Is it OK to thank the examiners in the acknowledgements of the final draft of a PhD thesis? The examiners of a friend's PhD thesis required revisions which they needed to approve before they would accept the thesis. The requirements were fairly demanding but overall reasonable and helpfully explained, and my friend wishes to acknowledge the examiners' contribution in the final submission, in anticipation of their approval.

However, it seems to me that examiners are not supposed to be friends; and any implication that they are seems to suggest that the examination process was too cosy, or that the examiners were perhaps rather a push-over or even somewhat corrupt. Are such concerns well founded, or am I worrying unduly?

Peer-reviewers of academic research papers are not supposed to be authors' friends, and on many occasions are direct opposite. However, it is not uncommon to thank them in the final version of the paper, because their contribution often helps to improve the paper considerably.

In the same way, I think that it is OK to thank the examiners for their suggestions, which helped you to improve the presentation of your thesis.


Who publishes commentary papers, and how? In my area of research (experimental psychology), publishing an empirical paper takes on average one year of work. It seems to me (I could be wrong) that those authors who appear to use every available opportunity to write commentaries on recent "big" papers have it easier (or so they think) than those who instead prioritise publishing their own research despite the increased required efforts.

My first question is to do with the "tactic" of relying a great deal on such publications in order to build one's CV and/or h-index. While a commentary paper does not, of course, "weigh" as much in someone's CV as an empirical paper, it might still weigh more "per unit" [of time spent working at it]. That is, one could conceivably write such a paper in a month, whereas the "academic credit" you get for it, while lower, is certainly not lower by a factor of 12; and in any case the h-index is blind to the distinction.

My second question: in what circumstances is such an offer (made to a relevant journal, to write a commentary to a "big" paper) likely to get accepted, and by whom is it typically made?
If an early-career researcher feels they have commentaries that the community/field might benefit from, should they pitch around their commentary-paper idea to journals?
I used to think such papers are something only established researchers write, and at the invitation of journal editors rather than at their own request. However, I am seeing more and more junior researchers who are writing (unsolicited) commentary papers with only a minimally-relevant publication record.

I'm not from your area of research so my answer might be invalid, but in my field it happens that you are asked to list "original papers" and "derived papers" in different sections of your CV. So when you are applying, e.g. for a professorship, the original papers are the ones which are taken into account more heavily than the others.

Especially earlier in your career you should focus on your own scientific work. This qualifies you to write good commentaries, later ;-).


Does PhD subject area matter if one will research in multiple areas later? Since the purpose of a PhD is to learn proper research skills, which should be applicable to any subject area, and since people can publish in subject areas unrelated to their dissertation, does it really matter which subject one chooses to research for their PhD?

Clearly, there are issues of motivation (if someone gets bored, it will be difficult to put in the effort required to complete the program) but if someone is interested in education/pedagogy, finance, leadership, and other areas, does the initial research area matter?

If someone gets a PhD in education/pedagogy and later wants to do more research in the area of finance, will the fact that the PhD was done in a different area introduce problems later?

In my handful of interdisciplinary forays (all within social science), I've actually been struck by how different the fields can be, particularly in regards to the assumptions that are easily digested.  In one example I found economists and sociologists were accomplishing the exact same thing using a completely different method, and no one in either field seems to have any idea why anyone in the other field does it that way.

There is also the issue of learning the specific research skills used in a given field.  The skills I've learned as an economist are not the same skills learned by someone studying education.  Even within the field of economics there are divisions with stark differences in skills, micro vs macro, empirical vs theoretical, and so on, that would make it very difficult to move between them as a researcher.  That would likely be greatly compounded going to entirely different fields, even though all of the fields rely on "general research skills".

There's also a huge signaling aspect.  You mentioned finance; this is a competitive area, and jobs will always have more applicants than openings.  Someone with a finance degree has a leg up on someone with, say, an economics degree, while someone with an economics degree may have a leg up on someone with a business or statistics degree, while those researchers would be ahead of someone with a degree in education.  I'm sure you can extend that chain if desired.

So in short, yes, it absolutely matters what your PhD is in.  That doesn't mean you can't be an interdisciplinary researcher, particularly once you're tenured somewhere, or that it's impossible to switch to related but different fields, but your degree should be in your primary interest.


GPA calculation in German Grading system I am studying in a German University where the GPA grades are :
1.0 , 1.3, 1.7, 2.0, 2.3, 2.7, 3.0, 3.3, 3.7, 4.0 with 1.0 being the best score a student can get in exam and below 4.0 it is fail.

However, My score card looks like this:

Clearly, graded average = 204.6/108 = 1.89 and my actual result in the scorecard is 2.2. (I also have seen the related questions for this in forum and they don't answe my question.)

Could anyone please explain the calculation behind this ?

I'd guess your subjects are part of modules?
Then you need to calculate and round every module on itself and afterwards you can calculate your GPA based on the modules.

Have you checked your Prüfungsordnung (examination regulations)?
In it the calculation method of your GPA is stated.

If the GPA is still unclear after checking the document, you should contact your Examination Office.
Maybe they have a system/display bug and/or some "buffer marks" (have you something like 18 credits open, i.e. registered, but not taken yet, then grading it with 4.0 in the system would yield a grade of 2.2) or something that cannot be checked or verified from outside.


Do MLA guidelines apply in the UK? Not sure if this is the right place to put this but:

This week I started a six-week school project to write a research paper about diseases. As part of my preperation, I read a short paper on writing research papers (as this is one of the first I have done.) In the paper there was a diagram explaining the MLA guidelines for standardising research paper formatting. My homeschool curriculum is American but I live in the UK. My question is, as a British student, should I write the paper according to MLA guidelines, or is there something else for those of us living across the pond?

In general in academic writing, the final choice of style is up to the publisher (for books, articles etc), employer (for reports or promotional materials), or assessor (for coursework and tests). As such, most academic publishing houses and large universities  produce some kind of stylesheet (if not many) for their authors and staff, and essay based university courses may even produce something specific for students.

In general, these all cross-fertilise with each other, so many general themes towards good writing repeat across them. Frequently, British guides will reference American ones, due to being more readily available, while making changes to keep in line with English reference works such as the OED and Fowler. As such, if you are not writing for assessment, then following the MLA guidelines with suitable modification (e.g. using standard British spellings if you are more comfortable with them) is eminently sensible, and will certainly get you into good habits.


Taking out a loan to pursue a degree in theoretical physics in the EU. Bad idea? How common is it for students to take a loan to pursue a theoretical physics degree in Europe, as a non-EU foreigner.
Theoretical physics and mathematics students are advised not to take a loan as there are very few jobs in both the fields. I was admitted to a Masters Theoretical Physics (Quantum fields and Strings) program at Uppsala. So far I am still looking for a scholarship.
Is taking out a loan to pursue a degree as non-EU citizen in one of these two fields always a bad idea?

There are three things the cost of tuition means here, and they give you information about whether or not taking out the loan for a theoretical Master's degree a good idea.

It is expensive to train someone in this work, and someone has to pay for the training. The way that academia has developed, it is usually the sponsors of later research who pay (government, universities, private foundations). (In contrast, professional degrees are often paid for by individuals themselves, although it varies by country and profession.)
Financially, unless you are independently wealthy, you need to check how easily you can pay back this money after you graduate.

I'd suggest researching the pay levels of various careers that you can pursue with that Masters degree. If you want to immediately work in an industry that pays well (e.g. designing infrastructure for the advent of quantum computing??? at a government laboratory???), and grads from that program have a reasonable shot, then it is not unreasonable to take a loan.
However, if most related jobs do not pay well or require a Ph.D., then you are unlikely to get your money back (soon) by working in the field. You might then be forced to work in, say, software to pay the bills, if your programming skills are transferable enough.
This recent question seems to find it is rare for academic positions to be offered to Masters graduates in theoretical physics.

The cost of the program to you (that is, the absence of a scholarship) may be a signal about where you would rank.

Funding is certainly a signal for doctoral programs, in my (U.S.) experience. I had several doctoral acceptances where I was told I wouldn't be funded in my first year, but that I could probably find a teaching position; I was one of the more borderline candidates they decided to accept, apparently, and when funding is limited schools tend to invest in the strongest students first, to attract them to the school and make sure that they have the best chance of success. This also told me I might have trouble getting professors' help at those schools, because their time is a limited resource, as well.
If this is true in your case (i.e. others have funding for the same program, and thus you have information about how you compare), then use the information to further inform your actions. It might mean you must be at the very top of your Masters program to have a strong shot at becoming a Ph.D. student. It might also mean that you should in some way improve your application to be more competitive for scholarships or funded programs in the future.


Overlap between individual parts of BMBF funding proposals (Germany)? I'm in the middle of writing a funding proposal for a BMBF programme (BMBF = the German federal ministry of education and research). I'm part of a consortium with a company, a local city government, our university, and another university.

We've already submitted a combined proposal, which got accepted, and are now supposed to submit additional individual proposals from each project partner.

This being Germany, we've been asked to submit forms upon forms within forms, and it seems to me that there is a huge amount of redundancy - the individual proposals don't seem to request any information that wasn't already part of the combined proposal.

Since this is my first time writing a proposal for this particular funding programme, I'm now wondering if I can just copy parts from the joint proposal into my individual one? I honestly don't quite understand why the individual proposals are requested at all, except for adding a bit of details in some parts... any insights welcome :-)

Ask the Projektträger (preferrably via phone). They will help and tell you the rationale behind the approach (which I don't understand either).


ACS Style image citation I'm trying to cite an online image that I am using for a chemical literacy review. It is required to use ACS style, but the style guide makes no mention of images per se. I therefore tried to cite it using the "General web site" format. Is there a correct way to do this?

Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Slaapbol_R0017601.JPG (accessed April 15, 2016).

From the ACS Style Guide, regarding the correct format for citations of websites (quote slightly reformatted):

Recommended format for general web sites:
Author (if any). Title of Site. URL (accessed Month Day, Year), other identifying information (if any). Use the title found on the Web site itself; add the words “Home Page” for clarification when needed.
...
ACS Publications Division Home Page. http://pubs.acs.org (accessed Nov 7, 2004).
Chemical Abstracts Service. STN on the Web. http://stnweb.cas.org (accessed Nov 7, 2004).
International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry Home Page. http://www.iupac.org/dhtml_home.html (accessed April 24, 2005).
...
Recommended format for documents retrieved from institutional or agency web sites:
Author 1; Author 2; Author 3; etc. Title of Document, Year. Title of Site. URL (accessed Month Day, Year). If an article is contained within a large and complex Web site, such as that for a university or a government agency, the host organization and the relevant program or department should be identified before giving the direct URL of the article and accession date.
Chou, L.; McClintock, R.; Moretti, F.; Nix, D. H. Technology and education: New wine in new bottles: Choosing pasts and imagining educational futures, 1993. Columbia University Institute for Learning Technologies Web site. http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/publications/papers/newwine1.html (accessed Aug 24, 2000)

In your case, I would considering citing it as a document, so it would become:

KGM007, Opium pod cut to demonstrate fluid extraction1, 2006, Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Opium_pod_cut_to_demonstrate_fluid_extraction1.jpg (accessed Feb 17, 2018)

You could cite it as a web page - that would look like this:

KGM007, File:Opium pod cut to demonstrate fluid extraction1.jpg - Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Opium_pod_cut_to_demonstrate_fluid_extraction1.jpg (accessed Feb 17, 2018)

In your citation, you gave the name of the site, not the title. The title (as defined by the HTML title tag) is what shows in the top of your web browser when you visit the page:
If you intend to submit this for publication, the publisher should check and confirm the format during production anyhow.


Postdoc application: professor verbally committed to hire me, but now says that regulations have changed and keeps delaying the process I applied for a post doctoral position a few months ago. The initial response from the professor in charge was warm and enthusiastic and he even made a verbal commitment to hire me. But then he just stopped replying to my mails for sometime and then out of the blue he told me that the regulations have changed and I would have to be interviewed by another person. Following that, he scheduled my interview several times only to be canceled at the last minute. Now he has again stopped responding to my queries, which I make at intervals of at least 10 days. Is this normal in post doc recruitment? How long does it take to process post doc applications? Should I start looking for other positions?

Is this normal in post doc recruitment?

No, this is obviously not normal. There is something going on, and your guess is as good as mine as to what that is exactly. Maybe there is indeed some sort of administrative chaos due to changing regulations. Maybe the professor hired somebody else and is trying to weasel out of his earlier commitment to you. Maybe the position just got cancelled, and the prof is trying to find funding to hire you anyway (and failing). Maybe it's something completely different. There is just no way to tell from the outside.

  How long does it take to process post doc applications?

That really depends. However, "a few months" certainly sounds like the upper bound for how long selecting a postdoc should take.

  Should I start looking for other positions?

Yes, independently of what is really going on, I would not get my hopes up that there is indeed a position for you in this department in the future. Maybe you get lucky and it works out after all, but at this point relying on this post seems to be very optimistic.


Where to include acknoledgement for used graphics In the current technical report that I write, I have used graphic from an online-source where their policy requires that the author of the drawing has to be acknowledged in case that the drawing is to be used.

This policy applies to electronic and printed formats of the given work.

Where do I place the acknowledgement for this drawings? Probably the proper way would be to use footnote in the page where the drawing is shown but, the policy requires that the name of the author is written. I would like to avoid such content in the footnotes where I discuss important information.

Is it OK if I do the acknowledgement in an appendix in the end of the report?

You want the reference close to the actual picture. You could go with @Memj's suggestion in the other comment. Or simply put it in the caption:

Fig. 19: Measured relationship between galaxy distance and
red shift. (Figure reproduced with permission from http://abc.org,
copyright Adam Smith, 2015.)


Experiment by using a Matlab's demo data set and publish to journal/conference I hope my question is within the topic of this forum.

I would like to test an algorithm to a real application data and publish in a journal/conference. However, I cannot acquired my own data set myself and I am thinking to use one of Matlab's demos data set that is mentioned from a real experiment.

Is it acceptable to use those data set for a conference/journal publication?

Thank you

As an alternate suggestion, you might try calling people who either do similar research, or are involved in the application the research covers, and get a copy of their data. I've never done it at a publishing level, and I don't know what kind of field you're in, but I have had success with this for some minor projects I've done.

Generally, it's not in the exact format you want, but real data is better than suspicious data. And reformatting is a lot easier than collecting tons of data.


How will C+ and many B+ during online school affect PhD admissions? I'm finishing my second year at a top research university in mathematics, and my major gpa is still a 3.99, however my grades in other subjects have suffered tremendously due to the pandemic stress and online learning (B+ in a physics class, C+ and B+ in CS classes etc.) I have been completely burned out by zoom classes. My overall GPA is currently at a 3.7 but it used to be a 3.9 and it is only decent because I still have high grades in math, including rigorous honors courses. Before covid, I didn't know I wanted to pursue a PhD in mathematics but I started doing mathematical research a few months ago and found out that it is what I want to do with my life. But I have become increasingly worried about my declining performance during covid. I know that many PhD applicants have 4.0s overall and many more stellar qualifications from undergrad, so I am worried that I am nowhere near good enough at the moment. I guess I would like to know how lenient or strict PhD admissions are with online school grades.

The nature of the question suggests that this is in the US, so I'll assume that.
If your lesser grades are outside your major (math) and you otherwise have a good/great application including stellar letters of recommendation, then I think grades elsewhere will matter very little. Given the pandemic, even less.
Don't worry too much about it, but make sure everything else is first class. You can't do anything about the past in any case.


What are the disadvantages and advantages for a senior graduate student to restart after 6 years' study? I am a graduate student in a physics department in US. My department's ranking is really low. In fact, you cannot even find the ranking in, say, usnews. This year is my 6th year and I am seeking a postdoc position in high energy phenomenology, and gravity related postdoc positions.

But I have a strong feeling that I will fail because of my background. Even if I got a postdoc position, I would still go to a low ranking institute. Having studied in this department for 6 years, I did not get very good training. There are many reasons, but one of them should be related to the department. I want to continue studying physics and do not quit completely. So I think I might transfer to a good university. But the problem is I already finish nearly 6 years graduate program now. It would be a waste of time to restart a new Ph.D program in a different university in some sense. But if not, I cannot see my future in academia.

I have no idea now. I really want to hear your advice and your experience. Thank you very much!

I stated that I did not get very good training. I think I need explain that a little bit more. There are many aspects. Firstly, I should blame myself. I should have transferred earlier. After I decided not to transfer, I should have worked harder. Perhaps, I am one of the best students in my department: probably, there are only two best students with whom no body else can compete no matter how hard they work. So I kind of lost motivation: I am not good at motivating myself. Although I did not motivate myself very much, I did like learning stuff. However, I liked learning mathematics by myself. Probably I spent too much time on math which is not very useful. (I like highly formal, abstract things, eg, topology) And there are many others...

On the other hand, I just want to say some thing about my department. Professors in my department are really nice. But they are not devoted to teaching very much. I am pretty sure that they understand their courses very well, but I could not get any deep insight after class. All I got was "plain text": I could even just read textbook instead of listening to their classes. There are only 3 professors in our group. Two are very old. One is too young.

Finally, about my own project. I am working on a project which is outside of my advisor's expertise. He does not have good projects, so he find a professor outside my department and asked him to offer a project. That professor is far away and, he did not work on related area either... Probably, I should not choose this project...  Edit based on comment:  Probably, I should not have chosen this project...

It is very common to be beset by self-doubt at this point -- just when you are poised to begin writing.  (It's best if you can write as you go along, but sometimes the nature of the project does not permit that....)

(There are questions with good answers on this site about how to keep up your nerve during this final stage.  Helpful reading!)

In your case, these self-doubts are complicated by some weaknesses in your department and some frustrations you've had along the way.

Let me draw an analogy from parenting.  Most of the time, a parent will do best if he is really tuned into his baby or his small child, and his antennae are set to pick up subtle vibes from the child, so as to be as responsive as possible.

But there are situations in which this is actually counter-productive, and you have to detach yourself, and care for the child more or less on auto-pilot.  For example, if your child is the non-responsive type, and you are getting frustrated.  In this case, you have to back off emotionally, so as not to overwhelm the child.  It's okay, it won't be forever.  You just need to let the child's brain mature a bit more, and then try again, in small steps.

In your case, the thing you're going to have to train yourself to ignore, on a temporary basis, is the niggling voice in your head that makes the negative remarks and the probing, self-doubting questions.

You are very close, just keep plugging away!  Crank out an imperfect dissertation and move on with life.  You are not the only talented person to have attended a school that has some weaknesses.  Think of the Third World!  I once attended an agronomy class, "Farm Machinery", that was taught with posters the instructor had made on his kitchen table.  An actual tractor was not brought in until the last day of class, and then we did not even practice changing the oil.

For your postdoc, forget about rank -- look for a position where you will have comfortable, fruitful collaborations.


Paper review: The editor is from the same university as the first author and asking for a meeting I was asked to review a paper for a rather important Journal in my field (engineering discipline). The editor (professor) who assigned the review to me is based at the same university as the first author (PhD student). The two do not come from the same chair, but the university is quite small and it is likely they do know one another personally.

Furthermore, the editor suggested a meeting to discuss my opinion on the manuscript in person. He is currently in my area. Since I know him from conferences it would be difficult to decline his meeting request.

So now I am not sure if this represents a conflict in interests or if I am being too paranoid here? If this is critical, how should I react?

Being from the same university may or may not be an issue (it's hard to judge without knowing more details).  Asking to discuss a manuscript in person, however, is a huge red flag.

Communication about manuscripts should pretty much always go through official channels only, thus keeping an accessible record of the complete decision-making process.  Only in dealing with exceptional situations (e.g., plagiarism, negotiating transfer to another journal) is there likely to be any communication outside of these channels, and even then it should be written down.  This is to protect both the integrity of the process and also everybody involved---authors, reviewers, editors, publisher---since both acceptance and rejection are capable of ending up quite contentious.

The fact that this editor is asking to talk with you in person before you've even written your review sounds extremely dubious to me, and would cause me to decline to review for reasons of unprofessionalism.  There may or may not be anything incorrect going on, but it's at least evidence of a rather callous sloppiness that I would not like to be involved with in any way.


How do professors see the German grades? I am currently doing a master in Germany and I scored 2.7 in one particular course.
How is 2.7 to the professors? Is it a very bad grade? Is this grade uncommon among students?

That differs a lot by discipline. If you are doing law, then that is a fine grade, if you are doing sociology, not so much.


Are there any aspects of PhD work that do not translate well to distance learning? In another question about distance PhDs (Do any schools offer teaching or research assistantships via distance education?), I received several comments noting that PhDs on-line are of inferior quality to on-campus PhDs. If what is seen of PhD work from PHD Comics is accurate, PhD students seem to spend much time working independently. So, what aspect of a PhD cannot translate to the on-line format? What aspect of the process cannot be effectively conducted via E-mail or any of the other various forms of on-line communication?

A general answer is that a lot of PhD training is informal: it involves things that are taught by example, by osmosis, by noticing someone doing something wrong and correcting them (or right, and praising them). This kind of informal training is much more difficult in online interactions. Some examples are given below...

One specific aspect that does not translate well to online learning is the cross-pollination of ideas via proximity.

A big part of training PhD students involves putting a bunch of smart, talented, hardworking people together and letting them learn from, motivate, support, and bounce ideas off one another. A prerequisite for this is proximity; you just can't have the same kind of interactions over email. Some research centers are explicitly designed to encourage this. At the Bell Labs facility in Murray Hill, NJ,

  Some of the hallways in the building were designed to be so long that to look down their length was to see the end disappear at a vanishing point. Traveling the hall’s length without encountering a number of acquaintances, problems, diversions and ideas was almost impossible.

(Source: New York Times)

The research center I currently work in was built with a long hallway with this in mind, specifically to foster collaboration between students in different groups!

Another thing that does not translate well is learning scientific communication and mentoring skills. As a PhD student, I have many chances to practice speaking about my work to other graduate students, professors, and undergraduates. I also get to mentor M.S., B.S., and high school students in my lab. These skills are much more difficult to learn over distance.

A third thing that does not work well over email and Skype is learning the etiquette and standards of the field. This is something that isn't explicitly taught (usually) but that students are expected to pick up by osmosis from spending time with other academics and others in their field.


Should I ask POI for update on PhD application? I applied to several top social science programs this cycle, interviewed at two (both fly-outs), and have received a decision at School A.

It has been a month now since I interviewed at School B, but I have not heard a peep from them. I recently spoke with a mentor of mine, and he indicated this likely means they've sent an acceptance to someone and are waiting to hear back from that person before finalizing outcomes. This would therefore mean that I'm unofficially on a waitlist. But I feel like the silence could also mean I was likely rejected, but they haven't sent out rejections yet. If I think hard enough, I can buy into any situation, really. Note that it appears two of the other interviewees have not heard back either (thanks, thegradcafe). We were a group of six.

I would like to know what the current status of my application is, so that I may begin planning for the next stages of my life (!!). Is it okay for me to email and ask my POI (or should I contact someone else?), and what sort of phrasing should I use so that I don't seem pushy?

Thanks.

It's perfectly fine to send such an email; academics are aware that candidates need to know these things.

Send a concise email explaining that you have an offer elsewhere (A) and ask when you will hear from B.

  If I think hard enough

I know it's difficult, but try not to second guess the inner workings of admissions committees. It's much less stressful if you email them and ask.


Is alumni success a valid parameter for selecting a group? I will be starting my Masters degree and intend to be fully committed to working on interesting problems with a lot of impact. I have a few groups in sight which seemingly work on very important problems and publish in major conferences but looking at the 'alumni' section on their website, I haven't noticed MS alumni getting into top PhD programs. Does this say anything about the group's quality or could it be just because of the students?

It is a valid parameter, but not the only valid parameter. It's absolutely justified to ask, and consider, "Where did people in this group go when they were done?"

  I haven't noticed MS alumni getting into top PhD programs. Does this say anything about the group's quality or could it be just because of the students?

You need more information than just "did they get into top PhD programs" - unless a research group is very large, it's likely that any patterns you see in the fates of MS students will be the result of stochasticity. For example:

Are they ending up in private industry? For many people, this isn't a failure, but a success. A group I was in sends many of it's graduate students onward to jobs, and this is considered a success by all involved. Masters programs are not just one step in a PhD conveyor belt. The same is true for "R1 Tenure Track Positions" etc. Many people don't end up taking what is conventionally considered the "brass ring" of their track because they don't actually want to.
Did they want to go to a top tier program and couldn't, or did they not want to? These are two very different things, and will be easier to assess by talking to members of the group, rather than just browsing their alumni page.
Is their alumni page actually accurate? Don't ever assume academic web pages are fully up to date.

It's a valid parameter consider when weighing choices, but I believe it would be a bad idea to eliminate a potential option simply because of their alumni page. You should also look at individuals. Where did the people who presented those important papers end up? Is there someone "like you" who had the trajectory you did? If not, it's worth talking to them about.


Does applying for FAFSA make a school less likely to offer you funding? I have applied to a number of Ph.D. programs in mathematics, keeping in mind up until this point that the generally accepted wisdom is: "If you aren't fully funded, don't go."

Now, luckily, I have received full funding (TA position and full tuition waiver) from one university, and I still have five more places I'm waiting to hear back from, but the one funding offer I've gotten so far is from one of my safety schools.

I got accepted into another university that I would much better prefer attending, but without much of a chance of a full funding offer.

Now, I have already taken out significant (~40,000$) student loans for my undergraduate degree, and by no means plan on significantly increasing that to get my Ph.D, but I came to thinking: "What if I got accepted into a really good school, got decent, but not 100% funding, and decided to take out a small loan to attend?" and so I decided I should fill out FAFSA "just in case".

However, now that I am filling out the form, given that it requires you give a list of universities to send your information to before you receive information on how much funding you are eligible for, I wanted to know whether or not supplying this information to the schools I haven't heard back from decreases my chances of getting a tuition waiver or TA position from them, since they see that I already have funding? (which of course I don't want)

So is this a legitimate concern? Or should I go ahead and fill out the FAFSA?

You should not worry about this. First of all you have already applied and usually you are not supposed to add any additional documents to your application. Secondly these information are separate so I doubt one will influence the other. And I wouldn't want to go to a program where they make you pay more to save money.


What is the best way to deal with cranks? Imagine you are minding your own business when you receive an email from someone who claims to have discovered the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. He provides some "details" about his theory, then says he wants to meet you and / or arrange a time for a phone conservation to discuss it. What should you do?
The only thing I've seen is this 1983 article by Underwood Dudley about what to do when the trisector comes. Dudley says not to examine the trisector's proof, and also not to direct the trisector to the proof that trisection is impossible. Instead one should send computer-generated results showing that the trisection is imperfect. Problem with this is that it only works for questions that can be attacked by computers - there was a recent question here on Academia SE challenging conservation of angular momentum which this won't work for.
What are some general guidelines for dealing with these situations?
Edit: ignoring an email is easy, but what if the crank calls or visits in person?

Ignore the crank.

Unless you are in some location where you are required by law to respond to communications (I remember reading here about one country where it was indeed the case that it was required to answer emails as part of "open records" laws), you are under no obligation to waste your time on a crank's musings.

If it amuses you to respond, feel free to do so, but you waste your time at your own peril!


Citing a paper that led to the discovery of another Whilst reading a paper I discovered another and I am now building upon the latter. Should I cite the former paper, since that's how I discovered the latter? Or does it suffice to cite only the latter?

Unless I misunderstand, the question comes down to "Publication A has cited Publication B, which is a primary source. Can I also cite Publication B, or would that be plagiarism?".

The answer is "Yes, it's fine for multiple people to cite the same primary source".


Can I publish research as "working paper" after journal submission? I am aware that (at least in the field of economics) typically one first publishes their research as a working paper and later on submits to journals. (Where "later on" could be as short as the same day.)

In our case it so happened that a deadline was tight, and we have now submitted the article to a journal first. While we are waiting for a response from the journal, can we proceed to further prepare and publish our work as a working paper or would such a thing only be appropriate after learning of a negative response from the journal (i.e. only after our paper is no longer considered there)?

Most journal publishers have policies allowing you to release the manuscript that you have submitted to the journal (usually called the pre-print because it is pre-peer review) as long as you meet some requirements. Requirements vary by publisher, but commonly include only being able to put your manuscript on certain web sites and having to add a note to the manuscript saying it has been submitted to that journal.

You can find the policy that applies to the journal you've submitted to by searching for 'pre print policy' or similar on their website. You could also look at a website such as Sherpa Romeo, which act as a searchable database of different journals' policies.


Justifying past dropping out in statement of purpose letter I was a PhD student for 2-years. during this time, I did not get along with my adviser, who was psychologically abusive towards me. He left me no chance but to drop out because the situation was intolerable, and working with him was counter-productive.

I am thinking of going back to school as I have not given up on working towards my goal. In my Statement of Purpose (SOP) letter, Do I need to mention/elaborate on the reasons that made me drop out? If so, what is the best way to express them without hurting my chance of getting an admission?

Thanks!

The overriding goal in this situation is to communicate in a way that causes the admissions committee to believe that you have the qualities to get through a PhD program, and that you will be someone who is easy and pleasurable to work with.  It is therefore important to communicate in a way that gives cues as to your fortitude and drive to get through the program, and shows that you are calm and able to deal with conflict in a mature manner.  Anything you say that detracts from this could be detrimental to your application.

  Do I need to mention/elaborate on the reasons that made me drop out? If so, what is the best way to express them without hurting my chance of getting an admission?

This is certainly a thorny situation.  You will certainly need to give some explanation of why you did not succeed in your previous attempt at a PhD program.  However, unless there is some simple, clear, and objective evidence of misconduct by your previous supervisor (e.g., a disciplinary outcome against him by the university for his treatment of you), it is not a good idea to go into specifics, or make statements claiming psychological abuse.  The problem with doing this is that the committee will have no simple way of confirming that your claim of abuse is accurate, and it will therefore naturally give rise to the alternative possibility that you are just extremely sensitive, and perceive psychological abuse in ordinary supervisory activity.  I am not suggesting this is the case, but just bear in mind that the committee will not have any way of confirming your assertions, so they might consider this to raise a risk for them.

In this kind of situation, assuming there is no simple, clear, and objective evidence of misconduct by your previous supervisor that you can cite, I recommend that you include a short statement to the effect that your relationship with your previous supervisor was "not a good fit", and this hindered your progress.  The committee is likely to "read between the lines" and understand that there was some problem between you and your previous supervisor, so by understating the problem (e.g., saying it was "not a good fit" without blaming anyone), you signal that you are a person who can roll with the punches.

If you get an interview for a prospective PhD candidature, be prepared to field follow-up questions about this issue.  I would recommend preparing some verbal answers that take the same understated tone, but also be prepared to give full disclosure in a calm and measured way if pressed on the issue.  If this comes up, you again want to communicate that there was a good reason for your previous failure to complete, but you have the fortitude to talk about it in a calm and non-accusatory manner.


How often do good journals publish amusing little corollaries? I've had a little corollary sitting around a while now. It is closely related to a major theorem in my area.  Its statement is easy to understand (and rather interesting/amusing on the surface of it) and it's proof can be written in a couple of paragraphs.

I thought it had potential to be the beginnings of a nice paper, but I've struggled to find good "related stuff" to add to it.

Should I just submit this little 1.5 page paper, or would I be wasting everyone's time?  Do any good journals regularly accept these kinds of "notes"?

If other people share your enthusiasm for the observation and the proof, then it's of interest to journals. I would just contact one of the editors and see what they suggest. It's their job to be in charge of these questions.


Personal Statement(s) for two similar masters courses I'm applying to two courses viz - Mathematical Physics MSc and Theoretical Physics MSc at the University of Edinburgh. I'm currently a final year bachelors student. From what I can gather post a decent amount of research, the two courses differ in the allocation of compulsory math courses. I've attached a description from the course website.

I'd like to know how similar the personal statement can be. Obviously I have included program specific components in the two separate statements, and I have also added different motivations behind applying to both courses. But fundamentally they are similar courses, and the parts of the SOP that involve my background or my interests towards physics/math physics will remain the same. I'm honestly worried that if the same admissions team receives both statements, they may not read whichever statement they read second, because of a similar narrative (introduction atleast, for the lack of better explanation).

Do I have to give an entirely different personal statement now?

You want the two statements to be unified, so that a person reading both isn't confused. And especially, doesn't think you are playing to the audience rather than being honest. As you suggest, the programs may share faculty, and hence admissions committee members.

But especially, don't say things in one that are inconsistent with things in the other.


Discrimination against theists by atheists in academia Several times I read or heard about the claim that there is a discrimination against theists in academia by atheists. For example the german newspaper ZEIT Campus ONLINE cites an anthropologist Robert J. Priest:

  Für Akademiker ist es ganz einfach, sich zu diskreditieren. Sie müssen nur sagen, dass sie religiös sind

  For academics it's easy to discredit oneself. You just have to say you are religious.

(Source; translation by myself, I could not find the original citation)

I searched for surveys about that claim but could not find much, except creationists arguing against evolution theory.

So my question:

Are there surveys about discrimination of theist people by atheists in academia?

EDIT

I deletet the follow-up question "Is there discrimination against theists by atheists in academia?" because it is too opinion based and is probably answered within the survey(s) I am searching for.

Addressing the question in the context of the Unites States, it appears that it's questionable that any discrimination, and that if there is any such discrimination, it is a) not particularly strong, and b) highly entangled with other factors, such as conservative religious social and cultural activism.

It is an undisputed fact that in the United States there is a higher percentage of non-believers in academia than in society at large.  The key and unresolved question is whether this is a result of self-selection (e.g., non-belief being correlated with interest in scholarly investigation as a career and belief being correlated with disinterest) or whether there is also some component of discrimination.  One can find serious and respectable scholarly work both arguing that there is significant bias and that there is no significant bias.

Even articles strongly advocating that bias exists, however, find that if any such exists it is not particularly strong (else it would not be so equivocal to study) and that it appears to be measurable only with respect to religious people who are a) strongly culturally conservative, and b) activists with respect to politically polarizing positions (e.g., opposition abortion, gay marriage), and also c) at very particular stages of career (entry to graduate school, possibly at tenure promotion).

In short: even amongst those studying and debating the question, it appears that even if any systematic bias exists in US academia, the vast majority of theists are not significantly affected.


Should I ask my master's advisor and co-advisor for a recommendation letter? I'm doing a master's, and I plan to start a PhD next year. All the admission processes I've checked so far require two or three recommendation letters. My question is: should I ask my advisor and co-advisor for them? On the one hand, they are the ones who know me the most and who certainly have the most writing material for the letters. On the other hand, I've been wondering: if I get a letter from each of them, could this be seen as biased by the evaluators? Also, another related question: my co-advisor has a PhD, but is not currently employed as a full-time professor (he recently finished his postdoc). Should I only ask professors for LORs, or is it OK to ask him too?

It's absolutely fine to ask for reference letters from both of them. Be aware that they may be somewhat redundant if you worked on the same project with both of them. So if referee A worked on project 1 with you and referee B worked on project 2, it would be much better than if both worked with you on the same project.

To clarify - it is expected that you get letters from your advisors. In fact, not getting letters from the people who worked most closely with you in an academic setting will send all sorts of wrong signals to people reading your application. They may assume that you fell out with them or had some other issues that prevented them from recommending you.


Need help distinguishing between a primary and secondary source I am trying to figure out if the following article is a primary or secondary source.

http://genome.cshlp.org/content/20/5/547.full.pdf

I'm leaning towards secondary but here are my cases for both.

Primary: Published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Secondary: It seems to be mostly a summary of other works so it might not be original research.
Can anyone confirm this for me? Thank you!

Primary source material is "direct evidence." This can include published reports of original research, but also journals, diaries, direct interviews, government records, and other types of "produced" work. (It need not be a research or scholarly work to be a direct source; thus the claim that it's primary because it's published in a peer-reviewed journal carries no weight in this argument.)

On the other hand, a secondary source is a source which reports on the work of others, whether it is published or not. Citing a secondary work does not make it a primary work; it's the relationship of the cited work to the original subject that determines if it's primary or secondary.

In this case, a "Perspective" column that summarizes ongoing work in the field is a secondary source, as it is analyzing the original work of others.


Introducing abbreviations in an abstract for a repeated term I use a long term (e.g. "artificial neural network") more than once in the abstract of a paper. Is it best to introduce the abbreviation (e.g. "ANN") after the first occurrence, or repeat the non-abbreviated term each time?

It is almost certainly not "best" to introduce acronyms/abbreviate terms like "artificial neural network" in the abstract. I can think of two reasons to use acronyms/abbreviations in a manuscript. The first is to save words/space and the second is to improve readability. While using abbreviations is a quick way to save a few words, generally you will be better off spending more time (assuming the deadline is not pressing) thinking about why you have hit the word limit. Cutting words is often better done by saying things more concisely or leaving out unneeded details.

In regards to readability, the abstract is different than the body of the manuscript. While in both you need to consider readability by both experts and non-experts, the percentage of non-experts reading the abstract is higher than the percentage reading the body. Therefore, the readability of the abstract should be geared towards a non-expert. What this means is that while acronyms like ANN may help the expert reader, they will not help the non-expert. On the other hand, acronyms like NASA are more readable to the non-expert than National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Abstract are tricky. For example, APA 5 style used to say that abstracts had to be self contained. That meant you had to introduce acronyms in the abstract and then again in the body. In APA 6, this has been dropped (cf. this blog post). I still go with introduce the acronym on first use in the abstract and then again on first use in the body. I also introduce acronyms on first use in figure captions (not sure that is APA style or Strongbad style).


Can the supervisor ask a student to add them in an acknowledgment without any useful feedback I am a PhD student. At the beginning of my study, my supervisor told me that they are able to help me with my topic. However, later I found that they cannot even understand what is my topic. They wasting my time for more about one and a half year without any comments or help with my topic. Then, I worked entirely alone with my topic. I have done the first chapter of my study, they asked me to be co-authors with me for nothing but just because they are my supervisors. I refused this. Then, they asked me to add them in the acknowledgment as they are the supervisors of this project. They asked me to write this in every single paper of my Ph.D. papers. They did not help me with anything, they even cannot understand the difference between my objectives. My question, Must I acknowledge them in my papers?

Giving a mere acknowledgement to supervisors is a pretty low bar, and it would be a pretty extreme reaction to deny this.  Even if they did not succeed in assisting you with this paper, presumably they must have made some attempt to assist you in their supervisory role, and they have taken time out of their own schedule to try to assist you as a student.  That in itself warrants an acknowledgement and thanks, even if you are of the view that they did not contribute anything of value.  It is usual to add someone as a co-author only when they have made a substantial contribution to a paper, but the bar for an acknowledgement is much lower.

I note from your further comments that you are of the view that your academic supervisors do not understand your topic, and the Dean of the Faculty is "with their side".  I also note your comment that they have asked you to withdraw from the university, or at least take a long vacation.  Under such circumstances, you should try to engage in some self-reflection and see if you are acting reasonably, or if you might be contributing to the problem.  Refusing any acknowledgement of assistance (or at least attempted assistance) by a supervisor suggests that you are not acting in a manner conducive to good relations with your supervisory panel.

It is not entirely impossible that a supervisor could be incompetent to assist a student, or that a Dean could incorrectly side with the supervisor in this case.  However, it would be very unusual if multiple professional scholars do not understand the topic of a student they are supervising, and are not able to provide a student with any assistance.  Application of Occam's Razor would lead an outside observer to conclude that the more likely explanation is that it is the student might not properly appreciate the efforts made by their supervisors.  The refusal even to acknowledge and thank them in a paper contributes to this perception.


How to present the motivation for a book on mathematical research? My book was rejected by a publisher saying that my research is "unmotivated". To motivate it, should I solve some long standing open problem? Or are there other ways to motivate publishers?

This is despite I have some short sections in my book which describes my idea of motivation: "1.4 Our topic and rationale" and "1.5 Earlier works".

What motivation (except of solving long standing open problems) are?

Any text online on the topic of motivation in math research?

What the publisher is looking for is a book that will attract many readers.  If crowds are already clamoring for a book, then the decision to publish it is easy, but that's uncommon.  Instead, the publisher generally has to try to predict whether an audience for the book will materialize when nobody knows they want to read it yet.

The "motivation" the publisher refers to is anything that makes people want to read the book.  You need to demonstrate to potential readers that the material is interesting and exciting, that reading the book will be useful, that it connects to a larger scholarly conversation, etc.

Right now, it's clear that you feel the book is valuable and would like many people to read it, but you aren't giving potential readers a lot of motivation.  For example, in Section 1.4 of the current draft, you write

  Somebody might ask, why to study it? My approach relates to traditional general topology like complex numbers to real numbers theory. Be sure this will find applications.

and

  This book has a deficiency: It does not properly relate my theory with previous research in general topology and does not consider deeper category theory properties. It is however OK for now, as I am going to do this study in later volumes (continuation of this book).

Basically, this amounts to saying you don't yet know how it will be useful and you aren't connecting it to the literature.  The lack of applications is a serious disadvantage, but not necessarily decisive by itself (some things can be published in mathematics just because they are beautiful or seem like they should be useful).  However, not explaining the relationship with previous research is a major problem.  It's nearly impossible to get an academic book published under these circumstances.

I don't mean to be overly discouraging, but my impression is that writing a book on your work is premature.  Instead, I'd focus on connecting your work with the rest of the field, with the goal of getting a group of other researchers building on your papers.  Once you start to get more citations, you can bring them to the attention of publishers as evidence for a community that values your work and would benefit from a systematic presentation in the form of a book.


Can I apply for a "potential" deferred admission I'm sorry if there are similar posts, I had a look and couldn't find something exactly similar.
I will be starting my final year of Bachelor (in the UK), and I am going to start applying for an integrated MS/PhD in mathematics (in the US). Recently, I started thinking about going for a gap year before starting with my graduate studies, and I found an interesting (but very selective) internship which might be interesting.
However, my problem is, I do not know how the admissions process works for the internship. So I might end up getting an answer after having sent my PhD applications. So my question is: is it possible in some universities to ask for a "possible" defferal of admission? Conditional on a third factor?
PS: the universities I am applying for are UC Berkeley, and UCLA. I was thinking of emailing them but thought maybe someone would already have been in a similar situation here - and could maybe give me some advice :)

You can always ask, but as a committee member I would probably vote against such an application unless the candidate is exceptionally good. When departments evaluate openings for PhD programs, they have needs they seek to fill: For teaching assistant positions, to keep the strength of a program, to spend money they might have, to have enough students in graduate classes, etc. All of these needs are timely: They need to be satisfied in the upcoming academic year. So the department is looking for people for next year, not the year after: There will be another crop of applicants to consider for the year after. So unless there are really compelling reasons to admit someone now knowing that they may or may not show up only a year later, departments will generally want to admit people they know will actually come.


How to recover work output from past lab when the head is uncooperative? I have done a part of my PhD project in the lab that was not in our university and in another city. At the end of my work I produced a mutant enzyme that was necessary to perform another experiment to measure one of its characteristics. but they did not have the facility. So, the head of that lab told me that they would send my samples for the measurement to one  of their collaborator. I left their lab and returned to my city to continue my project. After that, whenever I followed up about the measurement the head of that lab postponed sending the samples to another time. After Six months I have asked him to send my samples to the lab that I introduced him. But,... He did not. It is almost two years but they did not send my samples for the measurement. Once I complained about this issue to him, he replied that whatever produced in his lab "is exclusively him". Is my samples really exclusively him? It was my idea and my work. How can I handle that? Is there any place that we can complain about these kind of issues?

If an artist borrows a canvas and a brush to create a beautiful piece of art, who owns the art? The person owning the canvas or the artist himself? Who owns the intellectual property (IP)?

Your problem is a very ethical question and I would expect that there are laws and agreements between your university and the guest university governing that. If your University or Faculty has a dedicated law department I suggest you get in touch to figure out what regulations apply to your specific case; Asking "who owns what".

You should escalate this issue to higher levels: Supervisor, Head of Department, Devision, Faculty, [...] There are people with enough power and knowledge to deal with this issue in the correct way. You are not the first person to face such an issue; You will not be the last =) In fact you should have done so 1.5 years ago.

I am no lawyer, so I suggest you speak to somebody more qualified (and local). As a rule of thumb, IP belongs to the person that pays for the work.

If your guest professor contracted you he owns it and there isn't much you can do.

'produced in his lab "is exclusively him" ' is not enough to claim IP as that is merely providing the tools [at least in computer science]. That's saying "I gave Picasso his brush and he painted this in my Café, I own that painting".

In your case you are using his hotbed, ... "Consumables" (e.g. the paint and the canvas) are again different. There it very much depends on local regulations and there could be a caltrop hidden somewhere. Again speak to local people with more experience, in my experience they are more then happy to help.

Now above is something you can do. The consequence is that it will ruin the relationship between your two labs (plus some potential other consequences). On the other hand you managed to work over 2 years (at least half of your PhD) without those samples. How important are those samples to you and your work?


Why are academics expected to pay out of their pockets for society memberships? I had a discussion with a colleague about paying to become a member out of our own pockets. His argument is that we have to support a society if we care about it.

I don't understand the argument. The best way I can explain it is if we compare it to industry. You would not be asked to pay out of your own pocket to do the job you were hired for. Instead, your employer would have to pay it.

However, with respect to memberships in academia we are supposed to pay to do the job we were hired for (by the way, in my contract it says "give presentations in academic meetings"). It might be my experience in industry that makes me think this way, but again, I do not find it appropriate at all that we have to pay to do our jobs.

Why is there this discrepancy between academia and industry?

PS. I know in some cases one can use certain funds to pay for membership, I am not asking about that. I am asking that if you have the options of (1) not being a member or (2) pay it yourself, you are expected to pay it yourself.

Extra information: I asked around in my office and all (but me) frown upon academics that are not members of any society. In practice, this means (as far as I know, told this in confidence) that colleagues in my department do not consider you a committed professional and can use this as an excuse to minimize your achievements and maximize your weaknesses. One of the comments was similar to one of the answers here "if someone is not committed, then he/she should change careers, they have no place in academia"

First of all, I believe the premise of your question is largely incorrect (and I know from your disclaimer that you are "not asking about that" but will take the liberty of addressing that anyway). At my university, researchers can use their research funds to pay for membership in academic societies, and my perception is that this is the norm in the United States. So, to the extent that it's not the case at your institution, my feeling is that that is out of line with the norm, so perhaps there is indeed no good reason for it and you should lobby to get this rule changed.

Second, even if it is the case that you cannot charge this expense to your research funds, the assertion that "academics are expected to pay out of their pockets for memberships in academic societies" still sounds highly questionable to me. What does "expected" here mean? I was not a member of any academic society until last year, and nonetheless managed to become a full professor and department chair at a respected university. So I maintain that no harm will come to your career if you ignore this so-called "expectation". Sure, it might be nice to be a member of a society and can come with various small benefits, but if you don't feel like paying for it, you'll be fine.

Third, even if it is the case that becoming a member of an academic society in your discipline is somehow a professional necessity, and that the only way to do that is to pay for it out of your personal money, I don't think that's necessarily unreasonable (nor is it entirely true that things aren't like that in industry - lawyers have to pay annual bar fees, for example, not all of which are covered by their employers). Your interpretation that this means "we are supposed to pay to do the job we were hired for" seems to me like a very narrow-minded view of what life in academia is about. Sure, it is a job and we are paid a salary for it; at the same time, being a researcher is much more than a job - it is a vocation, and that is why researchers are notoriously bad at separating their personal lives and their professional lives: most normal "workers" don't work late nights and weekends (not to mention holidays and family vacations) and don't spend a large proportion of their lives traveling for work, including moving repeatedly across large geographical distances before landing their first permanent job.

In fact, to be honest, as an academic, I feel like I can't draw a precise line separating my "job" from my "personal life". When I read a math book or article at the beach or swimming pool, am I "working"? When I think about a research problem while driving or talk about math with a friend over dinner, am I "working"? I honestly don't know. And that's a good thing. It means that I am doing something that makes me happy. How many other "workers" can say that? Too few, sadly. So let the industry people have their employers pay for them to do the "duties" that are "written in their contract", is what I say. If you are passionate about your work and being a member of a society is something that interests you enough, you would not find it burdensome having to pay a small amount for it. And if not, well, either switch careers, or just forego the society membership, and all will be well.


Should an Editor in Chief publish in their own journal? An Editor in Chief of a journal ought to be proud of their journal and consider it a good place to publish their own work, so not publishing in the journal that they edit suggests a lack of confidence in the journal.  On the other hand, is publishing regularly in your own journal ethical?  Can we reasonably expect the editor in chief's papers to be handled with the same rigour as for anybody ese?  Wouldn't there be implicit pressure on the action editor to accept a paper that might be rejected had it come from an external author?  It seems to me that it would be better to be seen to be fair by publishing elsewhere (or al least only publishing occasionally in ones own journal), but I was wondering what the balance of opinion was on this.

There are of course no laws against it but as Editor-in-Chief (EiC) myself I would never do (or at least think twice about doing) it, particularly not as first author. My reasoning behind this is that it could reflect badly on both me but particularly the journal and send signals that all is not necessarily well. I have to point out that in my case we are two and we have an agreement that we do not touch manuscripts from our own spheres of influence (basically departments). Nevertheless, what actually happens within a journal and how people perceive it are two different things and it is my opinion that as EiC one must safeguard the journals reputation as objective. So if the community expresses some form of trust in the editor to publishing in their own journal this could be perfectly fine.

So when an EiC publishes in "their" journal it is not wrong but potentially "dangerous" and can be perceived as poor judgement. They would jeoparize the journals reputation. So even if thetre is no legal problems there are ethical problems. I doubt anyone would have second thoughts about the quality of a journal if the editor does not publish there, after all if the editor has a solid reputation, associating with a bad journal would jeopardize that.

Can I see any exceptions? Well, co-authorship may be less serious but in the end even that should be avoided. I also think that if an editor publishes a single paper in a thematic issue of the journal (where someone else has suggested a theme) and this is the only paper by that editor in the journal for years, I would not think much about it. Obviously frequency of publications is also a factor.

So, in conclusion, I consider it unwise under most circumstances.


How to export search results from Elsevier? I am doing a systematic review and I am cataloging my searches.
I've already exported the search results from IEEE, and from Springer, with one click to an CSV file.
So I wonder how to do the same thing with the Elsevier site https://www.elsevier.com/search-results
In the IEEE site I've just clicked here and saved the CSV file. Same in the Springer site.
Does anyone know how I can download from Elsevier?

I suppose you mean Scopus?
If you have your results page, there is a grey horizontal menu bar on the top of the search results. It contains the link "CSV export". This is where you have to click on, then you can select the metadata you wish to download.
Make sure to first select the documents, perhaps the box "All" left to "CSV export", before the link "CSV export" becomes clickable.
See an example here:


Is IEEE author's version the same as the accepted version which can be put on arXiv? When a paper is accepted to be published in an IEEE journal, the publishing system sends by email a PDF file of the author's version
(for an example of what PDF file I'm referring to, see https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1710/1710.01077.pdf).

(1) Is this PDF file the 'Accepted' version which can be uploaded to arXiv?

(2) Since in this case the authors do not have the source files of this PDF file, it is OK to bypass arXiv LaTeX detection?

How does IEEE define an “accepted” version?
  An accepted article is a version which has been revised by the author to incorporate review suggestions, and which has been accepted by IEEE for publication. If peer review by a journal or a conference requires no changes for publication, the accepted version is identical to the version initially submitted by the author.
  (Source)

From the link you posted, it is unclear if e.g. the copyright statements at the bottom were already present in the submitted version, but it is likely that the "author's version" is slightly different than the "accepted version". To be certain you are uploading the correct version, use the one you have compiled yourself. (That way, you also have the source files, solving question 2.)


Making an appointment regarding letters of recommendation My University is currently on break, so I'd be making the appointment by email, and then meeting separately to discuss it.

In the email, is it a good idea to say explicitly that the appointment is regarding letters of recommendation? It seems like it would be, but on the other hand that seems tantamount to "asking via email," which of course is frowned upon when we're in the same city. Any thoughts?

This may vary between departments, countries (I'm in the U.S.), etc., but I'd say:

When making an appointment, it's almost always a good idea to specify what it will be about.  When someone doesn't have a lot of time, this helps them figure out how soon the meeting needs to be scheduled, and it gives them a chance to prepare for it.  The one exception I can think of is very delicate topics.  For example, if you are meeting with someone to discuss an ethical matter, there might not be a short description you can give that wouldn't risk be misleading or omitting important context.
I'm not aware of a belief that asking for a letter of recommendation via e-mail is rude or problematic (although of course this may depend on the local culture).  In fact, I would prefer to be asked by e-mail.  Partly it's just because I generally prefer e-mail for things that can be handled that way, since it's less disruptive.  Partly it's because awkward situations are a little easier for me to handle by e-mail.  For example, if a student didn't do well in my course, I may point this out and ask whether there's someone else who could write a more compelling letter.  It's easier for me to find the right words in writing, rather than on the fly in a conversation.


Academic changing universities: How to negotiate start date to minimise problems with leaving previous university with little notice? I have an offer at another university.  It is late June, just got it.  They want me asap.  I have asked to not go until after the fall semester as we have an accreditation site visit as well as a faculty member coming back for their first semester after cancer treatment.  I don't want to stress out the department with a job search now and to go through the site visit without me.  I literally have my current university's contract in my hand and have not returned it.  I would like to ask them if I can accept for just the fall semester.  That would give us time to get through our very important site visit, and the fall semester.  It would also provide 5 months for them to fill my position.  My fear is if I ask they could say no.  If I don't ask, I'm not sure what if any penalties there would be.  I want to do the right thing but not sure what to do.  Suggestions?

Also look at Possible to leave a contract academic position shortly after signing new contract? [closed]

But the decision appears not yours to make from my reading of the wording of the question.

If the current institution says no to a one semester contract, then the answer is given, as it would be kind of ridiculous to keep putting off the new position (assuming one wants to accept it) for however many years the old place keeps renewing the year-to-year contract.

But lets imagine that the OP is in a position where he/she is negotiating with both sides to stay one semester. The former department has requested that they 'need' the OP just a little bit longer. Accommodate the request or not?

There is no ethical obligation to stay (how would people ever change positions otherwise?). A junior faculty in a field where everyone knows everyone and a collaborative team player reputation is highly prized, might find it a smooth move to attempt to negotiate to stay one last semester at the desperate request of the former department. (If the new place says no, well then, figuring that out as soon as possible is more important to the old department than anything else).

But, even so, I get a sense from the question that the OP feels guilty for leaving, (which is normal).  I also suspect that is it pretty easy to mistake anxiety-over-getting-out-of-project  with being indispensable. ("It won't be done the way I would have done it" is not the same as being indispensible)


Is it acceptable to ask for a first review midway through the review process? I have written a paper on COVID-19 with data that goes up to the 31st of July. I would say that the interest in this paper will reduce significantly as time goes on. I submitted the paper to a fast-track process of a relatively high-profile journal on August 5. This is the second time I have submitted to the fast-track process of that journal. Last time, both reviewers were assigned in a single day, and the first round of reviewing was complete in two weeks.
This time things were much slower. Reviewer 1 took over a week to assign. According to status updates, Reviewer 1's review is in as of August 20. A second reviewer still has not been found. I asked the journal whether there was any way I could assist, and they asked if I had reviewer suggestions. I thought a bit and provided a suggestion. That was before the weekend and I have not heard back.
Here’s my conundrum: If Reviewer 1 has recommended rejection, then the paper will not be accepted, so I think waiting any longer is a waste of time. I would like to see Reviewer 1’s review and feedback, implement it, and submit to a different journal ASAP, preferably still in August (so the data is less than one month old). I feel this is an unusual thing to ask: “Based on Reviewer 1's report, is the paper likely to be rejected? If so I'll just withdraw, make the changes, and submit to a different journal now.” If we wait till a second reviewer is found, that review takes time, and then the paper is rejected based on Reviewer 1's report, then I will be quite frustrated. I will have waited for little purpose and the paper will now be out of date and less likely to be accepted by another journal.
There's always a certain amount of chance with submissions. Do the reviewers like your paper – that's often quite subjective. If they don't, I'll roll the dice again, and would like to ASAP.

I'm interpreting your question as whether it's acceptable to ask for a decision based on the single reviewer report received so far. You could certainly ask but the editor's reaction is probably unpredictable. Some will be OK sharing the report (this gets more likely if the report isn't controversial), others will not be hurried.
The problem with sharing the report is that the decision might not agree with the report. There are all sorts of reasons why the first report might be rejected, e.g. (and this is an intentionally egregious example) if the reviewer says "this should cite A, B, C, D, E papers, aside from that it's acceptable". In that case the report effectively says nothing except ask for some citations. The second reviewer report will likely be the decisive report, and showing the authors the first report is rather pointless (other than to show how bad our journal's reviewers can be, i.e. not desirable).
Even if the first report is an honest and relatively positive report, the decision still might be reject, if the second report is sufficiently poor. In this case I would be more inclined to share the first report with the author before the decision, but I would stress that there is no decision yet.
It sounds like you're considering the case where the first review is damning enough to cause outright rejection. If that's what happened, the journal doesn't need to invite a second reviewer, they can already reject your paper. If they haven't already rejected your paper, then unless the editors are too busy to look at your submission, your paper still has a chance.
tl; dr: "Based on Reviewer 1's report, is the paper likely to be rejected?" is not an answerable question, unless Reviewer 1's report is well and truly damning, in which case they would already be able to make a decision. You could still ask for the review, but not every editor will show you the review.


Are there any acceptable reasons for omitting data in a publication (i.e. "data not shown")? I was recently going through an article (which I was told is fundamental in the area of my new project) published in a respectable medical journal. In short, the paper is about the similarities between a particular sub-type of tumor cells versus a particular type of stem cells in the body, then they go on to investigate what that similarity might indicate.

Barely two pages in and I realize that the authors omit what I consider to be critical data when motivating the use of two particular proteins as markers in establishing their fundamental assumption, that their immunohistochemistry findings are representative of the reality and that their model is valid:

  Accordingly, we screened all known ..... markers against our ..... data to determine which, if any, decrease with differentiation (data not shown). Of all the potential ... markers, we found that X and Y are the best candidates, and they were therefore used in this study.

Now it might not be a big deal to some but I find it important to see that omitted data, since:

I am not that informed in that particular type of biology
Seeing that their "real" findings are built on the results of the aforementioned screening, the validity of their research is practically depending on the decision of using those two markers.

Which brings me to my question: Are there any cases where not showing "critical" data in such a manner is acceptable or common? I know that some journals do not accept "data not shown", but obviously it does happen in better journals as well...

I think it is perfectly reasonable to not "show" data. For example, consider a multivariate randomized control trial with two groups. If there are a large number of partially correlated dependent variables, the data are not suitable for graphical or tabular presentation. What we are potentially interested in is if there is a difference between the two groups. We can "see" that from a single sentence about a statistical test and a comment that the data are not shown (so people do not go looking to find the figure).

In a biology example, maybe you are counting the number of intact cells after two different treatments. There may be hundreds of slices that result in two numbers. What exactly do you want to see?


Waiving library costs if the student has own access Costs of print and electronic resources including access to journals and books are usually part of tuition fees for PhD and MSc programmes.

Are there universities which waive such costs if the student doesn't need them, e.g., has his/her own or external adequate resources?

I have never heard of such a thing.  Such access is always made available to all students, and any associated fees would be mandatory.  They might be waived on the basis of financial need, but not on an "opt out" basis.

With a policy like you suggest, I'd be worried about students opting out to save a little money, and then discovering they needed access more than they thought, with an adverse impact on their studies.

Also, on a practical level, these systems are usually not designed to be able to grant or deny access to individual students, so they couldn't easily restrict access to those who had paid.  Often access is on the basis of IP address range, so that all you need is to sit down at any computer on the campus network, without any further authentication.


Can I send an IEEE paper that I downloaded using my institutional access to a person? Is it personal use or copyright infringement? Suppose that, I want to send the PDF file of my published IEEE paper to someone in E-mail. So, I use my institutional access and download the PDF file. Now my question is
Is it fine to send this file to a person?
Is it a sort personal use and consequently fine, or it is indeed an act of copyright infringement?

Check your institution's policies. Here are three examples:
University of Auckland:

Data may not be copied in any format for sale or any other commercial purpose, nor may it be copied or reproduced for the benefit of any third party external to the University of Auckland.

So assuming the person you are sending the file to is not affiliated with the University of Auckland, you may not send the file.
National University of Singapore:

The following limits on the copying or reproduction of any Work for the purpose of research or study must be strictly observed:

Electronic Materials:
Not more than, in total,

10% of the total number of bytes in the Work, or
10% of the total number of words in the Work or, where it is not practical to use the
total number of words as a measure, 10% of the contents of the Work, or
One chapter of the Work, where it exceeds any of the limits.

So you may not send the full file.
University College London

You MUST NOT:

provide print or electronic copies of material to anyone;

Read strictly, this is more stringent than the University of Auckland's policies; however presumably if the person you are sending to is also affiliated with UCL, then they can use their own access to get the paper. I'd guess then that UCL presumably meant the same thing as UoA, you can still send to someone affiliated with the university but not anyone external to it.
Exception: if you are one of the authors of the manuscript, you typically have more leeway with sharing. IEEE's policies are vague (see Section 8.1.4, page 76):

In return for the transfer of authors’ copyrights, the IEEE shall grant authors and their employer’s permission to make copies and otherwise reuse the accepted versions of their articles under terms approved by the Board of Directors.

But they don't say what those terms are, and I couldn't find them in the document. If you want an authoritative answer then you should email them at copyrights@ieee.org and ask.
However if we use Elsevier's policies as a proxy (I'm using Elsevier because it's so big), then:

If you are an author, you may also share your Published Journal Article (PJA) privately with known students or colleagues for their personal use

So you are free to send the paper to this person, if they are your colleague in research.
If IEEE sent you a copy of the paper after they published it (the publishers I worked with did), the email might also detail their sharing policies and/or where to find them.


How to prepare for an online interview for a professorship position? Some time ago, I applied for a tenure track professorship in Germany, and was invited to an interview. Due to the current circumstances, the interview will now take place online (via Zoom).
Having participated in a few "offline" interviews, what I have been told about the structure and contents of the interview (30 min scientific talk + discussion, followed by a 60 min discussion with the selection committee) seems to be relatively standard. The interview will take place on a technical platform (Zoom) that I am reasonably familiar with due to my online teaching activities.
I am wondering what to expect from, and how to best prepare for an online interview, in particular compared to standard "offline" interviews.

Are there any pitfalls specific to the nature of virtual meetings?
How should I best prepare for potential technical issues? I plan on having two laptops ready, but for example WiFi issues are very rare, but not impossible.

I interviewed candidates in the US for a similar position, the number one non-academic tip is to pay attention to how you appear on Zoom, and go for a professional setup. I was surprised how many candidates were speaking in a relatively dark room with a visible bed (even an unmade bed) behind them.

Look at the camera, not the screen
Find a relatively solid, professional, not distracting background
Light yourself from the front
Make sure the camera is raised to something approaching the level of your head

If possible, do a practice interview on Zoom first to prepare.


How to write an effective but very gentle reminder email to supervisor to check the Manuscript? I had submitted my first manuscript to my supervisor in 2013. He checked it after one year and finally submit it to a journal in Jan 2015. After one major revision, it got accepted with a minor revision and due date was 30th June, 2015. I modified and corrected the manuscript. But my supervisor was so busy that he could not make a final check and could not submit it in due time. I reminded and requested many times to check and submit it at the earliest in his free time, but my supervisor always says that "Sorry, I am busy and wait until my check." Editor had also reminded couple of times and finally closed the file. One day my supervisor told me that we need to withdraw this paper, because it is too late. I got shocked. So my supervisor might had felt bad for his delay, so he withdrew it and submitted to another journal in the same day of Mar, 2016 without any check. Fortunately the manuscript got accepted with a minor revision with a due date as 29th July, 2016. I corrected accordingly and sent it to my supervisor. But again seems same situation that yet he has not submitted.

During this period, I was ready with another manuscript. When I requested him to submit that, he advised me to submit by my own to XYZ journal as he is very busy. I felt very happy and submit it to his recommended journal in Mar 2016. This manuscripts came with a major revision after 2 months. So I revised the manuscript and submitted in due time by my own and informed to my supervisor. Fortunately, this manuscript also got accepted with a minor revision and due date was 28th Oct 2016. I modified everything and supposed to submit by my own. But my supervisor told that he will check at least once before final submission. So I could not submit it by my own and still waiting for my supervisor's check.

So I am very much worried what to do in this situation. I have written and reminded many times. But as usual I always get a sorry reply. I am really worried how to write an effective but very gentle reminder email to him to check the Manuscript? I can't complain and be hard to break his faith on me.

I will just write how I approach the matter with very busy supervisors until now. It has worked without issues and our relationships has not been impacted at all.

The best thing is to take responsibility of the submission process (if you haven't done that already). When you have either the manuscript ready to submit or after you have done the corrections on the reviewers' comments, you can send an e-mail to your supervisor telling him/her that you have done all the corrections and answered to the reviewers (if applicable) and you are ready to submit.

Put a deadline for the submission (not the journal deadline, but yours) and ask him to send his comments, if any, by then. You are planning to submit it on that day, unless you have his comments that require big changes.

Also ask him if he needs to change the deadline, then he can propose a new one. But don't leave it without a deadline, as it could go forever.


Curriculum Vitae in application for PhD I have contacted a professor (in Europe) informally and asked for a PhD position. She answered in positive manner and asked for a CV.

What should I include?
Do people in academia care about the usual 2-page restriction?

Generally I would say No, people do not put restrictions on CVs unless specifically asking for it.

In a case such as the one you decribe you should send a complete CV that lists everything that can be meriting for the position you will apply for. The following would be of interest:

A brief description of your drive and interest to pursue a PhD
Course work includig grades
Scientific/equivalent experience is a given of course.
Any publications and scientific/equivalent reports you have written. If you have some significant report/thesis that you have written during your education, you can list that as well. I would say that any report longer than, say, 10 pages of text might be useful to list. In such cases you should perhaps add inwhat context (Course) the text was written. In the end what a person looking for a PhD position will be looking for is someone who can successfully complete work and write it up in written form.
Scientific/equivalent presentations in a public context, open department seminar, scientific meeting etc.
Any academic work experience such as working inlabs etc.
General work experience. This can be listed to highlght work experience of any kind. This shows how active you are.
Anything else that you think will be meriting.

If you have written a paper (thesis) of some sort, provide a copy. Only one, the most important though. If you do not have one that is fine, no one would expect you to have written much.

Despite the length of the list try to make it brief and clear so that it can be assessed with ease. ry to find a good layout that make sthe structure easy to see.


What is the function or role of a propaedeutic diploma (in e.g. The Netherlands)? I recently came across the term "propaedeutic diploma" in the CV of a Dutch academic. According to Wikipedia, it's a diploma given for successfully completing the first year of university study, and used by many (how widespread is the practice?) institutions.

Does it also have a formal function, or is it just a tradition at this point?

For example, would progressing to second year courses be tied to earning this diploma? If it is, why is a diploma used rather than a simple cutoff in terms of credits earned?

Note: Yes, this is ostensibly a question specific to undergraduate education, but it's not about admissions or "undergraduate life". Rather, it's an attempt to understand a specific academic system, which I hope should be considered on-topic.

The propaedeutic diploma is awarded after completing all the requirements for the first year of studies. Not all universities in the Netherlands award it, and its importance seems to be less since Bologna has introduced the bachelor/master system in the Netherlands. Before it was the only diploma/certificate until completing the full four or five years for a university study. Obtaining it in reasonable time could be seen as a sign that normally one should be able to complete the full studies, and hence nowadays it is also used as a selective tool, as is mentioned in @cag51's answer.

It does not carry much value and is not seen as a terminal degree. The only exception is for students studying in professional education ("hoger beroepsonderwijs", in English these institutions normally call themselves "Universities of Applied Sciences"). In that case, the diploma can be used to be admitted to a university. To understand this, one should know that in the Netherlands, from 12 years old secondary education is split into four different levels, and only the highest level gives access to universities.


I begin researching in three weeks and I have no idea where to begin. What should I say in my email to my advisor? I have been accepted to a funded master’s program under an advisor. I already came up with a research proposal months ago with the advisor’s help as I needed one in order to apply. The last time I spoke to my advisor was about two months ago when we discussed courses to sign up for and anything that I should review over the summer. I have since signed up for the courses.

However, I have no idea where to begin with the research and how any of that works. I am thinking of emailing my advisor on Monday to ask her where to begin because I am so lost at the moment. So, in my email, what should I say to my advisor to help clarify my confusion about where to begin with the research?

For starters, I hope you took her advice over summer. presumably this would be your first research experience, or an early one at least. With no prior practice your lack of knowledge is understandable. Presumably, also, your advisor knows of your state of experience.

Given all that, just be honest. Where should I start? What should I read? I suspect, strongly, that she is experienced in getting people started. Otherwise you wouldn't have been accepted in the first place.

But better than an email, expecting a long reply, would be a request for a meeting, asking for guidance. Don't try to overstate your abilities, and don't think that your current lack is a flaw. Everyone needs to start somewhere and it is good to have some guidance.

But since she has already given you advice (which you took, of course), you want to ask her for "next steps" (rather than where to start) and mentioning your lack of experience in this whole process. It isn't a time for embarrassment. It isn't warranted.

The situations in which this might be contraindicated is where the advisor is extremely busy - too many students, for example. But if she has a lot of students, it might be possible for you to join/start a group of her advisees and see what others know of her expectations. Some professors have weekly seminars for their students if they are working on similar things. Those other students can help you ease in to the process as well.