Handling Disruptive Student on the Autism Spectrum I have a student who's on the autistic spectrum. He exhibits several disruptive behaviors in class, such as

Inability to moderate his volume/interjections: he will shout out questions and comments irrespective of whether others are speaking (be it myself or other students).
Unintentionally mocking other students: when other students ask questions, he will sometimes say things like "you should know this stuff by now!"
Physically inappropriate behavior: he will lie down on the floor in front of his seat, or sneeze loudly. He will sit in the front row and at times pick up stuff from my table (e.g. my notes or my markers) and play with them.

I recognize that he cannot control most of these things, and that they're not done with ill intent. Thus, my inclination is to handle it in a more forgiving manner than I would a normal disruptive student, but this is not a straightforward solution. First, there are many other students who shouldn't suffer because of one disruptive student. Second, when I do make a harsher comment he often completely shuts down for the rest of the class, which makes me feel really guilty.

The undergraduate office is aware of the situation and has already received numerous complaints from other courses he attended. The problem is that their hands are mostly tied as he is not registered as a special needs student (I'm guessing his parents are refusing to do this for their own reasons), though he is officially diagnosed on the autistic spectrum. Other lecturers have basically been treating him increasingly harshly, or ignoring him.

I am wondering whether anyone here has any experience with these kinds of situations, and how did you approach it. I am more than happy to accommodate him, but would not want to compromise the course quality for everyone else.

Edit: thank you all for the great suggestions. The other question mentioned here is somewhat similar but the behavior pattern strikes me as sufficiently different to warrant a separate discussion. In any case, I have scheduled a personal meeting with him and we’ll try to establish a better interaction dynamic. I will definitely try to strike a positive tone rather than a disciplinary one. He told me his parents will kick him out of the house if I contact them so that’s definitely not happening. The undergraduate office is sympathetic but is limited in what they can do...

Second Edit: I had a talk with the student and things are much better. He’s been a positive force in the class since (albeit a slightly loud one). Thank you for the suggestions!

"they're not done with ill intent"

Although disruptive behaviours by people with autism/autistic people are not done with ill intent, they do usually respond well to clear boundaries and feedback. A useful concept to consider here is Theory of Mind (ToM), something that is almost always impaired in this group.

  Individuals with autism are impaired in ToM; the ability to understand mental states such as thoughts, intentions and beliefs that influence human behavior. ToM is about the mind and how it is needed for all human interactions, such as understanding, explaining, predicting, and manipulating the behavior of others (Adibsereshki et al., 2015)

As the result, firm communication about the impact on others is worthwhile, "I am not sure whether you are aware that I (or X) was speaking, I would like to finish my point please". You should offer explicit, clear boundaries around disruptive behaviours, so consider emailing the appropriate policies and refer to the code of conduct and describe clear behaviours that will result in an escalation process. Avoid irony and sarcasm as concrete and literal thinking is common; ironic/sarcastic negativity may be misinterpreted causing damage to the relationship. Consider asking whether he would like to contact anyone else when you email, which may be a good way to get his parents involved if they are preventing support.

Having said that, praising seems to be effective with people with autism. Praising has been shown to decrease disruptive behaviour in a study of 73 self-contained autism support classrooms (Piotrowski et al). Try to squeeze in as much positive reinforcement on non-disruptive behavior as you can, without being too awkward. Piotroski's study (unpublished) found the minimal increase from 1.3 to 1.7 praises (on average) produced a significant change in disruptive behaviour (p<0.01).

Gelbar, Smith & Reichow (2014) did a systematic review of college support for students with autism. They found 20 articles that had first-hand description of services or experiences of the individuals. "Non-academic" interventions were found in 45%, 9 out of 20 studies examined -

Peer mentorship programs (5 of 9, 56 %)
Assigned  counselors,  aides,  or  liaisons  (5  of  9,  56 %)
Parental involvement (3 of 9, 33 %)
Single instances using  Social  Stories, disability teams, support groups, video modeling and cognitive behavioral interventions were also described.

A study from Belgium which examined over 23 student by Van Hees, Moyson & Roeyers (2015) recommended "more extensive and effective coaching of students with ASD". That the usual "academic" support structures are not sufficient for ASD students, so if coaching is available at your institution, it may be worth making sure that your student and any decision-makers are aware of that useful option.

References:

Adibsereshki, N., Nesayan, A., Asadi Gandomani, R., & Karimlou, M. (2015). The Effectiveness of Theory of Mind Training On the Social Skills of Children with High Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders. Iranian Journal of Child Neurology, 9(3), 40–49.

Gelbar, N. W., Smith, I., & Reichow, B. (2014). Systematic Review of Articles Describing Experience and Supports of Individuals with Autism Enrolled in College and University Programs. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 44(10), 2593–2601.

Piotrowski, Z., Erhart, A., Cidav, Z., Reisinger, E., Locke, J., Downey, M., & Mandell, D. S. (n.d.). The Effects of Increasing Teachers’ Praise-to-Behavior Correction Ratios on Disruptive Behaviors Among Students with Autism. Conference poster.

Van Hees, V., Moyson, T., & Roeyers, H. (2015). Higher Education Experiences of Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Challenges, Benefits and Support Needs. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 45(6), 1673–1688.


strategy of a maths/science chalk talk interview 1.Candidate is to teach 1 out of several topics given. Should there not be any preferrential topic to be taught in the eye of the interviewers? Is there any disadvantage not to choose the hardest topic?

2.In a real classroom, it's better to make the class interactive and ask students to come on the board to solve hands on problems. But as part of the interview, there's little time to do this. I can surely ask quick questions to the audience. How to balance between interactivity and time limit?

If you already know which topic is the most desirable one to the selection committee (perhaps, it's a subject they are not offering right now or willing to commit to a full-time instructor instead of a part-time one), I suggest choosing that topic. Also, if you know that your teaching material and/or approach for a specific topic is relatively unique and could be of interest to students (e.g., applied discussion of theories or real-world case studies), you might go that way. Other than those, I suggest sticking to the topic with which you're most comfortable.
I think Observing time limits during interviews is important and neglecting them could make you nervous. So engaging with the audience is OK as long as you don't waste time or enter into a heated discussion.

Good luck with your interview.


What to do (if something) when someone gets your paper wrong What would be the best approach when a paper gets published referencing a work of yours, with a wrong explanation/assumption.

E.g.

  "The tube lines by [the Mayor of London, 1863] are OK, but can only
  used on Tuesday, so in this work we traveled by cab".

This is clearly a wrong statement, probably formulated due to lack of information. What should one do in these cases, if you were the Mayor of London?
My hunch says just ignore it, but I assume that for young researchers like me (unlike the Mayor of London) this can have a bigger impact, as if the first few references to our work are stating something wrong, people may actually stop using the tube.

If the paper is already published, the only thing you can do is to get the journal to publish a correction. This is usually a huge hassle and only justified in extreme cases such as if the paper under question is mainly a response to yours. Being known as a pain in the posterior is usually much worse than being cited in a misleading way.

You can also use your own future papers to set the record straight. "Contrary to BLAH 2018, BLAH 2016 did not advocate to eat all the cookies". In minor cases, I would not do this either.

Things are of course different if a paper is not yet published, in this case, you can just write a polite email to the authors. Of course, in many fields papers are not circulated early. You can of course also write authors of published papers and correct their misperceptions so that they will not describe your work wrongly in future papers. In any case, be polite and not accusatory.


Receiving comments on one's article After publishing an article, assuming that the publisher doesn't prevent you from sharing an article online in a public place, the authors might want to receive additional feedback.

Are there good online methods for attracting and receiving comments on one's article, in addition to collaborators, reviewers, and emails? If possible the comments should be public so that other people could reply to comments.

I'm aware of three general approaches that seem to be currently effective for seeding such discussion.  Listed in order from most direct to least direct:

Comments hosted by the journal itself: a number of journals that are embracing open science principles are embracing commentary directly.  With this, you don't need to take your article anywhere else for people to comment on it: they can do so right there at the article.  Examples of this approach include PLOS ONE and the Frontiers series.
Some sites, most notably PubPeer, are explicitly intended to support discussion of articles.
If you've got a blog or other social media site, you can also host discussion there.  For some people, this can be very effective, but you generally must already have a significant audience in order for this to be an effective strategy.

In all case, however, it still tends to be difficult to get meaningful discussion going of most articles, since academics don't seem very interested in comments sections unless there's a fight going on...


Citing papers with newer arXiv versions I am writing my Master's thesis on topological quantum field theories, and would like to cite the following paper:

arXiv version: https://arxiv.org/abs/q-alg/9503002
Published version: https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.531236

The published version is from 1995, while on arXiv there are two versions, one from 1995 and one from 2004. Which one of the papers should I cite (published or arXiv)? And how should I cite them?

I think best practice is to include the arxiv identifier for any paper you cite anyway, so the bibliography will include both the publication info and a link to the arxiv.  In that sense you don't have to choose just one.  If it's say in the introduction and you're writing "The stabilization hypothesis was introduced in [BD]" there's no need to specify which version you're referring to.  However, if you want to refer to a specific theorem number then you might want to clarify if the numbering disagrees in the two sources.  Similarly if you want to refer to something that's only in a later revision then you have to be clear.  So you could say "Theorem x from [BD] (which appears only in the arxiv version) says..."


What is a "graduate school"? Specifically, why do some universities have a defined "graduate school" and associated "graduate faculty," with separate appointment process, and some do not, even when they offer many graduate programs?  What is the organizational and administrative thinking behind this?

In US universities, a 'graduate school' is usually an administrative entity that manages all aspects of graduate life. At the University of Utah, for example:

  The Graduate School fosters excellence by providing administrative
  structure and leadership to maintain and enhance graduate education at
  the University of Utah.

  Our programs offer financial assistance, rigorous academic
  opportunities, and professional development to students, staff, and
  faculty.

  We are guided by the principles of quality, diversity, and integrity
  as we help students to prepare themselves for successful, relevant
  careers.

The link posted in the comments suggests that faculty are required to be associated with the grad school in order to function as advisors etc. I think this is also an administrative action, designed to demarcate faculty that can advise students from all the other people who are designated as faculty (for example, adjuncts, research faculty, teaching faculty, and so on).

So there's no academic function associated with the graduate school.

You can think of the graduate school as the university-wide entity that manages the individual chairs of graduate studies at departments.


How to point out a novel conceptualization in a foundations chapter? I am writing the foundations chapter of my thesis. I think I came up with an original conceptualization of the matter that I haven't read anywhere before.
Since a foundations chapter is usually more a survey, I'd like to highlight that fact. How can I phrase this?

A came up with two options:

  The following conceptualization represents the author's individual perspective on the topic.

Isn't that somehow the case for every part of a thesis? Also sounds like a disclaimer.

  In this section, a novel conceptualization of the topic is introduced.

Maybe  better. Or should I simply put it somewhere else, where the fact that I consider it to be a contribution becomes more apparent from the context (location in the thesis)?

Perhaps the best place to announce this would be in the introduction itself. If this novel conceptualization is part of the aims of the thesis -or can be linked to them in some way-, then the aims section would be a good place to say in which chapter the conceptualization is formally presented (perhaps Chapter 3, after the foundations chapter?)

At the end of the Introduction, it is customary in many fields to announce the thesis structure: in Chapter 2 we will be doing this and that, in Chapter 3... etc. I feel a novel conceptualization would also need to be indicated here.

Disclaimer: I have not yet defended my PhD (on the way to it, almost there), so I would appreciate any guidance other, more seasoned, academics could give both of us!


Are postdoctoral scholars considered students or researchers in other countries? I am currently working under a post-PhD (postdoc) scholarship. In my country (Argentina) I am usually considered still a student (although it's kind of a gray area).

In other countries, would I qualify as a student or as a researcher?

In general, if you are not enrolled in any course and also are not enrolled in a program in which you may eventually earn a degree, you are not a "student."


Report blatant self-plagiarism to journal editor or PubPeer? I came across an article by X and Y that is a nearly 100% self-plagiarised from an article by X several years earlier. A couple of words were changed,  but that is it. The figures and tables are the same and so is the list of references. The titles are different. The publishers of the two journals are different.

To put it mildly, I am disappointed by the authors' unethical behavior, by the failure of referees to uncover the earlier work when reviewing relevant literature to assess novelty, and by the editor/publisher for apparently not bothering to use plagiarism detection software.

My first reaction was that I should report this case to the journal editor. Based on what I've heard from colleagues, however, they appear to not always take self-plagiarism seriously, presumably because it's a lot of unpleasant work. Should I therefore report this to PubPeer instead? Or to the editor and PubPeer?

Taking the complaint public shames both the author and the journal, which may be counterproductive if the journal is responsible and willing to act promptly (mistakes do happen, even for very good journals).

I would thus recommend starting by reporting to the journal, which should have a procedure for dealing with such things.  If the journal does not take you seriously or refuses to act, then take it public and shame both the author and the journal.


Do my country and the standard of my supervisor affect the quality of my PhD? I'm almost going to start my PhD. Out of curiosity, I searched for several effective researchers in several fields over the internet. Most of the common property among almost of them are

1) Working under the supervision of another effective researcher.

2) Not doing PhD in my country.

The second rule fails if and only if his/her supervisor satisfies both rules.

I considered some other factors such as time of spending, passion on the subject. Although many people I saw in my colleagues, friends, seniors etc., have these qualities are not as successful as the people who have the above two points (country, supervisor).

In this context, even I have so much aspiration, the two factors are pushing me back due to this empirical evidence.

Thus, my question is, whether the country and the standard of the supervisor affects my PhD quality and hence my career?

Note: I was neither a child prodigy nor an exceptional person but an average student. Hence please answer realistically.

The first point: working under the supervision of an effective researcher, is certainly one of the most important criteria, if not the most important criterion.

The second point, about the country where you work, is one that many people would like to discard. However, the following points need to be taken into consideration (especially since you have given the tag of "developing-countries"):

The quality of research facilities available. This is more important for some areas of research, like experimental sciences. There is no doubt that the developed world has, on average, much better facilties.
The quality of your co-students and general research atmosphere at the probable place of work in your country. This is actually quite important as you learn a lot from other young researchers, seniors and juniors. A good university will have a better atmosphere and such universities are most often in the developed world.
The extent to which your research will get global visibility. Some areas of research are not "global" as they tackle local problems. However, many scientific areas are "global". In such a case, it is unfortunate, but true, that the country of origin of your research does make a difference to the visibility it gets.

Having made all these points, there are plus points about carrying out research in your own country.

If you do well, it brings credit to the society which you are a part of and which had a big hand in making you who you are.
Research is difficult enough without adding the burden of finding your feet in a different culture and society.

Ultimately, you will have to weigh all these factors against the quality of research positions that you have available once the application process is complete. All the best.


Accepted subject to minor revisions. How should I list this in my CV? I submitted a paper to a good journal in theoretical computer science. Today I received an email from the editor stating that the status of the paper is:

"Accepted subject to minor revisions".

The revisions suggested by the referee were only typos. More precisely, there were only 5 typos. The referees strongly recommended to accept the paper.

To tell the truth, this was the paper with the least number of corrections I ever had (even though it may have been the one which required the greatest amount of my time to write). Often when submitting papers to conferences I get a much bigger list of corrections/suggestions. Nevertheless, the paper appears at the conference's list of accepted papers much before the corrections are implemented. So shouldn't the same reasoning apply to journals?

Question: Should I list the paper as "Accepted" in my CV / homepage?

In other words, what do theoretical computer scientists / mathematicians write in their CV in this case?

The following apparently does not apply to theoretical mathematics, see comments and other answers for detail.

From my experience, during the time between acceptance and publication, you list the article as "in publication". This indicates that you have gone through the work of writing, submitting, responding to feedback, and the article has gone through peer review, been accepted and is just waiting to be published.

I've seen other qualifiers as well, including "in submission" for those going through the submission process, and "in preparation" for those that you're writing but haven't submitted. I strongly recommend against listing any papers in either of these categories, as until they're accepted they're not really "peer-review articles", they're just "ideas you have that you hope someone will publish one day".

Your case falls in the "in submission" category, and as such I would not list it.


Balancing coursework, research, and teaching I'm a first-year graduate student, and I just joined a computational chemistry laboratory. I have three tasks now: pass all my courses, fulfill my TA duties, and start research. I'm finding that I'm spending all my time doing the first two, and very little doing actual research. I'm worried that my advisor will be upset that I'm not getting up to speed quickly enough on my research (currently, learning the python programming language and reading a whole bunch of papers). Are first-year graduate students typically expected to do a lot of research, while still managing their grades and TA duties?

I think the answer lies in what your PI thinks you should be doing and how well you can, at least, appear to be doing it while doing things other than research.  Even if your PI doesn't enforce a certain allocation it's in your interest to do as much research and little else as possible. You won't get a PhD by teaching or taking classes. An overload, in my experience, is unavoidable first year. Is is possible to take electives that your PI teaches? That's about the only coursework he or she won't begrudge you.


What is it called when authors trade citations? Citation is one metric of researchers. That is why some of them lend citation to one another. For example, A writes a paper and cites B's work in it, and then B does the same for A, without the citations being relevant to the works.

Is there any word for such academic misconduct? I can think of "citation exchange", but I couldn't find any reference about it.

In addition to the terms suggested by Scientist, another relatively common term is citation ring, here ring being used with the meaning (from Merriam-Webster):

  7 a : an exclusive combination of persons for a selfish and often corrupt purpose (as to control a market)
  b : GANG

Here are a few examples of usage of citation ring:

  SAGE Publications busts “peer review and citation ring,” 60 papers
  retracted

(Retraction Watch)

  Some other problems of the method were well outlined by Ulrich Korwitz (pp. 107-110): the problems of self-citation and the citation ring [...]

(T. Roper, "Citation Analysis of the Veterinary Literature: A Tool to Understanding Scientific Communication" in Libraries without Limits: Changing Needs — Changing Roles: Proceedings of the 6th European Conference of Medical and Health Libraries, Utrecht, 22–27 June 1998)


Advice on what to do about academic situation that ended badly? (Content warning - some people may find this post distressing due to discussions of mental health and self-harm.

Hello academic community - I could use some advice! I’m a 1st year PhD student, and I went through a difficult time during my MA that I’d like to get some help with.

I worked as an Residential Advisor (RA) on campus for 4 years before my MA and during. It was a great job, but was also a lot of responsibility. The final year I was there (which was during my MA) I had a student living in my halls who was experiencing severe mental health issues. This was not a new situation, as sadly lots of students need extra support, and I had worked with students like this before.

One night, I received a call on the emergency cell from this student, at about 3am. They had attempted to take their own life, and due to issues within my RA team, I was the only one available to help. I went to the student’s room and saw the situation, carried out emergency first-aid, phoned the ambulance and then accompanied them to the ER.

I stayed with the student for the night until they were discharged, and arranged for further support. However, to cut a long story short, the student began to contact me both day and night via email and phone, saying that if I didn’t go to their room to speak to them as and when they asked, they’d do it again.

In the end, I was diagnosed with PTSD in relation to what I saw when I went to the student’s room that first night. After this, they called me repeatedly, hourly, 2, 3, 4am, and sent emails several times a day.

I sought help from the higher ups in the RA team, as we were supposed to in this kind of situation, and though they were aware of this student and the issues going on, they said they couldn’t do much to help me. I began to experience severe anxiety myself and became quite ill. In the end, I quit my job as an RA and had to move back to my parents’ house. This was over 2 hours away from campus. After this, I found my MA very difficult, and due to a combination of all of these circumstances, I was rejected for PhD funding a few months later. I wanted to explain to my Department what had happened, but felt too worried about breaching confidentiality agreements myself and getting into trouble in terms of the contracts I'd signed to be an RA.

When I didn’t receive funding, I spoke to the Head of Department (as in, my academic Department, not my RA team) about what my possible next steps could be in terms of funding, and almost told them, but instead I ended up getting upset and crying in their office. I said that I felt that I had been abandoned by my academic Department. The Head of Department was clearly upset themselves that I felt this way. It wasn't a nice interaction (though wasn't an argument) and after that, I didn't speak to any staff in the Department again. I just stayed home and tried to study and get better.

In the end, I left the University with my MA but also with no one and very few support networks, having isolated myself from everyone. Now I’m a PhD student and I did get funding. However, I feel regret about the way my education ending at my MA institution, which was a fantastic place and which I loved.

I also feel terrible every day about what I said to the Head of Department. They were the best teacher I’d ever had and they are also one of the foremost scholars in my current field. Eventually, the investigation into what happened with the student was closed quite recently - nothing ever came of it, and they graduated after an extra year out as far as I know.

My question is whether I should try to reach out to this academic to explain what happened to me and why I acted how I did and to apologise? If so, how should I do it? Via email, or in person? Or maybe it’s too late? I just feel terrible because to them, it must have looked like at one point that I just withdrew myself from the Department (when I was previously a hugely active member of the PG community there) and then blamed it on them.

Thanks in advance.

I also feel terrible every day about what I said to the Head of Department. They were the best teacher I’d ever had and they are also one of the foremost scholars in my current field.

I think what you said to the Head of Department should have been expected and I think you should have been better supported.

  My question is whether I should try to reach out to this academic to explain what happened to me and why I acted how I did and to apologise?

Given that you feel terrible, I think this might be a good idea.

  If so, how should I do it? Via email, or in person?

Personally, I'd write a handwritten letter, and open the possibility for a future in-person meeting.  Ultimately, you should make contact however you feel the most comfortable.

  Or maybe it’s too late?

It's never too late.

Before proceeding, you could talk to a professional.


Editorial Board Listings without subject descriptions I have come across several journals that list only names and affiliations of those on the editorial board.  As the system then insists that I select one of those names as the editor to handle my paper, I send much time searching for these names on the internet.
Why do some journals not list the interests of the editorial board members?
This is a major annoyance when trying to publish ones first paper in a new field.  Perhaps the only reason is laziness.  But perhaps someone has experience setting up a journal and knows a reason why a deliberate choice might be made.

You hit on the reason, it's the amount of work necessary to maintain an up-to-date description. Classifying research is difficult because of how specialized knowledge is these days, e.g. an example I encountered recently is two people at a social function discovering that they are both physicists, and furthermore, both submit papers to arXiv that are classed as high energy physics. This makes it sound like their work is closely related, but then it turns out that one person works on lattice quantum chromodynamics and the other works on landscape cosmology, and they have zero chance of understanding each other's papers. The journal editor will typically not know how to classify the editor. For example, for the two topics above (lattice QCD and landscape cosmology) a typical journal editor might recognize them as physics, but I would be pleasantly surprised if an editor I manage can tell both are in high energy physics.
Since the journal staff are not very capable of classifying the editorial board's subject expertise, it becomes very hard for the journal to maintain an up-to-date description. Authors are experts on their own work and therefore the best-positioned to tell who will be able to handle their paper.
That said, many journals are trying to make it easier for authors. If you get the chance to choose subject codes for your manuscript, that would be a relatively easy way to find the editor most suited to your manuscript (although you might still end up with an editor from the other end of the topic).


How can I deal with these group members? Recently, my apush (AP US history) teacher assigned my class of high school juniors into groups in class for a project. Though I dont know that many people in my class, I really did wish that I’d get people who would do their work. This is where my problem arises. The two guys i was placed in a group in have the exact personalities I tend to avoid and not want to interact with unless they take initiative - I’ll call them Person A and Person B to lessen confusion.

Person A obviously cares about his grade, but seems to look down on my because I’m a girl, I think?, or at least I’m assuming this is the case from what I’ve observed of him when he said he didn’t expect me to have a discord “because girls don’t normally don’t use that gaming chat”. I think I could work with this person, because he does quite care about his grade, but I feel as if I’d only get along with him if there was another person besides himself who was hardworking in our group.

which leads me to Person B. Despite being someone who rarely checks her grades and usually procrastinates to the last second, I actually consider myself more diligent in my work compared to Person B. I know for a fact that Person B will definitely throw me off in terms of planning the work and not allow me to properly get work done because I anticipate he’ll decide to either just not do the work, or do a terrible job at it. He immediately admitted he has a 70 in this AP class and that he sucks at this class (to which I wondered why he didn’t drop out of the class, but I try to keep my opinions to my self when talking to people I don’t know as well), and said he wished he sat behind me so that he could easily cheat off me - which absolutely pissed me off. People may say that I’m biased or just extremely judgmental, but will absolutely not let someone with a personality like that cheat off my work (though I have, on occasion, guiltily let it slide for my friends and other students who I find interesting or charismatic). Of course, I didn’t say anything to this as I’m not so confident to state anything that may make someone I don’t know to become hostile towards me.

As a group, we didn’t get any work done today as these two dudes decided to get off topic and talk about stocks, which I’m not so interested in, and also not even related to the topic we’re supposed to research for our US history class.

This situation leads me to ask my question, how can I deal with group members like this? Since I’m someone who can do my work by myself or with friends more efficiently and properly than I can with people i don’t really get along with, should I just do all the work by myself and then expect they do their work? Whether they do or don’t, at least I’d have my work down. Would it be rude to tell the teacher? Or is this all in me and my own prejudiced against guys? I’ve never really clicked well with guys in the first place unless they were kind enough to talk to me first, so I’m always conscious that I may be acting in some way because I’m unable to understand them.

First of all: You are not alone. This is one of the reasons for group assignments - you'll have to learn how to deal with such people and situations, because in a work environment you will end up exactly in situations like this from time to time.

I sould suggest talking to your teacher and ask, whether it is ok to label the individual contributions to the text. Then you can work on your part and you are not affected by the performance of others.

Try to do so in a respectful manner, otherwise A & B might be quite annoyed.


To What Degree is Graduate School Acceptance Contingent on You Choosing a Specific Potential Adviser? I applied to a graduate school in CS and got in. However, between application submission and acceptance a professor reached out to me and requested a phone conversation. It went well, as far as I could tell, and then a week after that I got an acceptance.

The problem is that I listed more theoretical people on my application and not him at all. While he does interesting work, it's decidedly applied work. There's nothing wrong with that, I'm still interested in the applied person, but I'm not sure if my acceptance offer (which comes with partial funding) is contingent on me working with this person.

How does this generally work? Am I stuck with this person because I didn't reach out to the other people? To what degree can I still 'pick' my advisor? Thanks!

If you are accepted, then you are accepted. The prof is trying to "capture" you early, which is fine, but you don't have to agree to it. In the US you can generally choose a research advisor fairly late, especially if you come in with only a BA/BS degree.

There should be no problem at all if you don't want to work with them. But, it would be worth projecting a friendly and flexible face until you see more of the new program and get to meet a few people and (probably) take a few classes.

Your first goal will be to take enough advanced classes that you are successful in passing comprehensive exams. Then, you get more serious about research topics, and, for many, even research areas.

Note that in some other places, professors (PIs) actually hired their own graduate students. This is less common in the US and hardly ever in CS here. In the US, it is a department, not an individual, that accepts you, generally with the advice of a committee of faculty.

But if anything were contingent on anything else, then it would be explicitly spelled out. The prof is "reaching out" because you seem "interesting." Nothing more than that.


Are generalized recommendation letters bad? Sometimes online application systems ask for uploading recommendation letters as supplementary documents (scanned copies). In this case, it is possible to get general recommendation letters (addressed as To Whom It May Concern) and submit them for different applications.

Is it bad to submit a recommendation letter, which has not been addressed for a specific application? Assume that the content will be the same.
If it is OK, is it bad to attach some recommendation letters for an application when it is not requested?

First, as wsc says, you should not be uploading the letters yourself.  Usually there's someone in your dept. who can accept letters and send them out if there's no way for the letters to be uploaded directly.

Second, senior letter writers already spend a lot of their own valuable time writing letters for dozens of people.  Asking them to write separate letters for dozens and dozens of applications for each person is completely unreasonable.  In Math for research jobs in the US, letters for job applicants are not school specific.  (Though they do usually say "postdoc" or "tenure track position" since obviously a strong postdoc candidate would often be a weak TT candidate.)

(For teaching letters for liberal arts schools my impression is that the situation is somewhat different and some specialization may be expected.  But I don't have first-hand knowledge.  Of course, for those letters, it's less likely that one person is writing 50 letters a year.)


How does supervisor contribute to students' papers I know my question maybe too broad, but as someone who's planning to stay in academia, I want to ask anyone who is supervising PhD students about how you contribute to their papers in order to be included as authors.

Do you just need to discuss the problem (e.g what is it? Is it feasible or worth to be solved), point them to potential directions and review the drafts? You can also help writing other sections which don't directly involve in solving the problem such as: introduction, motivation or conclusion. This is the approach that my supervisor and most lecturers in my department are taking.

Or, do you have to directly take part in solving the problem such as analysing it, designing system, performing experiments and evaluating results?

This depends enormously on the field. In mine, mathematics, I never, ever claim co-authorship on my students' published papers arising from their PhD theses, nor from papers immediately afterward. I do expect to use my expertise, such as it may be, to help students identify feasible-yet-worthwhile projects, and to help them understand both the feasibility and worthwhile-ness, and this can continue beyond the PhD.

(My model for this behavior, which many people disagree with, or find "unethical", or find "degrading-to-students", is that the advisor's responsibility is well described by master-to-apprentice in an archaic sense. Or, similarly, parent-to-child in a more modern sense (since in antiquity children were not quite as valued as nowadays, apparently). I do understand that many people enjoy the idea that students are junior peers, etc., but, in fact, I claim that this possibly-seemingly-respectful attitude is almost always used as a rationalization for abrogation of responsibility... rather than the positive senses one might hope for.)

I do understand that in some fields advisors are invariably co-authors, even if their contribution is no more than funding.

The point is that, given this range of actualities, one can only look at the conventions within one's specialty, because it is simply not possible to predict that expectation from an abstract quasi-academic notion of "who should be a co-author".


What's a proper title when I started a post-doc position but not received my PhD degree yet? I finished my Ph.D. research in computer science a few months ago and started writing my dissertation. Meanwhile, I applied for a postdoc position before my Ph.D. fund could run out. So, I found and started a postdoc position around a month ago in another University in Germany, and I'm going to have my disputation in 3-4 months from now (that's the usual waiting period in CS in Germany).

However, I'm not sure what title I should use regarding my position in the new institute until I do my Ph.D. disputation, especially in email correspondences and when I introduce myself or other similar situations?

Of course, I do not use the "Dr." title until I do the disputation, but should I declare myself still as a "Ph.D. researcher" or a "Post-doctoral researcher" or something else regarding my position here?

BTW, my contract just says a research employee.

I would use research fellow as your title in English and in German use whatever your contract says or research fellow as well. That leaves out the slightly awkward postdoctoral part.

In general, unlike a doctorate, using the title 'postdoc' is not something that people in academia worry a lot about (and outside academia many people will have no idea what it means). So using postdoc to describe your role wouldn't be outrageous even though linguistically it seems wrong because of the implied doctorate.


How would it look like from reviewers' point of view if one submits off-topic works for application to phd programs? By a scientific work I mean any work of mine that either belongs to my field or belongs to some related fields of my field. A work that is not a scientific work is called off-topic.

Since I occasionally (but seriously) compose poems and popular songs, I am wondering whether it is suitable to integrate these off-topic works into the collection of my scientific works that is prepared for application to phd programs.

My principal concern is that I am unsure about how this act would look like from the reviewers' angle? Would it be deemed an affectation? Indeed, my wish is merely to present more of me.

Hope ladies and gentlemen (preferably with experience as a reviewer for phd admission) would share me your thoughts, much appreciated.

If answering this question requires more information, please feel free to state that.

Being a mathematician, I must address a logical loophole: I will assume that your field is a STEM field and thus poetry and songs are actually off-topic (and not just called off-topic).

  How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.
  -- Abraham Lincoln

Assuming this: no, I would not submit such creative materials as part of an application to a STEM PhD program.  I wouldn't go so far as to say that submitting such things would be deemed an "affectation": however, unless you make a clear connection to your chosen field, they are simply not relevant.  Including irrelevant things is not a disaster, but it does indicate that you don't have a clear understanding of what is relevant information in the consideration of your own prospects in that program, which is not great.

Most such applications have a personal statement.  Mentioning somewhere in the personal statement that you write poetry and songs sounds about right to me: from one human being to another, that is interesting, and personal statements are often not so interesting.  But be careful here: a "personal statement" is not a statement about you as a person!  It is really an essay explaining why you would be a strong candidate for the program, so things which are not relevant to that should not be dwelled upon.

Many programs do look at the personal statement as a writing sample -- and good writing skills are very relevant in any PhD program, probably more so than any other single quality -- so if you are an unusually good writer the personal statement would be a good opportunity to show your superior skills.  However, trying to do that in the genre of either poetry or song would be so risky and open to negative reactions based on personal taste that I wouldn't recommend it: after all, in most STEM programs you need to be able to write prose, not poetry, and you are not really permitted to burst into song.  This is probably a "color between the lines" situation.

Added: I spent four (recent) years on the committee in charge of graduate admissions in the UGA mathematics department, and I still read some PhD applications every year.


Can faculty in the United States get access to your grades without your explicit consent? Note: This question is aimed at "in general, in the United States, given the laws (including FERPA) and typical practices of US Universities".

I'm wondering if my schools' departmental advisers can give my grades to faculty members without my permission. Say a faculty member is talking to the department advisers about me. What is standard procedure here?

Faculty are almost always bound by rules governing their access to student records.  For example at my university, I can access any student record on campus if I have a justifiable reason. If I were to access student records that I didn't have  justifiable reason for accessing that would be a major violation of policy.


Research publications per capita? I came across yet another infogram, originating from this Nature article, showing the top-40 countries in terms of scientific publications produced for 2011.

The data are based on publications from Thompson Reuters/Web of Science. Similar data are available from Scimago (spanning 1996–2012).

Presented this way, there's some "bias" towards countries with a larger population. I was thus wondering if statistics on the number of scientific publications per capita was available for countries?

... just out of curiosity.


Why there isn't provision for writing comment on published articles like social media? Although there is system for writing comments on an article by proper submission through editorial system. But sometime, we feel need of commenting on article like; the content is very good or content is lacking in certain aspect etc. I think, if there is provision of writing comment directly on the online published copy of article, it would be very useful for both the author and the readers.

This is just opinion but the question seems to call for just opinion, of course. But, my opinion is that when the paper has been published it is too late for general public commentary on it at the place of publication. Researchers have better things to do than fend off trolls for example and much published research will draw the trolls.

The process for getting published, of course, is generally very rigorous with informed comment being fed back to the authors. They get (or should get) the feedback from people who are informed about the field and what has been done previously and what is important.

If a person, genuinely, has an issue with what is published the preferred avenue of response is to publish something better, citing the original.

Most authors can, of course, be contacted privately, either with praise or concern. The author can see it and take it into consideration. This can lead to better future publications benefitting everyone.

However online controversy about published research is less valuable and draws the authors into non productive response.

When something published is egregiously bad, however, comment often occurs in letters to journal editors or even, in extreme cases, in the general press. Sometimes corrections take a long time to occur, such as in the Stanford Study. But I doubt that social media type commentary would improve that situation.

tl:dr; The Trolls will Troll.


Should I publish book chapters as standalone articles before approaching a publisher? [Humanities - Post Doc Stage] Do you encourage the publication of chapters as articles prior to full book publication, with the aim to improve research profile? Or do you advise publishing a book of previously unpublished work? Or do you suggest publishing some and retaining other research? Please detail any experience of this in your response, with reference to approaching publishers if possible.

Publishers are going to look at your background before agreeing to a publish your work. Things looked at include:

Your citation metrics
Reviewers for your publication proposal
Your CV

Publishing some standalone articles will certainly improve all three, but you'd have less material when it actually comes time to publish a book (because the same material typically cannot be reused). So the question effectively becomes, "can I publish now or do I need a better profile?". Only you can answer that question, unfortunately.

If you don't know the answer either I'd suggest contacting a publisher now, and if they reject your proposals, then publish standalone articles first.


Does a preprint include revisions made in response to peer review? This is related to but not answered in this question about the difference between various stages of a manuscript in the publication process.

After an author has submitted a manuscript to a journal for peer-review, very often the journal asks the author to revise (and resubmit) the manuscript as a precondition for its publication. I am wondering whether the term preprint refers to the manuscript before or after its authors made these revisions.

If a preprint includes revisions made in response to peer review, then there is only a slight difference, mostly regarding layout and style, between the preprint and the article that is published in the journal. From a reader’s perspective, there would be no point in paying for access to the article, since they can simply download the preprint free of charge. A publisher would probably want to prevent their authors (by publication agreements etc.) from publishing preprints that differ from the respective journal article only in form.

As a side question, what kind of preprints do publishers tolerate, as a rule?

I am using Elsevier as example since they are often picked on for many of their policies. Elsevier attempts to be clear about their sharing policy and allows both preprints and accepted manuscripts to be shared. In "Elsevier speak" (which may not agree with standard usage of the terms in academia)

Preprint

  This is the author's own write-up of research results and analysis that has not been peer reviewed, nor had any other value added to it by a publisher (such as formatting, copy-editing, technical enhancements, and the like).

Accepted manuscript

  An accepted manuscript is the manuscript of an article that has been accepted for publication and which typically includes author-incorporated changes suggested during submission, peer review, and editor-author communications. They do not include other publisher value-added contributions such as copy-editing, formatting, technical enhancements and (if relevant) pagination.

Elsevier allows for "accepted manuscripts" to be made available via "preprint" repositories (e.g., ArXiv) which of course speaks to how confusing the terminology is. So at least for articles published by Elsevier the difference between the published version and the version in a preprint repository might be limited to "copy-editing, formatting, technical enhancements".

That said, and one of my pet peeves about preprint repositories, is that the "preprint" may have any number of non-peer-review changes. Maybe during the review process some controversial data or conclusions were removed from the manuscript. There is nothing preventing the authors from re-inserting this into the "preprint".


How would I reference a Linux man page in Harvard style? I'd like to reference a linux man page, in particular the man bash page. This is accessed through linux command line by typing 'man bash'.

Any ideas on how I would do that..?

Here is my try:

In text: Free Software Foundation, Inc. (2018)

In references: Free Software Foundation, Inc. (2018) man bash. Available at: General Command Manual

This is my try, based on citation principles, Open University's guide to citing software in Harvard format, and Mendeley's guide to core Harvard style.

In general, since the "man bash" page is a particular page, you may want to have the in-text citation specify that as the page/section. That will solve problems if you also want to reference the same manual about something else. Then you have just the more generic reference in the references section.

If this is the only manual citation:
In text: Free Software Foundation (2018)

In references: Free Software Foundation (2018) 'Bash manual page', Linux (Version X) [Computer program]. Available at [URL to get this version of Linux]. Copy of manual text available at http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/bash.1.html (accessed DATE).

If referencing multiple parts of manual:

In text: Free Software Foundation (2018, bash manual page)

In references: Free Software Foundation (2018) Linux (Version X) [Computer program]. Available at [URL to get this version of Linux]. Copy of manual text available at https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/ (accessed DATE).

Does the Free Software Foundation itself host a version of the manual online? That would be the ideal reference for the text. I realize that this response is kind of clunky, but it helps readers find what they need without having to download (your version of) Linux.


How is on campus professional training named in US or Canada schools? I'm applying for a scholarship abroad (more specifically, in Canada), and I have a doubt concerning how to write of the activities I took part on my CV.

In my home institution, we have activities called "Professional Training". These are some jobs students can take part inside of the university, outside of their degree coursework, under guidance of one of the professors, usually something for the university. For example, a biology student could help taking care of a botanical garden they have on campus, or a computer science student could help maintaining the university website. Students gain some hands on experience from these activities, receiving some money for it every month, while helping the university on some of its duties.

I took part in one of those activities for over a year, and I find it very relevant for the scholarship that I'm applying, so I'm detailing it on my CV. However, I'm not sure how to properly name it. I don't know if US or Canadian schools have anything like that. I don't think "internship" is the proper name, because it's not related to industry. Also "teaching assistant" obviously doesn't fit, because it could have nothing to do with teaching.

Any ideas?

I don't think there's anything wrong with calling these "internships."  If you are concerned about the possibility of confusion, you may say "university internship."  As you will also be identifying the campus office you worked for, the situation should be clear.


What is an "author's novelty file" in journals? Recently I submitted a paper in a journal then after a few days I got following comments:

Your submission of the manuscript  has been unsubmitted. This is because your "Author's Novelty File" was not detailed enough. In order to proceed, please briefly describe, in a few lines, the new contributions of your paper to the field. Do not repeat for this purpose the content of your abstract. Instead, provide a brief itemized list of these contributions in a separate file.

I don't understand what I have to write now. What he is asking for? I need help with this.

Thanks for giving me time.

It sounds like the journal wants you to identify in what manner your paper has expanded the state of knowledge in your field. Have you contributed a new experimental method? Or perhaps you've provided new insights into some sort of phenomenon, or measured data for a new material, or so on. These contributions should be collected in this "novelty file."


Do goofs in a recommendation letter hurt a student applying for grad school? When rereading my copies of letters of recommendation I wrote when a student of mine applied to multiple graduate schools, I was appalled to see mistakes I made where the wrong graduate program was mentioned in the letter.  For example, in a letter to CMU, I recommended the student to Georgia Tech.

Do mistakes like this hurt a grad student applicant, perhaps by showing they are applying to other programs, or do they only reflect poorly on the letter writer?  In this case, the schools were all in the same (top) tier.

I've occasionally seen letters with incorrect graduate program names, and it's not something I'd worry about.  It's never bothered me, and while I've seen other committee members point it out, I've never gotten the impression that they particularly cared.  (They've pointed it out in the spirit of "Oops, someone messed up" rather than "Here's a negative factor we should keep in mind.")

There are two cases in which it could be harmful:

If you name a substantially lower-ranked program, then the reader might wonder whether this low ranking influenced your recommendation.  (Maybe you have several variants of the letter, and send more enthusiastic variants to lower-ranked programs.)
If you include any comments about how suitable this specific program is for the applicant, then of course these comments will become worthless if you name the wrong school.  However, most letters for applicants to graduate school don't include such comments, and even when they do it's rarely a crucial part of the letter.  (It's particularly awkward if you send Harvard a letter talking about what a perfect fit Yale would be and how you have encouraged the applicant to go there if accepted.)

You mention the possibility of hurting the applicant by revealing where else they have applied.  Theoretically, this could look weird or problematic if they've made eccentric choices about where to apply.  (If a top program knows they're also applying to a much lower-ranked program, then the committee might take it as an admission of weakness or an indication that the applicant has a strong personal reason to go elsewhere.)  However, I wouldn't worry about it in practice.  It's expected that everyone will apply to a range of schools, and I don't recall ever having seen a case I thought would really worry admissions committees.


Applying to a second MSci/PhD with a PhD After completing a PhD in Particle Physics I left academia and have been working in industry for a few years now. However, during that time I've become more and more interested in Pure Math, to the point that I am considering trying to go back to academia and pursue my interest in full.

However, since the topic is so different from my PhD, I realise this would involve doing another PhD, if not a MSci before that. The grades that got me into my first PhD (an MSci equivalent degree) were not bad, but perhaps not enough to get me into a top MSci/PhD program now. My PhD dissertation, on the other hand, was awarded the maximum grade.

My question is: is it possible to use a previous PhD as an entrance degree to a second MSci/PhD? Would this be regarded positively by a top-level admissions committee?

As background, my first MSci and PhD were in Spain, and I am considering studying either in the UK (my current residence) or Germany.

If you got the maximum grade on a dissertation in another PhD program, that would be viewed positively. The admissions committee would be hoping that you will do the same in their program.

The basis for concern is that your pre-dissertation work will "average down" the value of your application. It's not something to be ignored, but most admissions committees will give the greatest weight to 1) the highest level of work that you have achieved and/or 2) the most recent level you have achieved. in both cases, your PhD dissertation grade is a big help.

I might refrain from taking math courses until getting into a program, even at the expense of being less prepared. Because if you take those courses and do badly, that becomes the new "most recent."


How can I apologize to my former research professor whom I ghosted? At my university, I worked with a professor in knot theory for about a year. I am an undergraduate, and I wanted some experience in research. This professor was one I had a fairly good relationship with, and he actually helped me be able to skip some classes which I had already self-studied. Because I enjoyed the professor, I decided I wanted to work with him and his research group. However, I have discovered that I currently do not enjoy knot theory; it's a rather esoteric subject with few resources from which I could learn it from and gain some intuitive understanding, and one needs a solid grounding in topology to do much in it (I do not have a solid grounding in topology).
Ultimately, I didn't really do much during my research (I both thoroughly disliked it and wasn't able to do much; the latter fact probably influenced the former) and when COVID-19 hit I simply fell off on researching and communication with the professor. I fully realize that both my lack of effort while researching and the actual ghosting was quite deeply wrong. I have no plans to do anything similar to my current research mentor or any future ones regardless of how the research goes, so please do not lambast me too much for this. I now do research in physics (where I am much, much happier), but I feel quite horrible for what I did to my professor. To make matters worse, I have several books on topology that I would like to return to him (on somewhat of a tangent, Munkres's books, while good, are not exactly the most stimulating textbooks I've read, so I didn't learn too much topology). I very much want to apologize for my actions and offer to return the books, but I don't know how to do so gracefully. If any advice could be granted, I'd appreciate it immensely.

Often enough in these kinds of interactions, the situation feels much more dire than it really is because you're not in touch with the professor. You are left to your own devices, building scenarios of how much this professor must hate you now and how terrible it is that you left.
You're fine.
Knot theory is knot for everyone (ha ha!), a fact your professor is probably well aware of. Sure, it would have been nice if you had let them know earlier, but I'm quite sure they realized it during your internship.
The best thing to do now is to reach out to them, apologize for not being in touch earlier. Keep the email short and to the point, no need to write a 1000 word essay. You're likely to get a short reply acknowledging your email and that would be that.
The only point that might have genuinely pissed them off is the books you took and didn't return. Offer to return those as soon as you can, at your expense. While I share your opinion about Munkres, an unpleasant read even for seasoned mathematicians, the books belong to someone else and should be returned.


How to assign grades in a game development course? I am planning a course on game development. Currently my main problem is how to design the assignments and grade them in a fair and objective manner. In previous courses I taught (like basic programming or algorithms), I could always design homework assignments that had objectively correct solutions. However, in game development it is important to encourage creativity and imagination. Ideally, I would like to have each team of students work on their own game. But how can I assign grades to such assignments? There is no objectively "good" solution: each  game can be fun for some gamers and boring for others.

I could try to assign grades by "effort" or "creativity", but I do not have an objective way to measure them. And if I assign grades by my subjective perception of effort/creativity, this will inevitably lead to complaints by students who believe they made a lot of effort.

For background, the course is intended for third-year undergrads in a computer science department, and it will probably involve programming in Unreal engine and C++. But, I think the question is relevant to any course in which the main goal is to encourage creativity. What is an objective and meaningful way to assign grades in such courses?

NOTE: The question is related to https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/q/3656/1873. However, there the problem is that the students lack motivation or ability. In my case they will (hopefully) have motivation and ability, since it is a choice course taken by advanced students. Still, I will have to assign different grades to different students since I cannot give 100 to everyone..

I would think that one technique you might choose to use in this case would be to establish what your learning objectives are for the assignment and then construct a simple rubric for evaluating each project.  You will likely have some areas that will be present for each assignment (e.g., documentation, code clarity, compiler warnings, possibly even a baseline score for a runable attempt, etc.). However, you will probably have a few aspects that are required to be present for each assignment (e.g., sprite usage, pathfinding, narrative) which you can then assign points for.

For example you could use something like the following:

Narrative

5 points - had a clear and easily understood narrative
3 points - had a narrative, but some portions were confusing or difficult to pick up on
1 point - an attempt was made at a narrative, but it was generally insufficient
0 points - no attempt at a narrative

Pathfinding

5 points - no (or almost no) issues with pathfinding
3 points - pathfinding mostly working, sometimes units get blocked behind obstacles/jump through obstacles/etc.
1 point - pathfinding is clearly deficient

For project based courses or assignments, I find that a rubric like this will greatly simplify my life when grading and lets me focus on giving constructive feedback over trying to decide if this is an 82% vs 85%.

Alternate approach

I have also had project based courses where the grading was not based on the artifact, but on a report and presentation/demo that the student teams had to submit. I also used rubrics for scoring those, again greatly simplifying the process and letting me focus on feedback over points.


A weaker version of a published theorem with a simpler method; what should be done? A paper contains three theorems. After submitting the paper, the author finds out that one of their theorems was already published by someone else with stronger result. Although their result is not as strong, the author’s method is much simpler.

They have two choices:

Keep the theorem and mention the result already done, and state that the method in current paper is simpler.
Just drop the theorem from the paper, and keep 2 theorems instead.

Given that they have already submitted the paper, the author just has to wait for referee's report. So their choice will come after the decision of the referee.

What would be the best choice?

Choice 1 seems pretty clear. It is honest about prior work (existing theorem) and the contribution (new proof).

You could also inform the editor that you have found a theorem that someone else has done, but that you believe your proof to be novel. This will allow the editor to better judge your work.


How do I make the case to regain first authorship? I am a senior Phd student in a very small lab consisting of me, my PI, and one other graduate student (one year under me). We began at an academic institution working on this paper related to my dissertation. I was always first author on this paper, and presented it to my committee as such. A former post doc who "contributed intellectually" but did minimal actual work for the final paper is second author, and the other grad student was third author. The other graduate student contributed significantly more work for this paper than the postdoc who left the lab due to lack of funds, so she asked if she could be moved to second author.

In a STUNNING move, my PI made her co-first author and kept the post-doc at second. I found this unfair, and when I went to talk to her, she revealed that she had promised her post-doc high authorship on the paper before she left, and also felt that the other graduate student contributed enough to be co-first. I had to no choice but to let it go.

The paper was rejected three times in its current form. The last journal told us if we added more patient numbers, they would reconsider it with the same reviewers. As a result, my PI added 200 more cases (we only started out with about 150 cases) from a cohort that I managed myself, processed, phenotyped, genotyped, multiplexed, etc. I did all the statistical data analysis, redid all the figures (that I had already made to begin with) and integrated these extra cases into the manuscript. The other graduate student, nor the postdoc had anything to do with these additional cases.

When I asked for my sole first authorship back, she blew up at me and told me it would demean the other graduate student by demoting her (which I felt is exactly what she did to me). We have an upcoming meeting and I need to know what my options are outside of her if she refuses to change the authorship list. Do I need to contact the department head and my committee about this? I told the other graduate student the situation and she is COMPLETELY fine with being second author, as she was never asking for first authorship to begin with as this paper is not at all related to her dissertation. She actually thinks its ridiculous that my PI is not seriously considering this request. I feel like she is trying to save face with her post-doc, and not giving me proper credit for my work.

Am I being unreasonable or do I have a case?

You could make the case that agreements about author order should be renegotiated after a major reworking of the paper. Because this is essentially a new paper, you might convince all parties to change the order. If you regularly correspond with the post doc, you might ask her if she would consider the new author list.

However, if she does not wish to change, you should accept this gracefully. Frankly, you have already missed the appropriate window for renegotiating author order. Author order should be determined before the work (or rework) is done.
Trying to change the order after work is complete is inappropriate because if, for instance, the third author wanted to keep her place as second, she no longer has any opportunity to do so.

The correct course of action would have been to propose being reinstated as first author before you did the work on the 200 new cases. At this stage, your negotiating power would have been higher. In addition, anyone who wanted to maintain co-first author or second author position could have helped you with the work. It seems you have learned a hard lesson; I hope you can avoid letting it ruin your relationship with your PI.


Can I publish the reviews I write? This is a follow-up question to Open versus Blind reviewing process, and is somehow related to What happens to the reviews that people write for journal articles after they're sent back to the author?

However, my question does not concern the reviews I receive for the papers I submit, but concerns the reviews I write for papers I have been assigned. Since the whole process is done under confidentiality, it is not clear who owns the copyright on a review I wrote, and what does the review include.

For instance, let us assume that X is member of a PC of a conference Y, and assigns to me a review of a paper Z, written by A and B (assuming it's not a double-blind). Can I publish on my blog: "Here is my review for Y, asked by X, on the paper Z, written by A and B"?

I think that there are two points here:

Is it legal? (for instance, publishing the camera-ready version of a paper might be illegal due to the copyright transfer, would it be also the care here?).
Is it ethical? (who should I ask in order to do so? X? Y? A and B? everybody?).

EDIT: There is been several comments/answer wondering why I would like to publish a review I wrote. To give a bit of background of this question, I believe that the current reviewing system, created when the academic community was small and there was no Internet (i.e. no easy access to information), might not be the best, although clearly working. This is for me a very interesting debate, but somehow out of the scope the Q&A format of Academia SE, which is why I tried to focus on my question on whether it was possible to do so, not if it was the best thing to do in the current system (and just to be clear, I don't plan to do it, but I just like to know what are my options). Anyway, thanks for the answers bringing a different light on this debate.

EDIT 2: After seeing the update in Jeff's answer, I just realised that I didn't make it explicit that I was talking about reviews after the reviewing process. Jeff says that it's ok if the paper is accepted, and although I clearly understand the argument of why I shouldn't publish a review of a rejected paper, the question still holds: by publishing a review of a rejected paper, I publish the information that these authors submitted this paper to this conf/journal, which is supposed to be confidential between the authors and the editors. Would I break any rule by doing so?

The standard rule in my community is that once I finish reviewing a paper, I'm supposed to pretend that I don't know the paper exists.  In particular, I am not supposed to use any insights I gained by reading that paper in my own research.  I am not supposed to reveal the results to my colleagues.  Some venues ask that I destroy any copies of the paper I'm reviewing, along with any programs or data I used to verify the paper's results.  This embargo lifts only when the paper is finally published, but I am never supposed to reveal my identity to the authors, even indirectly.

Under those rules, publishing reviews is completely unethical.  Maybe it would be okay if I had the explicit permission of both the authors and the editor, but I would expect most authors and reviewers to vehemently object.  I would feel weird even asking.

But even under less stringent reviewing rules, I think posting reviews is a very bad idea.  Criticism is best given privately.  One of the purposes of anonymous reviewing is to give authors brutally honest feedback on their work.  Referees can offer direct criticism without worrying that it will harm the authors, and authors are more willing to hear that criticism because they know it will never be public.

Yes, that means authors sometimes get credit for ideas that I suggest in referee reports.  (Most authors are nice and thank the anonymous referee.)  On the other hand, several referees have offered suggestions that have significantly improved my papers, so it all comes out in the wash.

Update: I should add that these ethical constraints attach only to reviews of unpublished papers being considered for publication.  Once a paper is actually published, everyone is free, if not encouraged, to publish their own reviews of the published version.


Is it ok to copy/paste a section of a previous paper of mine into a new one? I'm in the Physics community. I've already published an article on a journal where I've described a solution scheme that serves to solve a certain problem. Now, I've discovered that the same approach can be used to solve a different model. Of course the model, the comments the results, the plots, etc are different, but the technique is the same. So, is it ok to copy the section of my previous article where I describe the solution technique and paste it into the new one? Notice that the old and the new article feature the same identical authors and that the previous article would be, of course, properly cited.

Technically this is self-plagiarism and not OK. We had problems before where we published the 6th paper on a very similar topic and one sentence in our introduction was the same as in another of our papers (there are only so many ways to describe one thing) and it got flagged and we had to rewrite it, which in my personal opinion is just stupid.

However, if it's part of a methods section it is usually tolerated, since it doesn't make sense to rewrite technical statements all the time. For example in synthetic chemistry you would write something like

  All chemicals were purchased from Sigma Aldrich and used without further purification.

Which is fine to just copy/paste.


Applying to theoretical physics Masters in Europe while not having a physics undergraduate degree I intend to apply to European Master programs in theoretical physics. I don't have an undergraduate degree in physics.

My question is : Is an undergrad degree in physics absolutely required for admission ? Can I get admitted if I can demonstrate that I have the requisite background knowledge in physics and math ?

All the programs that I looked at explicitly state that an undergraduate degree in physics is a prerequisite for admission.

I took the physics GRE test , teached college level physics "TA" , worked as a research assistant in theoretical physics , attended graduate level courses , can provide letters of recommendations. However , my undergraduate degree is not in physics.

This is a tough case. In many European universities, the expectation for master's study in a given discipline is a bachelor's degree in that discipline. Whether or not it is possible to petition for admission with another degree is up to the regulations of the particular university. However, if you do not have formal coursework available demonstrating that you have the requisite background, it is unlikely that you will be able to get approval.

Your best bet might be to look for programs that are interdisciplinary in nature, as they tend not to have such stringent requirements.


Research on strategies for student recruitment How do I find research on strategies for recruiting students into undergraduate programs?

I am an assistant professor at a small comprehensive 4-year public institution. My department (chemistry) has implemented a new strategic plan. One of our principle action items involves recruiting more high school students to attend our institution with the intention in majoring in chemistry.

I know that research is conducted, probably at the institution level, on what recruitment strategies are successful in various disciplines. However, since my research background is in chemistry, I am not familiar with the resources to find this research.

I will start with this question: What journals and/or databases should I be reading and using? I know about the Chronicle of Higher Eduction. Which others are good resources?

Update: I would like to find relatively recent reports, preferably in peer-reviewed literature or published by not-for-profits. Strategies that use social media would be great. There is a nice study linked in Dan C.'s answer, but it is from April 2004, meaning the data likely predates Facebook.

There is a nice survey report online: "What Matters to Student Success", a report from the Government of Kentucky.

The work analyses the factors most crucial to student success in a college. It also discusses recruitment of students. For example,

  Consumerism colors virtually all aspects of the college experience, with many colleges and universities “marketizing” their admissions approach to recruit the right “customers” — those who are best prepared for college and can pay their way (Fallows et al. 2003)

It does not exactly answer your question on strategies for selection, but gives some insight to what makes a successful student pool, for which admission process is one determinant.

I am sure the reference papers cited in the journal (and their citations) will assist you in an extensive literature survey.

For a relevant journal, I found this: Journal of College Admission. I do not know about the quality, but I was able to find this discussion (or thereabout) in a few papers herein.


Are there academic reasons to only use journal articles and books when writing? Recently I was researching for a paper, but the results of my research got me reflecting on my habits:

Is is at all appropriate for me to use Google (partly also Google Scholar) for academic research, just because I have good experiences with it in my personal, non-professional environment? I noticed I feel slightly too comfortable in sourcing material via Google. As expected, the quality of the resulting materials is "bad", in the sense that the sources I happen to find are rarely journal articles and often chronically difficult to cite. Of course for many topics this is a non-issue, but for my current topic, a lot of government, international institution and NGO content was "on-topic" and needed, so that is how the situation came about in the first place.

While I definitely won't use Wikipedia or (online) newspapers, but I also came across e.g. OECD content: while the content itself is strong and academically valid, by now I sadly had to discard a significant part of it, also because I initially didn't (exclusively) use their "iLibrary". Specifically: The amount of time I had to spend trying to find e.g. the author of such non-journal content (and other source-data), trying to decide if I should invest my time into reading and citing the content vs. discarding it and that I have to enter bibliographic data by hand for such content make me tired.

Thus my thought is: Should I intentionally, sternly refrain/refuse to use (and of course cite) any materials that doesn't carry a DOI, ISBN or ISSN? There is still a lot of grey literature, manuscripts, working papers etc. and web content out there... My current frustration is so large that I seriously consider such a strict stance going forward, but I fear that I might miss out on crucial facts and that omitting such publication will affect the credibility and well-roundedness of my paper(s)?

In the age of Google I am very happy that academic standards are in place, compared to the lack of cite-ability etc. in documents published by NGO's, think tanks, policy institutes and some governments.

If you build your work upon other people's work, whether it be a blog post or postage stamp, then you should cite it, otherwise that's plagiarism. This is especially the case if the work is a primary source of the research (which can even be the case for blog posts).

That said, there are some guidelines you can follow to get the best version of the work to cite.

Find the most recent or most authoritative/official version of the work. If the paper is an unpublished workshop paper, is there a corresponding conference or journal paper that was later published? Or is the work perhaps written up in a masters or PhD thesis?
Find the primary source. Is the blog post (secondary source) a distillation of some other paper (primary source)? If so, go for that primary source. Is the Wikipedia article (tertiary source) based on some well-known book or article (primary source)? If the report from an NGO is original research (primary source) then you should cite it. If not, determine what it is based on an cite that.


Can PhDs legitimately claim to be doctors? I’ve frequently heard people claim that individuals who hold PhDs are not “real” doctors. These people assert that only physicians can rightfully claim this title, and that it’s inappropriate for PhD-holders to use this term.
For some reason, many also think that the MD is much more difficult to attain than a PhD for example in computer science.

So - should Ph.D.s Be Referred To As ‘Doctor?

Ps: currently i am a PhD student and don't know why the question is being devoted!

In the modern USA the title of doctor is valid for both medical doctors and holders of PhDs in the US, but particular customs may vary by institution. The general rule of thumb for etiquette is to refer to someone however they wish to be referred to. If you have a PhD that insists they be referred to as doctor it would be very impolite to not do so. Likewise if you have an MD who insists that you do not use their title it would be similarly impolite.

In situations where it is important to avoid confusion it is common to spell it out explicitly. Rather than using the honorific use the explicit degree, for example it is very common for email signatures to look like:

John Doe, Ph.D. in Computer Science

instead of

Dr. John Doe

Similarly, an MD would tend to say:

Jane Doe, MD, Cardiologist

or even

Jane Doe, MD, Ph.D., Cardiology

I suspect that your question has another component, which is essentially whether or not it is "fair" for a Ph.D. holder to refer to themselves as doctor. This requires an assumption that the MD is more challenging to attain than a Ph.D., and that calling oneself a doctor is somehow illegitimately taking the status of a medical doctor. Let me just say that the people who have earned these degrees are generally less concerned about this than those who have not, and that the title someone puts after their name doesn't tell you very much about their individual ability, dedication, or experience.


How to stay motivated in a group with low motivation? After joining a research group, I discovered my colleagues are always lowly motivated. They play card games and online games, and they listen to songs with the loudspeakers on all the time. They never discuss research-related things, and the only time they open a spreadsheet is to calculate some kinds of points in online games. This all happens in office hours in the laboratory.

I expected my colleagues would be happy to discuss with me about research problems, but it turns out nobody is willing to do this except my supervisor and some of the post-docs. They just focus on their entertainment. I do not know why they want to do a PhD; maybe they just want to delay their entry into the job market. However I really want to be trained as a good researcher and I am serious about my PhD. I cannot stay motivated all the time because their attitudes seem to gradually be affecting me, and the atmosphere is simply full of laziness. I can notice myself sometimes lowering my standard in research work now.

My supervisor seems ok with it and does not get angry at their slow and boring progress. My research interest matches quite well with my supervisor's, and I do not want to change my supervisor just because of those lowly motivated students. How can I still be motivated in a lowly motivated environment?

Flee or fight.

Flee is obvious. Fight means focusing on your goals and finding something rewarding.

I've experienced low motivation, I am at this precise moment suffering high temperatures and lots of noise, the work environment is very important and it will have a toll in your productivity (and your career) if it is not the right one.

The point is, either you leave to a better place (if possible, that depends on several factors) or if you decide to stay then you need to compensate from that toxic environment.

I read some time ago a blog post titled hack your motivation, which could be useful. In general what I find most motivating is keeping track of my progress, on a daily or even hourly basis, either writing a section of a paper, running/conducting an experiment, programming some class or complex method, or anything else. Anything that gives you the feeling of making some progress.

That's probably why your colleagues are wasting their time, games provide some fictional reward, some fictional and imaginary sense of achievement, games are like porn in that sense (no real sex, only fiction and imagination). What I mean, in short is: gamify your research. You all will be playing games, but you will be playing the right one (assuming you do the gamification right).

This site is a good example of gamification. I have 2093 points already! I would feel less sick with some A/C, though...

What you have to ponder are your chances in this flee or fight scenario. I can't tell you whether you will have more success running to a less toxic environment or reducing the toxicity for you. It depends on the opportunities that you can find to flee and how strong is your motivation and gamification to fight toxicity.

That's your decision and yours alone.


What do potential postdoc advisers seek in research statement letters? I am putting together my application for a postdoctoral position in theoretical condensed matter physics. The position is not a fellowship and is a regular postdoc position. If you have gone through the process of applying for such positions a number of times, or, even better, if you have reviewed such research statement letters, what are the main points that are sought/you seek in such letters? Specifically, should I put more emphasize on my PhD research to demonstrate my "depth of knowledge" on projects I have worked on (past research), or dwell more on things that I want/am capable to do (future research)?

Some of this depends a lot on field and laboratory, and I don't know the customs of physics.  As somebody who has dealt with this question in both biology and computer science, however, let me give you some thoughts:

Since you aren't aiming for a fellowship, you're probably going to be supported by a funded project of some sort.  That means the PI you'd be working for promised their funders they would get somebody do a postdoc-sized piece of work on Topic X.  Their biggest concern is thus likely to be whether you are the person who can do that. Accordingly, when I'm thinking about postdocs, the properties I'm looking for are:

Flexibility enough to shift from their Ph.D. topic to the topic of the project, which is pretty much guaranteed to be different.
Autonomy, creativity, and maturity enough to tackle their part of the project without much hand-holding.
Productivity and responsibility enough to deliver research progress at regular intervals.

Formulate your letter accordingly, showing what you have accomplished, that you are capable of formulating a research vision, and that you have interests outside of your research vision.  The goal is not to sell yourself, but to be interesting enough that it's worth the PIs time to talk to you in person, which is where the real decision will be made.

In fact, however, you are best served if you can skip the letter entirely and approach potential PIs in person at conferences or other meetings.  Get introductions from your advisor if you can.  Practice your elevator pitch (explaining what you'd put in a letter in just three spoken sentences).  Speaking as a PI, a whole lot of postdoc jobs ultimately originated by PIs talking at a meeting and one of them saying, "I've got this great student who's graduating, and I'll bet they'd fit well in your lab..." or the other saying, "I've got this grant starting next year and there's a gap I need to fill..."


Why does the copy editor want Nature to be “Nature (London)”? I have noticed that the copy editors of at least two publishers (the American Institute for Physics and American Physical Society) do something weird when they copy-edit my submitted papers. For all references to papers in Nature, which I include in my references as such:

  J. W. Doe, Nature 197, 412 (1974)

they replace “Nature” by “Nature (London)”:

  J. W. Doe, Nature (London) 197, 412 (1974)

I do not understand why they do that! I know it is customary in they style for books to have a city next to the publisher name (though I don't think it is very relevant in this day and age), but why do it for journals? Are there multiple different editions of Nature?

For these journals, the copy editor is correct.  "Nature (London)" is listed in the American Physical Society's house style for abbreviations, which makes it the standard abbreviation for APS journals, and it is also in the American Institute of Physics's list.  It's not part of a general pattern of including locations, but rather a special case.

Presumably the inclusion of "London" was originally intended to avoid some long-ago ambiguity, perhaps with La Nature.  It sounds like La Nature was more of a popular magazine about science than a modern scientific journal, but then again so was Nature in its early history.

There is no serious ambiguity about the name Nature today, but publishers are reluctant to change abbreviations, partly out of fear that if you've been using a specific abbreviation for many decades, a careful reader may wonder whether a different abbreviation is a mistake or even refers to another journal.


Is there a way out of losing interest in science during a PhD? My concern is that I completely lost interest in science over the past few months, however, I am still towards the end of my first year of my PhD studies. I will offer some background:
I have always been a straight-A student, studying my field of current research (let's call it X) from the very young age of 12 years old very passionately. This interest won me honorable mentions in International Olympiads on X as a high-school student. During these years, for many reasons, I faced a lot of disappointment, but thinking that X was the only field I felt comfortable in and well-equiped for, I decided to study it in college, because it was late to start over. Even if I didn't do so there was no other field I would have the energy to start over with. During these years I transformed from a straight-A student to a very good one, but I never treated my subjects with real interest. I'd just found the way to get good grades by memorizing methodologies etc. Then I got into an MSc where from a very good student I transformed into a barely-passing-courses one, but fortunately a nice thesis gave me a place in a very nice PhD program.
It took me a long time to realize I am no longer a student and that being praised is not part of the PhD experience and that costs me, because I don't have the validation to give me the energy to continue. Moreover, it's my fourth month of being quarantined and forced to work from home in light of COVID-19 in another country without my partner, my family or any friends, but what brings me down with regard to my PhD are questions like:

How much asking for scientific help is too much during a PhD? e.g. at what point during debugging is it reasonable within a PhD to resort to my advisor for help before them claiming I am not independent enough?
How can I handle my emotions towards other collaborators or my advisor sometimes acting as if they are disappointed?
Why no matter how hard I work and how good or fast I get results, I never seem to get even one single word of validation?
Why no matter how hard I work and how good or fast I get results the publication of my first paper seems to be postponed more and more?

Of course, in one way or another, all the above have to do with validation and in ideal circumstances, one does not need validation to move forward, as it is not something that normally comes when you are an independent researcher. But given all the above and the fact that I am in denial about wanting to do science, I wonder if I am in the right place. Recently my advisor suggested that I slow down because I show symptoms of burn-out, but I am wondering if I want to continue with my PhD in general as over the past months I have been feeling overwhelmed and unmotivated and this does not seem to go away. I communicate with my advisor openly enough, but no matter how much we discuss I feel trapped in an unproductive and distressing situation.
And the saddest of all is that I feel drained of energy, I carry a constant brain fog (since starting college) and have no willingness whatsoever to ask scientific questions in general.
P.S.: To the question "What would you rather do if you weren't doing a PhD?", I would say "Nothing seems interesting to me".
Any help would be much appreciated.

You show strong signs of burn-out. It is unclear whether you really lost interest in science or you simply did not make the proper transition from being motivated by the triggers of your youth (winning competitions) to the triggers of scientific endeavour on its own.
Also note, competitions are fun, because they are hard, but solvable in limited time. Full Metal Science, however, is tough. You have no idea whether things work, whether there is a solution and, if there is, how long it takes. It's a completely different game. It's a 100-m sprint vs. a marathon.
There are a couple of ways out. If you can afford to, you should take time off for a few months, even half a year and do other things. Stuff you enjoy, sleeping, traveling, gaming, whatever, without pressure. Forget science for that period. Then, but only then, after your return, come back and take account of what really makes you tick. What is it that you would like to be doing for the next 5 years? Not your lifetime, just 5 years. And move from there.
If you cannot afford to go away for a few months, there is something else you could try, namely starting a scientific hobby. Take a bit of time apart where you do something that is PhD-irrelevant. Solving problems? Hacking some software? Or something entirely different. Make yourself clear that this does not have to be published, it's just something to keep you aware about what you enjoyed about science. There is Feynman's anecdote about the wobbling plate, very pertinent to you. In any case, absolutely make sure to hard-limit your PhD hours per day. Make sure you keep a hobby, and a network of people etc. It sounds like a waste of time, but it isn't. Your other hours will count more if they are boxed in.
TL;DR:

Take time off.
If not possible, find a scientific hobby and hard-box your PhD hours.
Keep your other activities on plan, almost without exception (except for isolated important deadlines).

PS: I have no advice concerning your mentioning of hypersensitivity concerning feedback from others. That's not really a question we can answer here, and some people's advice would be almost automatically to recommend therapy. I am not saying this is not the right step, but some people find this overkill. If validation of others plays a bigger role for you than the topic itself, you probably need to consider activities which get you this validation more directly by interacting with people, such as blogging, science journalism (if science interests you at all anymore, that is).