graduate research paper as an undergraduate help me? I have been working on a graduate level research project, with the bonus of being listed as a co-author if I make a significant contribution (which I likely will). I am still an undergraduate, but have significant experience (professional and educational) in the field.

My question is: Is this a big deal? If I go to grad school in that field, would this allow me to obtain a PhD quicker?

What if I don't go to grad school, but choose to work in the field, would being listed as co-author on a research project of this level hold enough weight to warrant listing on my resume?

It doesn't exactly "allow you to get a Ph.D quicker". However, you would have more experience in academic writing than if you hadn't contributed to the writing in the paper. Writing a paper isn't just "writing" a report - a lot of analysis, interpretation, and technical work goes into papers and these are skills you want to have as a Ph.D student. Being a co-author on a paper will make your application stand out.

If you go into any job, you can list this as a project that you have worked on. If you are familiar with the contents of the paper, then you can talk about it as if it was another project that you've worked on. Having your name on the paper is verifiable and can look pretty impressive especially if you are familiar with the details.


Term for a document between an article and a monograph? I'm looking for a term for describing this writeup of mine which is too long and detailed to constitute a paper, but seems to short to merit being called a monograph. Is there such a term?

The word report comes to mind. To some the phrase might suggest the document is part of a formal report series, but the term is also frequently used for documents that are not part of a series.


Best practices in sharing qualitative data such as interview transcripts alongside a paper publication? In the past I have shared quantitative datasets by uploading them to data repositories (like Zenodo) as CSV-files or similar formats.
But I lack experience with regards to qualitative data such as interview transcripts.
The interviewees will be asked to agree with the sharing of the (pseudonymized or anonymized) transcripts.
But other than that, are there best practices associated with such a qualitative data-sharing? Would it be sufficient to use merely upload, say, a simple Word-document of the interview transcriptions on Zenodo? Or perhaps also a HTML-file which would contain my way of having coded the transcripts*? Is there anything else that I should take into account?

* I plan to use a specific program for coding the interview transcripts, namely RQDA, an R-package; RQDA seems to allow users to export marked-up transcripts in a HTML-file format.

If your research data comes from people, your sharing of the data needs to be approved through an ethical review process, or an exemption from that process must be obtained through the exemption process.
CSV format seems to be the most reliable data format; it does not matter if your data is quantitative of qualitative.  Your choice of repository should be guided by the customs of your field and your views of the repository's reliability, not the type of data.


Why does U.S. Veterans Affairs only pay for classes which are required for the degree? American military veterans funded under the GI Bill (and possibly under other VA administrated programs) can only receive funding for classes which are required for the degree.  I can find lots of university websites that mention this requirement (here's a good example), but I was unable to determine where this rule comes from or why it is there.  In particular, is it required by the legislation itself or just VA rules?  When was the rule imposed and is there any information on why?

It looks to me like it is more or less required by the legislation, although I'm not a lawyer so I may not be interpreting it right.  Educational assistance is authorized for pursuing a "program of education" rather than just taking individual courses:

  The Secretary shall pay to each individual entitled to educational assistance under this chapter who is pursuing an approved program of education...

A program of education is defined as:

  The term “program of education” means any curriculum or any combination of unit courses or subjects pursued at an educational institution which is generally accepted as necessary to fulfill requirements for the attainment of a predetermined and identified educational, professional, or vocational objective.

Strictly speaking, this doesn't mean the classes must be required for an academic degree per se, and other sorts of credentials or licenses could count.  However, it does not seem to allow taking isolated classes for their own sake, but rather just as required for the overall program.

I don't know the history or why the legislation was set up this way.  I'd guess that it's because the goal is to help veterans achieve qualifications that will further their careers, not to educate them for the sake of education.  One possibility is that nobody really thought hard about the issue while drafting the legislation, so it wasn't a conscious decision.  Another is that it was intended to save money by avoiding paying for frivolous or unnecessary courses.  A third possibility is that it was intended to help veterans by putting pressure on them to follow a set degree program (rather than squandering their benefits on isolated courses that might never fit together to complete any degree).


How to complain about a Ph.D student to a professor I am a undergraduate student who also work as the systems administrator in the school. I also do research work under a professor. Recently, I had to work on this professor's lab to upgrade the older machines to newer machines. I literally got no help from any of the fellow lab mates. Though, I did it as part of my systems administrator work, the professor had instructed his Ph.D students to help me. However, I do not complain of this.

I have a very nagging girl who always wants to get her things done and couldn't even figure out some basic stuff from the Internet. She simply blames the installation and this pretty much annoys me. She is not thankful for what I am doing, and so I do not even feel like helping this girl. I want to report it to my professor in such a way that I do not offend him in any way. I never bothered him much so far. But I want to escalate this issue. How should I go about it?

P.S: I am not sure if this question belongs here or on The Workplace.

The answer really comes down to whether or not your position as "Systems Administrator" is paid or not. If it is a paid position, then welcome to the professional world, where users will often complain about the resources and facilities that are provided for them. Dealing with their complaints in a professional manner is part of the job that you are being paid for, and it is not appropriate to complain to your manager about that aspect of the job, unless a user is being abusive. You should make it clear to the user concerned that you have installed the software that you were told to install, as you were told to do, and that if the software is inappropriate or does not suit her requirements then she needs to talk to her supervisor, as he/she is the one responsible for ensuring she has the equipment she needs for her research. Do not get angry, be polite and professional; "I would like to help you, but as system administrator I just install the software I am told to install. I have no powers to choose or change what you have been given, so if you need something different you will have to talk to the boss."

If a particular user takes up far more time than than the rest, then you need to ask your manager how to proceed - your employment contract will state how many hours you are to work, and if your manager wants you to cater to the whims of one particular user during those hours, then that is their decision. You should also realise that, since you are the paid "System Administrator", it is not the job of the PhD students to help you carry out this task. They aren't system administrators, they aren't being paid to do the job - you are.

If, on the other hand, your position as "System administrator" is voluntary and unpaid, and the PhD students are part of a "sysadmin" team, then you need to ask them to take a more active role than they are, and to consider whether hours spent on tasks are being allocated in the most efficient fashion.


Will a mistake in my data collection for my thesis effect my whole grade? I am currently doing my undergraduate thesis for psychology. I noticed in my data collection when asking the participants age i asked it wrong e.g. 18-21,21-25. Age is not one of my variables i am testing in this study and will have no implication on the results of my study. If i acknowledge this as a limitation and state how it wont impact results will this still have a big impact on my grade?

If age is not a variable used in the later analysis, then it cannot be wrong.

If you should have included age in the later analysis, then that may cost some points - depends on what they are looking for...

Including age in the original survey is usually a good thing as it means that that data may be suitable for different variations of studies ie the data is possibly more useful.


Writing Systematic Literature Review on the same topic I was planning to write and also started writing a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) on a specific topic. Unfortunately, while writing, I found out that an SLR on the exact same topic has been published most recently, probably when I was in the process of writing. Am I allowed to write it or stop writing my SLR?
If yes, then please do also tell me how do I cite that new paper, I mean what justification can I give to that paper being already published.

Thanks

In principle, you should only conduct a systematic literature review (SLR) if:

none has already been done recently;
the only ones recently done are deficient in some way (that you will clearly explain and correct); or
you adopt a very different perspective that adds something significantly valuable that is different from the recently published good review (e.g. you do a meta-analysis, unlike the other review; or you deep-dive into a specific subset of the literature that the other review covered only briefly).

In general, unless the recent review is quite bad, I think that the third option is the only good justification for publishing another SLR on the same topic so soon. Note: I am talking about justification from the journal editor's perspective of why they would agree to publish your review; you have to think in this way whenever considering getting anything published. Moreover, the third option is the safest, since you don't need to offend anyone by trying to make up bad stuff to say about the recent review to give the impression that yours is better--you only need to prove that yours is valuable in a very different way, not that it is better. And finally, the third option might sometimes be easier because you definitely should not duplicate the work that the recent review has already done--rather, when you find your own unique perspective or approach, you should spend all your time and effort on only that.

But if you cannot find a new, valuable perspective to adopt and the recent review is quite good, then I don't see anything for you to do other than appreciate their review and thank them for saving you from having done all that work yourself. Of course, in that case you would have no standalone literature review article to publish, but you could probably salvage the work you have done so far as bits and pieces of other related research that you may do.


Should dropping out of a PhD program be treated the same way as quitting a regular, industry job? I personally see no practical difference between dropping out of a PhD program and quitting a regular job, at least considering the way PhDs work in the US, especially in STEM fields, but I'm sure many people will disagree. Please let me elaborate why I think that way, and let me know if I'm being too naive or missing an important difference. I really want to see a difference, but so far I can't find any meaningful one.

At least in the US, PhD students are often employees of the university, they hold a research assistant position, get paid a salary and declare it as taxable income. Most people I've talked with in academia agree that the main point of doing a PhD is working on your own research rather than taking classes, which should just be a complement. That sounds pretty much like what you do at a regular job than what you do in a master's or undergrad degree; you have a main project to work on, and maybe some ocasional training sessions that might be useful for your work. Some people like to point out that dropping out of a PhD program has some sort of stigma attached to it because it means that you couldn't finish something you began. However, I see no difference between that situation and quitting a regular job where you had a long-term project that you realized was going nowhere, had no future or was needlessly stressful, and you decided not to waste your time trying to finish it and find something better. My view is that if you leave a PhD program with no degree, but you worked for some years as a research assistant, you can still write it down in your resume as a research assistant position you had at the university, so it's pretty much just another job for practical purposes, I don't understand why the fact that you didn't get the degree is such a big deal for some people.

Something I should emphasize is that I'm biased in my thinking towards STEM fields and people who enter PhD programs, but have no intention to stay in academia. If one wants to become a professor, dropping out of a PhD program is obviously a big deal, since it's often a requirement, but I'm talking about people who do PhDs mainly to get better jobs in industry. I know some will point out that that's probably a bad reason to do a PhD to begin with, but honestly, I've met many PhD students who think that way, especially in computer science and other STEM fields. Regardless, many people also begin a PhD because they are really interested in working on a specific area and that area happens to be developed more in academia than in industry at some point in time (machine learning is a good example), but they don't have any intention of staying in academia and plan to get a job in industry afterwards. Still, they might get disappointed about the area or the environment along the way, the same way one might serious negative aspects of what seemed at first as an interesting job.

I'm especially interested in reading people who disagree with any of the specific points I mentioned before and why they are not valid analogies between dropping out of a PhD program and quitting a job. If this looks more like an open-ended discussion rather than an appropriate question for this site, feel free to put it on hold, but I'd appreciate if you can point me to a more appropriate site where this kind of discussion can take place. This site is the only one I know where well-informed academics congregate.

This answer addresses the idea that the work a PhD student does is just like work at another job, and therefore quitting the jobs should be viewed the same. (My answer suggests that it should be unusual for people to enroll and then quit without there being a serious problem, and also that potentially elements of society might place stigma on that action to keep people from wasting educational resources.) There also seems to be an indication in the question that people should be free to casually start positions as Ph.D. students without the intention to finish the degree. (I may be overstating the poster's view, but that extreme version is what I address below.)

I believe that for an individual, leaving a program or leaving academia can be the right choice for all involved, and that work as a graduate student is valid work experience to list on a resume. However, it is harmful in the long term if people enter graduate school without the intention of completing the degree.

A huge part of the compensation for being a PhD student is funding one's classes, training, library access, access to lab materials, potentially travel funding, and access to smart peers and smart professors. It costs a lot to create a learning and research environment.

For instance, a postdoc working a similar job in a lab will get paid more; partly because they need less supervision and training, have more experience, and have more responsibility, but also because the professor does not have to fund the tuition and student benefits for that postdoc. And a professional lab worker should be paid even more.

If, as you say, being a PhD student is just another job, then people who do not value all of the parts that support academic success could value those things at zero and realize they are getting a very poor wage. They could work at a private lab for the same work--but without the support for learning and autonomous research--and get paid much more for the same style of tasks.

Again, it costs a lot to create a learning and research environment, and universities are investing in their students' success. Hoxby has a model of university funding that likens university founders (and later donors) to venture capitalists investing in human capital and in research: http://www.nber.org/papers/w18626.

As Hoxby writes: "Because some of the students' returns will presumably be social, the obligation on them can be multifaceted.  Those who earn private returns on their human capital can be asked for gifts in the form of money. Others could be asked for gifts in the form of expertise. Others could be asked to use their political influence to sure that the university is treated well by the government.  And so on." Hoxby 2012, p. 19

If people are taking Ph.D. positions as mere jobs, they are less likely to fully contribute to the educational environment, less likely to take full advantage of the costly investment in their educational environment, and less likely to give back to the institution to help it sustain itself.

TL;DR: It is extremely short-sighted to think that students are merely workers. It is to academia's detriment if students, professors, schools, and governments act as if they are.

(These models and my thinking are largely based on the U.S. system, which the poster addressed. I would be interested in thoughts on how this compares to other funding models.)

Note: I do not intend this answer to say that grad students are or are not employees for the purposes of unionization or other purposes. However, I believe this account of why schools fund tuition for advanced students as an uncertain investment helps us understand why the rebated tuition should not be taxed as regular income (as a recent US tax plan suggested doing).


How to improve my English from Academic papers? I'm not a native speaker. However, I'm doing my PhD in an English country and I read Academic papers which are in English. How can I improve my English from those papers? Any ideas? Although sometimes those papers are not written by native English speakers and may still have problems.

The old adage is: "the language of science is bad English" (and at least in computer science it is 100% true). That being said, I have known PhD students who have failed mainly because of their lacking English language skills – they had ideas, but they could not communicate them to anybody, and they could not write them down in a paper for the life of them. You need decent English to write any paper, and you need pretty good English to write papers at top venues.

You ask how to improve your language skills from reading papers. I would say, you can't do that effectively at all. Clearly, reading anything written in English will help you to some extent, but if you feel like you need to improve your English, taking one or more (good) courses in technical English will help you more than reading through a few dozen papers.

However, there is one language-related skill that reading papers for is really useful – if you are setting out to write the first or one of your first papers of your own, nothing beats analyzing existing papers (at the same conference, in the same journal) to find out how papers in these venues are usually structured. This gets you started much faster than drafting something only for your advisor to tear it apart.


What is the best secondary language for an academic to know? Let's say someone young (~PhD student stage, possibly earlier) wants to become a professor. He doesn't mind moving around and will go wherever the best offer is. He'll obviously need English, but he's also motivated enough to learn another language. What is the best language to learn that will open the most opportunities?

If we proxy the number of jobs available in any country by research spending, then according to Wikipedia the most likely destinations are the USA, China, Japan, Germany and South Korea in that order. The main language in the US is already English, but the other four have local languages. However, I don't know how easy it is to get an academic job in any of these countries (or the ones later in the list - India, France, Russia ...) without knowing the local language.

If the answer to this question varies by field, the I'm most interested in the sciences.

It depends on what kind of job we are talking about. For a PhD student, or for a postdoc, knowing the local language is not necessary in general. I know plenty of examples of people who got such a job without knowing any shred of the local language (in France, Switzerland, Korea...). The general expectation is that you make an effort to learn the language after some time, though. If only to have an easier time ordering food in restaurants and talking to your colleagues during coffee breaks.

For a professor job it depends more on the location. In some countries (e.g. Switzerland, the Netherlands, and many others) some classes are taught in English, so you don't need to know the local language immediately, although that is probably expected after some time. (In fact, I've been told it's a "disadvantage" to know the local language, because only lower-division courses are taught in it, and they are less interesting than upper-division courses.)

In some other places, courses are taught in the local language, but new professors get some teaching-free time (say, six months to a year) before being required to learn enough of the language to teach. (I know an example in Norway.)

In some other countries (e.g. France), you need to know the local language before getting the job, because teaching is mandatory in the local language. But I expect that if you are a good candidate, they will make an exception and arrange for you to only teach during the second semester, so you have time to take a crash course in the local language. But you would have to make it worth their while...

There exists some permanent or long-term research-only positions, all around the world (in France CNRS, in Germany Max-Planck...) It's often possible to get hired for one of these even without speaking the language, since you do not have the constraint of teaching.

In any case, it is impossible to give a general answer to your question. It is not helpful to look at global statistics, because a particular person is interested in getting a job in their own particular subfield. Which countries have the most jobs is not uniform. Even in "the sciences"...

But as you can see from above, learning a language in the hopes that it will land you an academic job is rather pointless. Your academic record is infinitely more valuable. You would have to be in an extremely specific situation for it to give you any kind of edge. Unless you have another reason to learn the language, I expect that your time is better spent on research. You will have time to learn the language later.

Also, most people don't approach the job search as "I'll take any job anywhere in the world". Most people have family, friends... that they like to see every now and then. If your whole world is based somewhere in Western Europe, will you take a job in East Asia or the Americas? Some people will, some people won't, especially if it's a permanent job. (Other make an effort for their postdocs.) So I'm not sure that you can approach this as "I'll learn the language where the most jobs are".

PS: it is not "obvious" that the person you are talking about will need English. In some fields, English is not the main language. For example in "history of [location]" the main language will probably be the language of [location].

PPS: Your Wikipedia link is about R&D, not academia...


How can I tell whether a mathematics journal seems reputable? There are some general questions on this site about judging the reputability of journals in general:

How do you judge the quality of a journal? and
How to identify predatory publishers/journals

I am interested in answers specific to mathematics, that may not have been raised in the other questions.

I received the following email from the "American Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics" ten days after submitting a paper online. How can I tell whether this is a reputable journal? In general, how can I tell whether a mathematics journal is reputable?

  Dear Authors,

  On behalf of the Chief Editor of the “American Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics” we are happy to inform you that your article entitled ‘A possible approach proof to proof the Riemann Hypothesis” is accepted for publication in (Jan-June 2015).

  Please send DD/Cheque for US $ 250.00 payable to ‘ Vijay Kumar Jha ‘ to our address.

  Our address:
  Vijay Kumar Jha
  Managing Editor
  c\o. ACADEMIC RESEARCH JOURNALS (INDIA)

  4383/4A, Ansari Road, Darya Ganj, New Delhi-110002

  (M) 08826561892

  We thank you very much for your contribution and encourage you to continue submitting your future.

  Yours sincerely,

For academic mathematicians, it's not so hard to avoid predatory journals. We have a sense of the journals that we "typically" publish in, and the journals we "aspire" to publish in, and we stick mostly to these journals. For journals we don't know yet, we can ask colleagues to get their opinion. One (possibly unfortunate) goal of publishing in academia is to build a vita and maintain/advance your career, and it doesn't help as much to publish in a journal that none of your colleagues or supervisors has heard about.

For people who don't have that kind of professional experience, there are several easier questions you can ask. The better answer to each of these is "Yes".  On their own, none of these questions indicates that a journal is necessarily reputable or nonreputable. But, if the journal gets a "No" answer to many of them, then I would be very hesitant to submit a paper.

Does the journal publish with no cost to the author? Reputable mathematics journals almost never charge fees for publication. Some very good journals offer an open-access model as an option, but it is almost never the default at the moment.
Is the journal indexed by MathSciNet and/or Zentralblatt MATH? These sites aim to be very comprehensive for mathematics journals. Being indexed is not really a sign of quality, but not being indexed is a red flag.
Is the journal ranked on the Australian Mathematical Society Ranking? Even C-rated journals can be OK, but if a journal is completely omitted I would take that as a reason to be cautious.
Is the journal either published by a well-known publisher, or affiliated with a university or mathematical society?  Most reputable math journals fall into these categories, but not all. Some journals run by professional publishers are still not very reputable, of course.
Does the journal have a professional looking website?  Grammatical errors or parts of the website that seem to be entirely missing are a cause for concern.
Does the journal have a long history of publication (say, at least 20 years)?  Most predatory journals are very young; most math journals are relatively old.

The "American Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics" has a "No" answer to all of these questions. If they really did have a 10-day turn around between receiving a paper and accepting it, as described in comments, I am even more skeptical of the quality of the journal - that is an almost absurdly fast turn around time for a mathematics journal.  I would not pay them anything to publish a paper of mine, nor would I recommend it to anyone else.

Of course, you can publish in a predatory journal, just as you can publish in a for-hire press. But if you are an amateur or "outsider" looking to publish in a math journal, you are likely doing it to get a sort of "seal of approval" on your paper. Journals that mathematicians view as unreputable will not give your paper that kind of recognition among mathematicians, just as degrees from unreputable colleges are unlikely to impress others.

If your goal is just to disseminate your mathematical work, and you don't require peer review, you can often use arXiv.org instead. Depending on the area, you may need to have a professional "sponsor", but the arXiv will keep your paper available for free for the indefinite future in a way that is widely accessible to the public.


Best sites and practices to disseminate research papers I am thinking of posting a preprint of a paper of mine before I get a response to my submission. This is allowed by several publishers.

I considered three possibilities: arXiv.org, academia.edu and researchgate.net.

I have a problem with arXiv because it requires posting the source LaTex files which will be made publicly available. I resent this because I am foolish enough to fear that someone may want to plagiarise my work and this would make it easier. In the Why submitting TeX help page they explain why LaTex files are better for archiving but not why it is useful to make them publicly available.

A first question is: is it safe to make the LaTex code public?

Second, do professional mathematicians usually post preprints on these sites?

This leads to another concern. I see that often the results of googling a paper point to the preprints while the published paper is "hidden" in the scholarly article links. Would this be counterproductive in the long run as most people would just download the free version (with possible mistakes) instead of the peer reviewed one?

The website where professional mathematicians share their preprints on in the arXiv.

Regarding your concerns:

Plagiarism is mostly a non-issue. Given the number of articles on the arXiv already, if someone were to pick one to copy, it is unlikely that it is one of yours. Even so, this would not cause any meaningful damage to you.
Many mathematicians actually read the arXiv digest in their particular area, and could notice your article there if relevant for them. Researchgate on the other hand has a somewhat questionable reputation.
You should definitely keep the arXiv version up to date, and fix any mistakes you find there. Many people will indeed read the arXiv version over the one on the publishers website, for a variety of reasons – including not having access to the latter, so you should count that as a plus, not a minus.


I am missing deadlines for coping with anxiety. What should I do? Ever since I knew about anxiety five months ago, I started going easy with life, started to distract myself from all the stressors. I used to be very alert before deadlines previously and hence it used to interfere with my life severely. Now that I try to relax and use stress handling techniques, I feel better but I am missing deadlines. Today I got the rejection letter for a paper I submitted, which I know happened because of going easy on the deadline. Now what should I do to balance both sides?

The first, and most important, step should be to find a good therapist to work with you on your anxiety if you don't already have one. If you already have one, talk with them about how you are feeling about this rejection. They will be in a much better position to talk you through your options than we random people on the Internet.

Keep in mind that this isn't an academic question per se (even though it often comes up in academic contexts), and professors and fellow students are not necessarily the best people to help you. Speaking from a little personal experience and seeing the same process in others, getting help with anxiety, burnout, and stress-related symptoms is not about finding a magic bean strategy that will allow you to put in the same hours as before, but somehow don't mind it anymore - it's about guiding you towards acceptance that you cannot and should not work quite as hard as you used to, along with the consequence that you may produce less output than before (but in exchange get a much better life, as you yourself said).


Speaking to experience in a statement of purpose for a PhD program. I am beginning the process of applying to PhD programs in Neuroscience for a fall 2015 start. I will be graduating this December with a Bachelor's in biology and math. I have been working as a research assistant for the last year, and our lab focuses on the role of extracellular matrix proteins in the col11a1-related chondrodysplasias. Although pursuit of a career in neuroscience research has been my goal, the biology program at my institution lacks faculty in this area; thus, my research experience is of questionable relevance to the programs I am applying for.

I have three questions related to writing the statement of purpose:

I've heard that I am supposed to discuss my background in research. If my research isn't entirely relevant to neuroscience, should I restrict my discussion to the lab techniques I've learned, or can I speak in technical detail about my projects?
As mentioned, my current university lacks faculty who do research in neuroscience. Should I mention this as justification for my choice to work in my current lab, or should I omit it, as it may reflect poorly on my readiness for neuroscience?
I have a 3.85 GPA and my GRE scores were in the 93rd and 95th percentile (verbal and quantitative, respectively). To what degree will the statement of purpose affect my application, given the weaknesses addressed above?

I'm not sure that the statement of purpose is the right place to try to address deficiencies in your CV. Instead, let me suggest a different strategy. (I'll note in passing that I'm in Philosophy, in the USA--so take this with a grain of sand since you're in a different field. A second grain of sand if you are applying to programs in other countries.)

Use the Statement of Purpose to show the committee what you are going to do in the future, not to tell them why what you've done in the past isn't bad.

Here's what I mean by the past/future comparison.

Bad: "I did a lot of work that is relevant, even though I know my CV didn't look like it." or "At my current lab job, I was taught techniques x, y, and z." Bad because it sounds like you are apologizing. It comes off weak, passive and submissive. You want to project confidence and competence, but not arrogance. Successful PhD students are people who are able to be self-motivated and don't have to have their hands held all the time.

Better: "I plan to apply my experience in techniques x and y, to problem z because . . . " This is better because it is active--it says what you are going to do rather than what has happened to you.

The second distinction that is important is the distinction between showing and telling.

Telling: "While working on this project, I acquired knowledge of techniques x, y, and z." This is weak because it just sounds like a list of things. There's no story--I don't get anything about your personality or your interests or what is special or unique about you as a candidate.
Showing: "We were interested in p, so I suggested we use technique x and we discovered r. A colleague who works in r suggested that we also apply technique y, which turned out to be the crucial step . . ." Now there's kind of a story that I care about a little bit. And I've learned more than just that you know x and y. I've learned that you know how to suggest techniques, and you're not afraid to tell the PI what you think, and that you know how to collaborate, etc. These are all good things. The committee gets a more complete, detailed idea of who you are as a candidate if you can show who you are and what you are interested in than if you just tell them.

Most aspiring grad students (and newly minted PhDs!) are going to fall into the trap of telling rather than showing, so this is a good place for you to stick your neck out ahead of the pack.

Another example: Instead of using the SOP to say why you don't suck, use it to say why you want to go to this specific PhD program. Don't say, "I am interested in Neuroscience." That's telling. Instead: "I became particularly interested in question X after reading "X: an intriguing problem" by Prof Y." (where Y is somebody on faculty). You want to be specific about the strengths of each program.


How to minimise student's discomfort when suggesting they need to improve his/her English? The standard of English grammar, spelling and syntax is abysmal in my country. High school students generally learn such things by studying a foreign language.

As a result, the written work I receive from students whose native tongue is English frequently has many errors - including the usual:

Typographical errors
Apostrophes in the wrong place (its, it's)
The following fails: their/there/they're; whose/who's
And, generally, failing to check spelling, grammar and to proof read thoroughly.

The typos and failure to proof read thoroughly I can understand and treat accordingly, namely encourage students to proof read and check their work carefully, or get a friend/colleague/family member to help.

The failures in English grammar, syntax and punctuation - which I suspect arise from a deficient treatment at school - I find hard to forgive.

Our University has extensive support for improving the English for both native and non-native English speakers.

I feel concerned, however, about suggesting to those students who are native English speakers, but who need more training, to attend the help workshops available to them. This is for fear of embarrassing or alienating the students. Is there a sensitive way of dealing with this? Should I even try to spare the students' blushes?

One way to approach this is from the perspective of why the quality of prose matters in the first place.  After all, why should we bother with spelling, grammar, etc?
Having good spelling, grammar, etc. is important because not having them puts roadblocks in the way of communicating with the reader.

You can minimize a student's embarrassment by emphasizing this aspect.  Assuming that student is otherwise doing well, you might can bring up grammar by approaching it from this angle.  You can emphasize the pragmatic aspect that, in pretty much any career they choose, written communication will be important, and that it's important to not have others' appreciation of their good work be impeded by problems with grammar and spelling.  It's really the linguistic equivalent of keeping yourself clean and well-groomed.

If a student is not doing well with the core material... well, then grammar's not really the key problem to talk to them about anyway...


Should I share course notes from my previous university with my students? I have recently been a TA and I realised I have a large collection of comprehensive notes from my alma mater dating back to my Bachelor degree courses. I wonder if this is an acceptable practice to share them without my professor's consent (since this is purely for education purpose)? My student is asking for these notes, and I told them I should ask my professor first.

If these were my notes, and you asked if you could share them with your students you would get permission in a heartbeat. In fact, if I had continued teaching the course, and thus continued to develop them, I would probably sent you the most up to date version of those notes. I am not alone in that, I remember that several associations have been trying to set up a repository of such teaching notes, which struck me as a good idea, but I don't know what came of that. However, I have come across people who take a more restrictive view on their notes.

So, I think the best thing you can do is ask. Best case is you get the most up to date notes and a potential reference writer gets reminded of you in a positive way. Worst case (s)he says "thank you for asking, but I don't want you to release those notes". If you don't ask, release the notes, and (s)he finds out, things could get a lot more ugly.


CV for PhD application: personal interests and non-academic skills I am polishing my CV for PhD applications (Statistical Physics related). I was wondering about whether it is appropriate to list some personal interests and non-academic skills. This is my list (last line is the more uncertain, since during the lessons sessions I am not able to read much):

Additional Skills & Interests

Time planning skills --- Ability to take on new responsibilities --- Teamwork
Curious nature --- Problem solving skills --- Critical thinking
Keen hiker, runner and soccer player (informal level).
Passionate reader of classics and manga.

Focus on your academic skills. Stress the suitability of your background and your likelihood of success in any program. That is how you will be judged. For undergraduate admissions it can be a bit different (in the US, anyway), but not for doctoral study. Stick to business.

The other things may save you when you are in the process, but that is a personal thing you can draw on. Your SoP should be strongly oriented toward your expectations for the future and your willingness to work hard to get there.

But in some fields teamwork may be very essential. But don't just say you are a valuable team member. List team projects you were on that were successful.

Many of the other things are assumed. If you weren't curious, for example, you wouldn't be applying in the first place.


Will taking a gap year after my Master's degree improve or degrade my potential of doing a PhD? I am starting a Master's conversion course (in Computing and IT Management) but I am still very unsure about all of the details about doing a PhD such as where and what I want to do it in. Some programs require that you have you Master's certificate to hand when applying too, and I haven't even started my MSc yet.

I was thinking of taking a gap year after the MSc to continue my entrepreneurial activities and goals, to find some temp/contractual work and to give myself more time to apply to PhD applications.

Would this be beneficial or detrimental to my applications and academic prospects?

If you're using the gap year to get real-life work experience, it will improve your potential to do a PhD. The reason is simply that you'll have a clearer idea of why you're going to grad school.

I've seen many students who weren't ready to be adults even at the end of their undergraduate degree. They were heavily sheltered by their parents, and never had to worry about things like money. When money isn't an issue, university becomes something to be attempted because it's there. The post-undergraduate job search becomes heavily intimidating, and going to grad school the easy way out. So they end up in grad school with no real idea why they're there.

Real-life work experience goes a very long way to broadening one's world view. You'll learn what's needed to succeed, what's needed to be able to afford a house/car/spouse/children. You'll learn that you only have so much time to spare and that grad school might not be worth it. And if you do choose to go to grad school after all, you'll have a much clearer idea what exactly you want out of it. Since motivation is a key factor in any endeavor, this improves your ability to complete the PhD.

Only drawback is, it's my impression that grad schools like to admit starry-eyed students who're doing PhDs because they want to become professors. Having different career goals isn't fatal to your application, but you might have to modify your statement of purpose somewhat.


Could faculty members earn a degree while being employed? Is it possible for faculty members to enrol themselves for a degree while being employed? I have seen professors attending classes occasionally, but how about earning a full degree?

I guess this may not be an issue within a university, but what if the professor wants to earn the degree with another university in the same city, for example?

In France, it is possible, in particular in order to get the "Habilitation à diriger des recherches (HDR)", which is a degree one can get after a PhD, and that demonstrates the ability to fully supervise a PhD student.
It is required in order to apply for a full professorship position.

In order to get the HDR, the lecturer must write a thesis and defend it in front of a committee, and needs to enroll in a university (and therefore is a student), usually the one where she is working (but I don't think it is required). Note that for the HDR, there is no class or lectures to attend, only the thesis to write.


Why shouldn't I quote famous scientists in my SOP? In one of Ben Bitdiddle's comment, he confirms that quoting famous scientists in the SOP is generally bad. But I don't know why. Isn't SOP the place to tell our stories, our inspirations, our motivations, our goals, etc? We scientists, who incur ourselves to solve the hardest problems of the world, are inspired by giant scientists, don't we? So I don't know why...

Thank you for answering my question. I get that a SOP "is forward-looking, not about your childhood". But the quote is not necessary to be something like:  "The purpose of anthropology is to make the world safe for human differences.". I hereby have two questions:

Does that mean we should definitely get rid all things from our past? Not even a paragraph? I have read some samples, many of them start with "I remember the day as if it were yesterday...".
Also, what if the quote I'm about to use is not relevant to any specific field, for example when I want to write down this quote because I want to change field? "Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change". (I can say that I'm not intelligent, but I really want to change the field - this is just an example). This kind of quote is the results of real scientific activities, it applies for every aspect of life, not an inspiration from pop science books.

I know what makes me confuse now. I was mistaken the SOP to the applicant essay. When I search for the sample SOP in my native language, someone has put the 50 best Harvard applicant essays with the title 50 best SOP. After searching it again by English, I acknowledge where I'm wrong. Thank you so much for helping me.

A statement of purpose is forward-looking. It is not meant to be, to paraphrase Wordsworth, "recollections of early childhood." I don't really care why you decided to study mathematics when you were seven years old, nor do I care about some generic quote from a scientist that inspired you. I want to know what you might want to study as a PhD student, and why you are motivated to study that specific project.

If a famous scientist said something relevant about your proposed project, that's a different story, because it's actually significant to what you want to do in the future. Otherwise, leave it out—it just annoys most of the referees who will eventually read it.


How do you deal with many many authors for many sections and equally many subsections in a collection? I have found one source which is a collection which contains several hundreds of subsections with easily 100 authors I presume. It's a textbook on synthetic material.

The bean counter I am, I initially tried to incorporate every single author of every (sub)(sub)section of the book because unfortunately Springer, the publisher, only listed the authors for each chapter. The DOI import does not work on any level below. Just to make it clear for everyone's sanity: I only cited the collection so far and do not intend to work in the other authors by hand.

If you were to take on the task to simply enter any info of every author for his/hers contribution into your literature database (not your paper/essay's or thesis' bibliography), how would you do that? Note it all down by hand in your favorite literature management software or do you have some tricks?

In most cases, one of the following possibilities would be appropriate:

Cite the whole book, e.g., like this:

  A. Smith and B. Doe (editors.), Recent Advances on Synthetic Materials (Springer, New York, 2014)

Your citation manager should provide a data type for this (in BibTeX this is BOOK). In this case, you only give the editors and not every single author.

You should only cite a whole collection for purposes of providing a broader scope for your work, e.g., in the introduction.
Cite one article, e.g., like this:

  C. Foo and D. Bar, Synthetic Materials and You, in Recent Advances on Synthetic Materials, edited by A. Smith and B. Doe (Springer, New York, 2014), pp. 123–145.

Again, your citation manager should provide a data type for this (in BibTeX this is INCOLLECTION). In this case you give the authors of the relevant section and the editors (depending on the journal style).

This is what you should do if you are referencing a result or similar from an article in this collection.

  If you were to take on the task to incorporate every author for his/hers contribution, how would you do that?

Even if I somewhat came to the conclusion that (contrary to the above) citing every author were appropriate, I would not implement this, simply because no journal, supervisor, etc. will print or accept such a citation and it would be a waste of time.


Research plan without a specific goal? In order to apply for studying abroad (writing my M.Sc. thesis) I need to write a research plan. However, I only know the approximate research field, e.g. "program analysis for concurrent software", but I was not assigned an actual topic or specific goal yet.

How am I supposed to write a research plan without knowing any more details? I'm completely inexperienced regarding such paperwork (never had to do it before), therefore I relied on templates and guides I found on the internet, but they all assume you already know a specific goal.

What am I supposed to write in this case? Is there some outline I can use as an orientation?

I had an experience with along these lines from the other side recently, working with a student to write a plan for the research that he would be doing under me during a three-month visit.  We had to be ultra-specific in order to meet visa requirements, but the project had a lot of uncertainties in it.
In fact, however, the challenge of writing a specific research statement was quite useful for making sure we thought a bit more in advance and were able to get a fast start once my student arrived.

I would recommend getting in touch with the person that you are expected be working with abroad, and set up a time to talk (Skype, Gchat, whatever) about some more specific goals.  Some good examples of starting points for a discussion:

Are there particular types of analysis technique that are likely to be used?
Are there particular pieces of software that are likely to be good test cases?
What is the goal? Do you want to find security issues, bugs, inefficiencies, usability, portability, robustness, something else?  Or are you just trying to exercise the scalability of the techniques?
What are some intermediate checkpoints that you can use to know if you are making progress towards your thesis?  What should be done in 1 month? 3 months? 6 months?

It's OK if the answers change while you're there.  Everybody understands that research is research and that things may change.  But going in with a concrete plan will help a lot in making good use of your time, in understanding whether something has changed, and if so what you want to do about it.

And if the potential supervisor abroad can't make time for a meeting with you?  Then maybe you should rethink whether this would be the right place to go...


Number of academics in various EU countries This press release by an Italian union mentions a huge difference between the number of academic positions in various countries:

  Per fare solo un esempio, sul personale, a fronte dei circa 50.000 docenti universitari nel nostro Paese, ce ne sono circa 250.000 in Germania, 200.000 nel Regno Unito, 95.000 in Spagna, 80.000 in Francia e analoghe differenze si verificano rispetto al personale tecnico e amministrativo.

My translation:

  As an example, let's mention personnel: corresponding to about 50,000 university professors in our country [Italy], there are about 250,000 in Germany, 200,000 in the United Kingdom, 95,000 in Spain, 80,000 in France, and there are similar differences regarding clerks and technicians.

Are these numbers accurate? Do they compare apples to apples? For instance, as far as I understand, many PhD students in Germany are employed as "Wimi"s and would probably be counted as "academic personnel", while in Italy they are still considered students and they would not fit in the same category.

Regarding Italy, this 2018 press release by the Italian ministry of education shows that in 2017 there were 54,235 academic positions in Italy, counting only professors and junior positions, both temporary and tenure-track (Professore ordinario, professore associato, ricercatore a tempo indeterminato, ricercatore a tempo determinato). This excludes postdoc grants (13,946) and all PhD students (9,288 in 2017 according to another source).

Where can I find similar breakdowns regarding Germany, UK, or other countries?

The data is roughly accurate for France. The French ministry's HR department releases data periodically, and one of the latest report (2017-2018) is available there: http://cache.media.enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr/file/statistiques/62/3/Note_NP_2017_2018_1146623.pdf

In summary, in 2018, there were 81,563 teachers in French public universities. This includes 62,491 permanent positions (full professors, lecturers, and full-time tenured teachers), and 19,072 non-permanent. Of these, 7110 are PhD students with teaching duties, and 4500 are "ATER" (a kind of "postdoc", it's complicated). Depending on how you want to count what, the 80k figure is probably overestimated if you exclude PhD students and postdocs, but it's in the ballpark.


Journal unsatisfied with revisions after acceptance, author proofs and copyright We recently had a c.s. theory / networks paper accepted at a special issue after addressing a major revision.  After we got the letter of acceptance, author proofs, signed the copyright release, etc., we got a letter saying

  the paper was inadvertently marked as "Accepted" which was not the decision of the guest editors of the special issue. Apologies for the confusion.

They then ask us to strengthen our revisions to the same reports we responded to before:

  Please understand that although we believe that you made a considerable effort in revising your manuscript, we think that reviewers' comments 5, 8, 9, and 11 require further attention.

But they misinterpret what the referees want in those points.  One example is that the referee originally asks

  Why not use testbed experiment to evaluate it?

(we have given reasons in our paper why testbed experiments are not necessary) but the editor writes

  the reviewers ask to perform testbed experiments

They close with

  If the paper is successfully revised and the reviews are positive, then it could be accepted and appear in a later addendum to the special issue.

In short, the editors claim to have accidentally pressed "accept" and then forgotten about our paper for 2 months while it went through the editorial and publishing process, and that we have not met the reviewer's demands, which the editor has clearly misinterpreted.

How do we proceed in a way that ensures our fair treatment and, ultimately, the publication of our paper at this journal?

Unfortunately, these things do happen sometimes, and there's not much you can do about it.  If the journal does not want to publish your paper yet, there's not much you can do to get it to publish your paper without carrying out the revisions that they request.  At least they caught their mistake before it was actually published, unlike in this case at PLOS ONE, so you don't have a retraction on your record.

I would suggest you treat this just as any other request for revision: improve the paper and hope that the next revision is sufficient for publication.


Want to add new data to my recently submitted paper I recently submitted my manuscript to Journal of optics (IOP Publishing). Unfortunately,I noticed that I forgot to add one specific figure to the paper. The general quality of the manuscript is good. I was wondering if I would be able to add that figure maybe in the revision process. Do you think reviewers suggest a major revision or a minor one, or maybe a reject and resubmit? The exact question is that to what extent one can modify his/her manuscript while it is considered a minor change and hopefully an acceptance? (Is just adding a figure a big change?)
Thank you for your time and consideration.

As long as your paper is under revision, you can improve things.  Those improvements are not limited to those suggested by the reviewers, however:

The improvements should not change the nature of the paper too much, or you will annoy editor and reviewers.  Make sure they haven't wasted their time by reading the first edition.
Make clear that you have made this addition.  Some reviewers may only look at alterations based on their own recommendations, rather than re-reading the whole paper from start to end.

Once your paper is accepted, you can no longer add new data, text, or figures.


Using a time budget for a class I teach at a school where the department has a strong expectation that a graduate or undergraduate course should require 45 hours of work per credit hour. For example, a 3-hour course should take 135 hours; say, 45 hours of lecture and the rest for readings and assignments. (The formal requirement is that 75% of students should be able to complete the work in that amount of time.)

At another school, the expectation for a class was 60 hours of work per credit hour. Furthermore, some professors took that requirement very seriously (including a time budget in the syllabus), whereas others took quite a cavalier attitude (“Do you want to be in graduate school or don't you?”). Of course, some classes take less than the allotted time.

At another school, I don't think I ever heard about a particular expectation, except perhaps an estimate of two hours of homework for one hour of lecture.

Given the range of variation, I wondered if there was any consistency of expectations across universities (say, in the United States, at the graduate and undergraduate level). Alternately, is there any pedagogical research that would inform either an instructor's or a department's policy about such matters?

The numbers you reported are exceedingly common in US higher Ed. What is strange is that you reported semester totals rather than weekly totals.

It is common in US higher ed that for every hour of class time a student will spend 2-3 hours studying and completing assignments outside of class. Therefore, if there is 45 hours of  lecture in a course there would be anywhere of 45*2=90 to 45*3 = 135 hours of individual study time for the same course.

The first example in your question requires 2 hours of study for every hour of lecture (45 lecture hours + (45 * 2 individual study)  = 135 total hours). The second example requires 180 hours of total time (45 lecture hours + (45 * 3 individual study)  = 180 total)


Female students coming to office hours in overly revealing clothing [because this is potentially relevant, I'm a 37 y/o male]

Being the end of the semester, I've had a bunch of students come to my office hours to ask questions about things I'm responsible for. Among them, there have been a small number of female undergrads that have shown up wearing the kind of clothing that I think is inappropriate for a meeting with a faculty member. I'm not a prude (I hope), but I feel there is something amiss when a 20 y/o undergrad wants to discuss course validation from a neighboring university and then she goes and sits in front of me wearing booty shorts and a very see-through t-shirt (or a tanktop so skimpy that half her bra shows no matter what, or... take your pick). Before someone says anything to the effect, yes, it's summer, but it is not that warm (we're having a nice 20-25 C average these days).

In short, how can I tell these women, politely, that they should think twice about showing up half naked to meetings with faculty members?

Note that I'm not implying that I'm feeling sexually harassed or anything along those lines. Without getting into details, I'm old enough and happily married enough that I don't find college girls sexually appealing anymore. What I'm looking for is a way of telling them meetings with people higher up in the hierarchy have implicit standards, including some pertinent to what you may and may not wear that doesn't sound like a crude rephrasing of oh please why don't you cover up you filthy [censored].

Does your institution have a student dress code?
Does your location have public indecency laws?

If their clothing violates either, refuse meetings until the problem is corrected.

Otherwise, ignore their appearance and carry on as usual.

Their sense of appropriate dress is clearly different from yours, but like political or religious opinions, such senses are often personal and cultural.  For all you know, a bikini is her preferred set of comfortable clothing.  Without a clear agreed-upon set of rules to defer to, such opinions are unproductive to dispute.  Let it be.


Referring students to external resources I am a grad student and this is my first time as TA for a course which requires me to grade essays. I usually grade assignments with more objective answers (think late undergrad science labs). A problem I have been facing while grading these is whether or not I should refer external resources to these students like Mendeley or Grammarly.

The course is a very introductory course with mostly freshmen taking it. It is very evident that a lot of these students don't know how and where to cite their work. The instructor has provided them with links to read about the citation style. I usually leave comments telling them where a citation might be needed but there are wrong ways of citing which I see often (like putting page numbers in APA citations for everything, not just quotes). I provide them with a link to our University's guide, but sometimes I feel like it would be much more useful to the students if they learnt how to use Mendeley (or any other reference management software for that matter), but I am not sure if it is right to do so.

Another important thing that I also come across very frequently is that since there are a lot of international students in the class, for whom English might not be the first language, they have very poor grammar. I usually point them to our university's academic skills centre but since usually there are points for grammatical correctness and writing style, I hate it when they lose points for something they can't do anything about. They are freshmen who probably haven't had enough time to learn the language yet I think. I would like to point them to Grammarly, but again, that might become an easy way out for them and might not be the right thing to do.

What is the best idea in this kind of situation? Is it usually okay or even allowed to point them to these kinds of resources?

Citation

Citations are important. It's usually going to take several classes to teach undergrads how to do it properly.

"The professionals" (i.e. career academics) use tools, like Mendeley and BibTex; it's perfectly alright for students to learn to do it too. Actually, writing a long paper without a reference manager is a really bad idea. You're going to make more mistakes doing it by hand. And f you have to change style, you're in trouble if you have to do that by hand. For example, if you submitted a paper to one journal but get rejected, and want to submit to a different journal that requires a different citation format. If you use a reference manager then changing all your references can be done relatively easily.

But to use tools correctly, you do have to have an understanding of the underlying process. So you should also require the students to be able to apply a citation by hand, if required.

I would say that this calls for a two-part exercise, first learning to apply two different citation styles by hand ("Cite this journal paper, proceedings paper and book according to standard X, then according to standard Y"), and then as a second exercise using a tool ("Enter the data, then export a reference according to standard X, then export according to standard Y"). So instead of just pointing out the existence of these tools, actually push your students to learn to use them.

Grammar

It feels childish to grade academic content for langue: it ought to be substance over form. But in the real world, form matters. Consider what could happen if an article is written poorly:

It may be hard to read. Fewer busy academics will read it.
It may be hard to understand. Will convince fewer academics of your ideas.
It may be misunderstood.
What the text actually ends up saying, isn't what the author meant it to say.

All of these are bad, both for the author and the academic community. Good writing isn't a frivolous form over substance thing. It's important.

If the language in a paper is really bad, then that makes the paper bad. Even if the ideas and research were good. The medium fails the message.

  I usually point them to our university's academic skills centre but since usually there are points for grammatical correctness and writing style, I hate it when they lose points for something they can't do anything about.

Yes, they can do something about it (avail themselves of the academic skills centre, get language training). And they have to, in order to graduate as good academics. By subtracting points for poor language you're pushing them in the direction where they need improvement.

(Nobody said it was going to be fun. It's good to be compassionate; it's not good to shield people from the push they need to improve.)

So what does that mean for tools like Grammarly? Well, it's good to support yourself with tools, but if you have a serious deficiency in English then the tool isn't going to fix that.

I would say discuss the tool in class:

Why is good language important? (So that people understand you and take you seriously.)
What can the tool do for you? (Catch common mistakes, signal bad style, find things you overlooked.)
What are the limitations of the tool? (Generally tools have trouble when you meant A, but wrote syntactically correct B. Computers are good at doing what we say, not what we meant.)
What can you do if the tool is not enough for you? (How to evaluate if you have a deficiency, what can you do to fix a deficiency?)


Concerned about REU eligibility given new graduation plans My school recently developed a 1-year, intensive Masters program in Mathematics following the typical undergraduate B.A. In an effort to get more experience with more advanced math, I've decided to participate in the program. However, I've been told several times that I should apply for and (if accepted) participate in a summer REU. Yet, in order to work on my Masters, I must officially graduate from undergrad, which (I think) renders me ineligible for many (if not all) REUs.

Without an REU, I am concerned how my overall profile for graduate school admissions will be negatively effected. I have some modest research experience and possibly will have a paper published with a professor (though that is TBD). Between the summer of my junior and senior year then, what can I do to stay productive in math? How can I continue to better myself as a candidate for graduate school? Am I correct in assuming that I am now completely ineligible for REUs?

Thank you for your time.

Some research experience for undergraduate (REU) programs are available to students who have recently graduated. Therefore, while programs are by no means as plentiful as for enrolled undergraduates, they are still out there, and you can avail yourself of the opportunity to participate in one of those programs.

However, the important point is that you show participation in research; the mechanism is usually of lesser importance. The REU just might be the most convenient way to do that in mathematics.


What are some good things to make explicit between a student and his supervisor when beginning a PhD? This question is motivated by the fact that my last research internship was unsatisfactory in my relation with my supervisor. Partly because of me, I may have tried to be too much autonomous, rarely coming to him or sharing what I was doing or reading and never asking feedback. We didn't produce much and by the end he shared with me his disappointment, which strangely was a bit surprising to me, I was blind to the situation and our lack of exchange.

Now, I'm about to start my PhD with a totally new supervisor, and I'd like to learn from this mistake. I'm deeply convinced that the experience will be much more fulfilling for both sides if we maintain stimulating exchanges.

I was thinking about having from the beginning a long discussion about his expectation from me on short, mid and long term, his availability and the way he would like to supervise and push me.

Is this irrelevant or too much? Have you already had similar discussions? Have you tried something else?

Having a discussion about the PhD project specifically and expectations in general is always a good idea. If there is a clear project lined up it will be useful to discuss the details, possible directions, publications etc. In some cases (systems/programs/traditions) it is useful (in fact mandatory) to write a research plan or to write a review of the field as part of reading up on it. It is necessary that both you and the advisor has the same view of what should be achieved to the extent the specific program allows.

Apart from the science it is useful to discuss expectations so that you can agree on how work should proceed. Should you meet regularly? if so how often? How much feedback should you expect? Well the questions are many but having such a discussion is useful, particularly if you can also note what you agree upon on a piece of paper. In my country, one actually signs an individual study plan that is followed up annually showing progress in terms of course work and research. having such a plan is actually constructive in that it makes it possible to see if you are on track and also identify if and when your plan needs revisions and goals may deviate from the originally proposed. But, of course, all this is something which to some extent is dictated by the traditions in the specific program.

So do take the opportunity to have a good talk about the future collaboration. you will robably sense if the discussion is received well by the advisor and adapt accordingly.


How many free copies of a textbook is a publisher typically willing to provide? Normally I teach a single section with 10-15 students, and a single copy is sufficient.  This class will have 3 sections of about 20 students each.  FWIW, I am in the United States.

I am considering changing textbooks for an introductory class.  A problem is that none of the TAs and tutors already have this textbook, and our department funds are limited.

How many free desk copies is a publisher usually willing to provide?

You have to understand that in the undergraduate textbook market, the publishers are competing intensely for textbook adoptions and will do what it takes to make the sale. (This is not so much the case for e.g. the monographs that might be used in graduate courses). The marginal cost of production of an additional book is very low, people who get desk copies were quite unlikely to purchase for their own use, and so it costs the publisher very little to give out desk copies ad libitum.

At my large R1 school we have different TAs for our intro classes every quarter; sometimes ten or more of them. We have no problem getting desk copies for each TA.


Which affiliation should I use? I am a postdoc working in one university till 1. July. I am leaving for another university after that. During my stay at my current work, I wrote a paper as a first author for a conference that will kick off in September.

Which affiliation should I use? Taking into account that the conference travel will be covered by the new employer, however, the paper is written at my current university.

By reading this article, it looks like using the two affiliations is one approach. But I'm not quite sure if the new employer will be happy with this.

You are conflating funding sources with affiliations when they should be discussed separately.

The affiliations tell you where the work was performed. The work was performed at the old institution, so it must be listed as an affiliation, and should be the primary affiliation. If you have done work on the presentation at the new institution—for instance, used your research time to prepare the presentation and rehearse it in front of colleagues—then you can list the new institute as an additional affiliation. It should be listed as a "current address" in any event.

As for the funding issue, since they're providing the resources for you to travel, it can be acknowledged when listing anybody else who sponsored the research alongside those other sources.


Using a figure from a journal article on a personal website I'm writing an article on a personal website and in some of the reference material that I'm already citing, there are a few good figures that I'd like to include in the article.

This is probably a silly question but I'm wondering if this is allowed under copyright laws. Specifically, if I cite the original paper/source, would I be violating any copyright laws? Should I be contacting the authors of the paper for permission?

It's probably a copyright violation if you don't get permission. It's also probably covered under Fair Use laws in the US, but Fair Use is a defense against a lawsuit not a thing that prevents people from suing you, so you might be subject to a whole range of legal trouble starting with a DMCA takedown request and extending through a to lawsuit. You might win all these situations, but you might be out tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

If you want to use it with permission, you should contact the copyright holder. Find the copyright statement on the first page of the journal article or in the front matter of the book, e.g. "©1995 Elsevier" or whoever, and contact them. If it's a big publisher, they probably have a use, licensing, or copyright clearance web page for requesting permission to reproduce small parts of works they own. In many if not most cases, the author is the wrong person to contact since they likely transferred the copyright to the publisher as part of their publication agreement. Usually, especially for academic works, the license to use a figure for academic/commentary purposes will be free.

If the copyright is held by a university or the author(s) personally, you might start with an author. They might be willing to give you permission directly if they can.


Citing in a research paper when the citation is based on an published interview What is the correct way to quote a person in an academic research paper when that person has said something in an interview? Many professors are considered as experts on their own fields, and hence are often interview by news papers on recent events that are related to their research. If I want to quote this professor in my research paper for what he has said in his comments in the published interview, and want to do so on multiple ocations, what is the correct way to quote after the first occasion, i.e. am I right in writing Professor X (2016), when in fact the source where Professor X has given his comment is written by Reporter Y, or is it enough to simply give the link to the original source in the references section?

Citing an interview is pretty standard, though every citation style will format it a little differently.  For example, here is how it is done in MLA style.  A little Googling will find it for any other style that you may happen to be using.


Can an author refer to work they did jointly using the first person? I wrote a paper with a collaborator. The collaborator wrote a followup paper where they referred to their work in that paper in the first person, i.e. "in a previous paper, I presented the idea that...". To be clear, that particular idea really was their idea, not mine.

Is this acceptable, or should they have instead said "we presented the idea that..."? Does it differ between different fields, such as computer science, mathematics, physics, and economics?

In maths you never use the first person singular anyway, so they question as stated does not apply. Also, all work in a paper (in pure maths at least) is understood to be the work of all authors. In fact, it is common to refer to the other paper in the third person, even when the authors are the same.

In short: no, this is not acceptable.


Inability to develop myself when working with strong co-author I've been working with a (very good) co-author in the past. He is better than me at some things, and I'm better than him at others, so working together is great and fun. However, because he is good at X, when I work with him, it just usually turns out that I don't get to develop my skills at working on X (simply because he's faster and can get there before me when I'm still stumbling). I guess in the short run this is fine (because the papers come out faster), but it worries me in the long run.
And, because co-authoring is so fun, I don't get to work on things that I personally really like, because the other thing is taking up all my time.
So, is it possible to work with a co-author and develop my skills, without ignoring my own projects?

In order to develop your personal skills, you need to invest time, and the time that your coauthor spends on solving "your problems" doesn't count. The best way to use your coauthor to improve your skills  is to analyze everything they do and ask questions when you don't understand something. It's like having a free tutor (well, the price being having a coauthor)...


Answering Ambiguous or Outright Preposterous Questions Given the premise of any form of testing is the evaluation of one's knowledge in comparison to the population (i.e. class) as a whole and a set body of knowledge (i.e. syllabus).

How does one approach the issue of answering conceptual questions that are completely groundless in a multiple choice format? I know that as an essay format, one can take positions and point out the flaws in the prompt. But in a format where there is (in theory) always a correct answer, what options does one have?

The following are poor examples, but it summarizes the question succinctly.

  Vaccines cause autism. Studies have shown that Vaccine causes autism.
  When 100 people were surveyed by University X, 98% agreed that V = A.

Question: What causes Autism?

A: Vaccines

B: Genetics

C: Baseball

  The world is flat. If one were to travel too far in any direction, they will fall off the earth.

Question: What will happen if you travel too far East?

A: You will end up on the other side

B: You will fall off

C: Nothing will Happen

Does one exclude the knowledge that they have gained from learning in the greater world and operate within the "confines" of the question, or do they reject the confines and operate on what is and proven at the present?

I asked a friend of mine this question, he/she responded that I had to approach the problem as a logic problem within 'closed system', meaning not to infer any additional knowledge outside the realm of the question.

If one were to approach the problem with the intent of seeking to maximize one's grade, i.e. the choice that will generate a point, then the answer is evident from the examples provided.

If one were to approach the problem with the intent of seeking to answer with the correct answer, i.e. the choice that most accurately reflects a person's belief (or that of society as a whole), then the answer is evident from the examples provided.

But what if the question is political or advocates a hateful rhetoric that is only believed by the question-maker (and therefore the grade-maker)?

If a personal belief is in opposition to the greater whole (i.e. An abolitionist in the South before the US Civil War, learning about social structure) what is the 'correct' answer?

Does the 'closed-system' extend to the class as a whole, irrespective of the outside world, and one's personal beliefs seconded to the beliefs of the grade-maker?

What is the overriding prerogative? Maximizing one's beliefs or grade?

Easy.  Maximize your grade.

You'll have plenty of opportunities in life to influence people and try to reduce the total stupidity in the world.

This is not such an opportunity.

Maximize your grade, if for no other reason than as an interesting puzzle, where you put yourself in the shoes of the idiot who wrote the question, and try to reverse-engineer the question.

You may still not hit the "correct" answer, but you might as well try to solve the puzzle....  Why not?


Program to manage research I'm searching for a PC program, that syncs to the cloud (to Dropbox?), that will allow me comfortable management of PhD research, kind of a digital lab book. That includes -

Comfortably adding daily/weekly progress reports
Organizing material on several projects, including pictures, summaries, presentations and analytical results (build in Latex/Overleaf support?)
optional small calendar/event feature - manage PhD progress reports, talks, travels, etc.
optional link to Mendeley, or comfortable resources management.

Preferably free programs, but not expensive solutions (less than 100$ per year) are welcome as well.
My friends recommended Microsoft OneNote, however it's less comfortable for me.
My field is physics, so biology or other field focused programs are less desirable.

I'm also in physics and I use Notion. It is a web-based platform that allows you to build an entire workspace (some call it a "second brain") and really tailor it to your own needs. It also has an Android and iOS app. You can use it for very basic tasks like to-do lists and notes, but once you get the hang of it you can extend it to manage your whole workflow.
For example, I have a board showing each project as individual cards that can be sorted according to the stage of the project, collaborators, topic etc (you can define all of these tags or categories yourself). Then within each project I have a table for the relevant literature and a work diary (essentially a lab book) where I record all my progress and results. Notion supports inline and block LaTeX equations. It has a calendar feature to record events, and I think you can even set reminders through it, though I haven't tried that. It has a database feature that can do basic operations on the cells and their contents, like Excel. I use this to manage my travel and budget.
For all of these things, you can design your own template (or use one of the many community-created ones), so it's easy to write your daily or weekly report, as you have the template ready every time. You can upload images or add them directly from the web. You can link to any page within your own workspace and embed pdfs or other websites on any of your pages.
You can add collaborators to individual pages or the whole workspace. Overall, the whole thing is really well designed and maintained, and so many features have been added in the year or so I've been using it that I'm sure I've missed most of them in my description here. In my opinion, it blows any other competitor out of the water.
The best part? It's free.
Hopefully this doesn't read like a spam answer -- I'm not a paid promoter of Notion! I just really enjoy using it, and it is the first tool I've ever used that has actually resulted in me becoming more productive.


Why do W (i.e., Withdrawn) grades exist? At American colleges and universities, it is nearly universally the case, to the best of my knowledge, that students who choose to withdraw from a course after a short window early in the semester receive a grade of W on their transcript for that course. Generally this grade does not affect the GPA directly, but these W's have direct effects in that they may damage on students' academic standing or financial aid, prevent dean's listing, etc. Probably more importantly, they have indirect effects that people reading a student's transcript may assume a W indicates the student would have earned a very low grade had they finished the course.
Having discussed this with some colleagues, I've had trouble generating arguments in favor of this system. There would be obvious benefits to students of allowing withdrawals not to appear on the transcript. I would argue there would be advantage to professors and universities as well, as students would have less intense pressure to succeed in a course on the first try, thus reducing some pressure on professors to dumb courses down. The best argument I can generate in favor of W's is that they encourage students to commit to their courses, and in particular not to play the lottery in the same course over and over in hopes of getting an easy instructor. But such lottery-playing would be plainly visible in a long time-to-degree, so I don't see that the W does much but add insult to injury here.
What is the fundamental justification universities use for this system?

Like most administrative things which don't seem to make sense, it boils down to accounting and financial aid. Students can take federal financial aid and withdraw from individual classes provided they maintain at least half time status. There are a bunch of caveats & rules and making sure everyone's complying and not accidentally (or intentionally) embezzling requires record keeping.
https://studentaid.unc.edu/special-circumstances/withdrawing-dropping-classes-and-underloads/

Dropping a course after University census date will generally result in receiving a withdrawal indicator of “W” on your transcript.  If you had already received your financial aid for the term, this generally will not result in a change to your financial aid, so long as you do not withdraw from all classes.

https://sfa.osu.edu/contact-us/consumer-disclosure/drop-and-withdrawal

Most financial aid will not be adjusted for hour drops after the Student Financial Aid census date. All hours for which you are enrolled as of the fourth Saturday of the term or which you schedule thereafter, will be counted as “hours attempted” for determination of whether you are making Satisfactory Academic Progress for financial aid.

There's no other long term way to prove that the initial financial aid disbursement was correct than a transcript imo and any alternative will just be more complicated and probably screw people years down the line.


mailing list for local conferences Often I learn about conferences, even in my own country, when it is too late to submit papers. Is there a mailing list, or another way to get information about conferences in a specific location and domain?

EDIT: I am mainly interested in computer science and game theory.

There is a wiki devoted to call for papers (http://www.wikicfp.com/cfp/).

Googling can help you find earlier editions of conferences and so forth. Make a list of the ones relevant for you and when they occur – each edition of a conference will occur at the same time of year. Keep this list on your wall, perhaps sorted by month of conference (or better, month of deadline). Google will help find the current edition.


Where can I find the Impact Factor for a given journal? As from title. Not all journals provide the impact factor on their homepage. For those who don't where can I find their impact factor ?

If your institution has a subscription to Journal Citation Reports (JCR), you can check it there. Try this URL:

https://jcr.clarivate.com


Is my professor allowed to change the day the class meets and mark us absent if we don't show? I have a Wednesday Friday gym class that meets at 7 am. Lately the professor has been changing the class to meeting on Mondays instead of Wednesdays because she has stuff come up on Wednesdays. I don't think this is allowed but nobody else seems bothered by it. If you don't show up to the class you get an absent which takes points off your grade, the only way you get out of this is if you have proof that you have class or work. One time she changed the class to Monday instead of Friday, she didn't tell us this until the Sunday before at 11 am. She then marked the people who didn't show up absent when that is not enough time to tell a class to meet. Is this allowed? I feel like it shouldn't be allowed since class is on the days aloted, even when a school changes class days (I.e Wednesdays become Thursday classes) they aren't allowed to mark you as absent so why should my professor be allowed to? Please let me know what you guys think, thank you.

Policies regarding what an instructor can, and cannot do, in a course tend to vary largely by institution, and even by department. It sounds to me like your best course of action is to politely raise your concerns to your professor, and see how she responds. It's possible that she's not aware of how her policies are inconveniencing her students, and if you explain why the policy is making it difficult for you to succeed and get the most out of the course, she may adjust accordingly. Note that if multiple students are being inconvenienced by this, it may be a good idea to discuss your concerns with the professor together (note that I didn't say you should tell the professor that other students agree with you, but rather that you should raise your concerns to her with your peers).

If you feel as though your concerns are not being heeded, then you may have to just deal with it as best you can until the semester ends. In my experience, professors tend to have a great deal of liberty in how they administer their policies, and there typically isn't much a student can do to challenge them. If it really becomes a problem, you could always discuss (again, politely) your concerns with your advisor, the department chair, or your school's ombudsman.


Should I say something to an undergraduate research assistant who isn't really working full time? I'm supervising an undergraduate research assistant this summer, who I hired for a full time position. There are several other full time research assistants in the lab, who work about 35-45 hours a week (specific hours of their choice).

This one student works about 25. He isn't unusually productive, either, and doesn't seem to be learning as much as the students who are actually working approximately full time. He isn't terribly behind, but I am sure he would make more progress on his project and have a better chance of finishing it by the end of the summer if he actually worked full time. (I designed the project so that it could reasonably be expected to be completed over the course of the summer by an undergrad working about 35-40 hours a week.)

Should I have a conversation with him about his working hours? If so, how to do it without sounding like a jerk?

Should I have a conversation with him about his working hours?

Yes! He gets paid to do a job. He doesn't do the job. You need to talk to him, even though it's an uncomfortable situation. Also, you say in a comment:

  Because the general culture in academia tends to be more like, "Work as many or as few hours as you want as long as you get your work done."

This is true, but you say that he does not get his job done. Frankly, if he only works like 25 hours, even if he would be supremely productive I would still talk to him about his work ethics if he puts in so much less hours than his peers... and if he is not it's all the more reason to make sure that he at least tries as hard as the others.

If you don't, the problem is going to be that sooner rather than later many of the 45-hours students are going to wonder why the heck they are actually not enjoying the summer. I have seen in my current group that various bad habits have a tendency to spread like wildfire if the students have the impression that not doing your job isn't in any way frowned upon anyway.

  If so, how to do it without sounding like a jerk?

In private, without getting emotional or accusatory. Tell him that you have the impression that he works considerably below the amount that was agreed upon, and that you have to ask him to change this. Tell him that you have the impression that his project is not progressing fast enough, and what will happen if he can't get it done in time (you have some course of action in this case, right?). Be prepared that he may counter with some sort of attack against you. For instance, this is a classic in such situations: "Well, since you never have time for me, I don't know what to do half of the time anyway - so rather than just sit around I leave". Make sure that you have a good answer in this case.


Completed writing a first author paper, not submitted Hello so i completed a first author paper that has been revised with my PI. I have left for grad school without the final version submitted to a journal.
What happens now? Can the paper be submitted? Canned?  Should i expect to see it submitted?  Or should i kiss it goodbye?

In my field (Mol Biol/Genomics) I'd say most papers are submitted after the first author has left, as grants/studentships don't generally last long enough to complete a project and get the manuscript submitted.
In theory there is nothing to stop you submitting the paper without an affiliation. In practice it will be much more convenient if the paper is submitted by your PI, who would presumably agree to pay any charges associated.


How to read research papers? I am reading some papers from Arxiv which were advised by a professor. Also the papers are published by a professors. My question is as follows: How to prove the professor that I have read the paper (advised by him)? Actually, I don't want to say just "sir, I have read the paper advised by you". If I truly read the papers then I might get a chance to be research student under him.
Please advise me.

If you want to prove that you read a paper, you should read it carefully by analyzing the main results and identify the contribution. You should also understand why a hypothesis is made and whether if it is optimal or not. Sometimes you might find some errors or improve some results. In this way, you can prove that you truly read a research paper.


Is it always necessary to include a research question in the introduction of a paper? A question purely out of interest (and a bit of importance, since I'm enrolling in a research master program next month):

I wondered whether it is always necessary to include a research question in the introduction of a paper. For example, an introduction can also contain a description related to the purpose of writing the paper, right?

To give my question more context: suppose that you had to carry out a literature study on a specific subject in the field of software engineering for school, where you have to investigate a few methods (how they work and how they are related to one another). In this case, an introduction that explains why the paper will be written and an outline of what methods will be described would be sufficient, right? Or am I wrong? I mean, I don't really see the need to set up a research question, since the paper is more descriptive by its nature in this situation.

If you are writing a research paper it is quite difficult not to have a question in some form. The purpose of the introduction is to set your study (question/gap of knowledge or what have you) in perspective, to narrow the focus down from a slightly bigger picture to the gap you are trying to fill or narrow even further with your study. Even if your paper is a review, you are doing a review for some specific purpose.

So, you may be thinking too narrowly if you think of a question as a sentence with a question mark, the focus of your paper will be your research question, usually a gap in knowledge where you through your study takes our knowledge beyond the current limits.


What should I do if I don't know the answer to a question posed by a student? If I am the TA for a class, what should I do if a student asks me a question which I can't answer? While "tell the truth and say you don't know" is one approach, are there other options?

I agree that honesty is the best policy, and it's too bad if you're in a situation in which you feel worried about admitting you don't know the answer.  You shouldn't try to bluff, by pretending you know but don't have time to explain or by giving an intentionally vague answer.  However, there are ways of handling it more smoothly than just saying "I don't know" and leaving it at that.  Depending on the circumstances, you can say "That's a really interesting question.  I haven't thought about it, so I'll have to look into it, but let's talk about it in office hours."  (Or you can promise to return to the topic in the next class meeting if it's really relevant to the course and everyone in the class will want to know the answer.)  Or "These issues can be complicated.  I don't know the details off the top of my head, but the place I'd look them up is Reference Work X.  I'd be happy to show you where to find it after class."  Or "That's a good question, but it's somewhat beyond the scope of this class.  I'd be happy to investigate it with you outside of class."

The key is to respect the student's desire to learn.  If you avoid the question or give an answer you know is inadequate, then you're being deliberately unhelpful.  If you just give up and admit defeat, then at least you're being honest, but the student still isn't finding out what he/she wanted to know.  If you respond by pointing the student on the road to an answer, even if you can't supply it off the top of your head, then you've done everything that can be expected of you.