Getting a letter of recommendation from university I am in the process of looking at applying to do a Masters degree. I finished my bachelors degree about 4 years ago, and this will be a different university I am applying to, in a different country (bachelors was in UK, masters will be in NL)

Since I don't know who works at the previous university any more (and didn't really have any particular person to ask anyway, as none of them are likely to remember me), what would be the procedure to go about getting a letter of recommendation from someone there?

Should I just email their Student Services department? Or is there some particular process for this?

Thanks.

(transforming the comments into an answer)

The point your question seems to be missing is that professors give recommendation letters, not institutions. LORs are "personal" commitments from people that know you, know how you work, behave, etc. People that do not know you will most likely decline or send worthless letters.

That counts old professors that remember you, regardless of where they are at the moment. Track them down. And there is not that much of turnover in universities, I graduated 10 years ago, most of my professor are still there...

If no professor knows you, you won't get LORs. You don't need to "make friends" with the professor, good grades on his/her course should be enough. An undergrad research advisor would be better, but not necessary. It won't be a stellar letter, but for MS, it doesn't need to be. Just to reinforce: letters of recommendation are personal, not institutional.


In a tenure-track position application; Is it appropriate to ask for recommendation letter from a professor for whom I only served as a TA? When applying for a tenure-track academic position in the US right after my PhD (in the US too), is it a good idea to ask for a letter of recommendation from a professor in my graduate school with whom I took a class where I got good grades while showing a strong interest (genuine interest), then later on served as a TA for that class?

I haven't done any research project with him though, but we get along well: he is one of the professors I appreciate the most both intellectually and personally, I would have chosen him without any doubt as advisor if I was in his area. He is well-respected in his field (say in the top 20, if you want some ranking). His area of research is a bit different from mine but useful for my research: he works on database management systems while I do machine learning, so there are some very interesting connections such as large-scale machine learning / data analysis (~aka. "big data"), query optimization, etc.

It depends on the school. At a SLAC (small liberal arts college), the hiring committee members will pay more attention to teaching experience and may be more willing to be impressed by a Big Name®.

At a R1, faculty are not only inoculated against Big Names®, but they have enough experience with individual Big Names® to read between the lines of otherwise blandly positive letters with hermeneutic vigor.

I've been repeatedly surprised by my senior colleagues discussing letters from other Big Names® with "he only wrote two pages of song and praise? He must not have liked that person" or of a fairly damning letter with, "she's a grouch. The fact that she wrote at all means that this person is brilliant." Context is important.

A letter that spoke only of your teaching and not of your research would be seen as faint praise in this milieu.

Note that I'm in the humanistic social sciences at an R1. Your mileage may vary.

TL;DR: save the references from this person for SLACs where the praise for your teaching ability will be seen as a strong positive.

Also note that at larger R1s, we are familiar with the difference in writing styles between American (where everything is excessively effusive) and European/Asian letters (where a strong letter of recommendation reads: "Jon Smith was a member of my lab from 2005/10/1 to 2012/5/1. His work was perfectively adequate with no complaints. Sincerely, XX"). Smaller institutions may not have that experience and in those circumstances, you may ask one of your American letter writers to include a short paragraph noting that European counterparts thought highly of you but that might not show up in the letters in the hyperbolic form we are used to in the United States.


Which part of the GRE is more important to admissions committees? I graduated from the University of Michigan with Psychology and Communication Studies degree.
I am planning to apply to Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) master's degree and Information Science master's degree.

For those of who do not know, HCI is an interdisciplinary field, combining mainly computer science, cognitive psychology, and design.

I have two GRE scores and I have trouble deciding which one to send for my application.

Score 1: Verbal: 158 (78%) / Quantitative: 165 (91%) / Writing: 4.0 (58%)

Score 2: Verbal: 162 (89%) / Quantitative: 161 (81%) / Writing: 4.5 (78%)

The second set of scores has higher verbal and writing values, but the first has a higher quantitative value.  Which should I send?

First I will say that in some departments, GRE scores are a very important component of your application.  For instance, I work in a department where each year we get applicants from hundreds of different universities in 70 or more different countries.  Comparing GPAs between all the different educational systems is very difficult (we do it, but place relatively less weight on it due to uncertainties).  Meanwhile, the GRE is a single standard.  Also, whereas some departments in the USA can rely primarily on GRE subject tests, it's quite rare for international students to take those.  The bottom line: good GRE scores will never get you admitted by themselves.  But in some places at least, poor GRE scores will eliminate you.

Now, as to whether the verbal/writing or quantitative scores matter more, I think this depends heavily on the field.  If you were applying to a math/science/engineering program, the quantitative score would be by far most important.  It's generally thought that good writing can be taught to you later (and technical writing is different from the persuasive writing the GRE tests you on, anyway).

I assume that if you were applying to an English or fine arts program, the verbal/writing scores would be more important.  The fields you're applying to are somewhere in between, and I don't know them well enough to say for certain.

[Edit: see @shion's answer for the opinion of someone who knows more about your particular field.]


What does a reviewer do - is a reviewer the referee? This question is regarding math journals but I assume should apply to journals in other disciplines as well. Some journals ask you to choose a reviewer from their list (or sometimes they ask you to suggest your reviewer of choice) as you are about to submit your manuscript. My question is what exactly this reviewer does to the manuscript? Does (s)he looks at it and decides whether to send it to a referee? or (s)he is indeed the referee?

In this context reviewer and referee are basically synonymous. In mathematics I think referee is more common, but I think in some other fields reviewer is used more often. In mathematics, "reviewer" also can mean someone who writes a review of a published paper, such as on MathSciNet, but in the context of journal submissions this usage is not relevant.

In my experience though I have never seen a list of reviewers from which you can select though, only to choose the editor that handles your submission. But perhaps some journals do offer this possibility.


Are there any publications that explain the origin of conventions of authorship order by field? The conventions of authorship order vary considerably from one field to the next. In some fields, such as pure math, authorship order is typically alphabetical irrespective of the authors' roles. In other areas, including most biomedical fields, the first and last author positions are the most prestigious: the first author is presumed to have done the bulk of the work, and the last author is presumed to be the PI who obtained the funding for the project. There may even be a convention to place the statistician in the second author position. In yet other fields, such as paleontology, the first author carries prestige, but the last author has no special meaning. More examples are available in
What does first authorship really mean?

Are there any bibliometric publications that catalog and/or attempt to explain the origin of authorship conventions by discipline?

I have found two works that I think are interesting and relevant.

First, there is a sequence of three papers by Beaver and Rosen from 1978-79 on the history of scientific collaboration: "Studies of Scientific Collaboration" (Part I, Part II, Part III, unfortunately all paywalled by Springer).  These articles document a relationship between co-authorship and "professionalization" of science, noting that although co-authorship has a long history of equal relationships, it surges when it becomes tied to access to facilities, money, and power particularly as judged by peers within the scientific community.

Ubiquitous co-authorship only emerged in the mid-20th century, and given the scientific economic environment in the US and Western Europe, there seems to be a plausible relationship to the three main authorship traditions that have been observed:

Biomedical research is very dependent on judgement of scientific peers, and thus would be natural to have the highest co-authorship and most complex and hierarchy-driven interpretation of author order, distinguishing "primary contributor" (protege) from "senior author" (patron).
Mathematical research, on the opposite end of the spectrum, requires little in the way of funding or access to resources, and thus has the shortest co-author lists and most egalitarian traditions for interpreting authorship.
Engineering research, although heavily funded and often strongly dependent on access to facilities and equipment, is less dependent on peers and more dependent on providing near-term results to government or industrial patrons, and thus it is unsurprising that it ends up in the middle state.

For comparison, then, we may consider the second paper, "What is authorship, and what should it be? A survey of prominent guidelines for determining authorship in scientific publications", a 2009 comparison of 10 different society authorship policies, which range from NIH setting forth a biomedical canon in which only the "corresponding" author really counts to the American Statistical Association, which says that the convention chosen for author order should be explicitly explained (no mathematical society is included, unfortunately).

Now all of this might be snapshots and "just-so stories" that are not the actual causality and history, but it's at least an interesting starting point for interpretation and investigation.


Failed the capstone project I have been given a second chance for completing my capstone project. I went to the director as well as the professor and discuss what I'm going to include in my report and they agreed the data I'll be including in my report. I worked upon it and given my best in making the report as discussed with the director of my department. Now after I submitted the professor failed me again this time giving the excuse that he was not able to understand the report contents and data even after I discussed and taken the approval for my report. I explained him in the mail that what I actually meant in the report and he replied that you wouldn't need to explain me here and you should have explained it in the project. Now they have dismissed me from the University by doing the unfair behaviour with me. I know since it's my second chance even the Dean won't be able to help me and pass me and let me graduate. I paid a huge amount to the university as my fees and they are returning me this unfair behaviour. What can I do if the professor wouldn't able to understand what I wrote in the report that's not my mistake. Please suggest me what action I can take against the professor and what can be done to get graduated. I'm shattered and broken from inside since I'm an international student in United States and I took a loan from Indian Bank to pay the fees. Please suggest me where can I appeal for this wrongdoing happened. I'm in a huge financial pressure

I'm sorry about your situation. Unfortunately, there is nothing much to do here. It isn't clear that the professor acted incorrectly here; it sounds more likely that you just did not do a satisfactory job on your capstone project, according to his standards, and they (being your professor and the University) do set the rules here. It is up to them to decide whether your performance was good enough.

  I explained him in the mail that what I actually meant in the report and he replied that you wouldn't need to explain me here and you should have explained it in the project.

He is right: like it or not, you are judged based on the report, not on emails you send afterwards. It is  his job to evaluate you and he did not understand your report, so he can't give you a good grade.

  Please suggest me what action I can take against the professor and what can be done to get graduated.

Don't take any action until you are absolutely sure that your capstone project was satisfactory. If it wasn't, then you can't take any action. You seem to have assumed your report was good enough, but it is not clear.

If the professor really has wronged you here, and failed you for no good reason, then you should reach out to others at the university to discuss your situation. Talk to a different professor about it and get a second opinion on the report. Talk to the dean or to your academic advisor.


Where can I download a large sample bibliography collection in BibTeX? I'm developing an application that works with BibTeX files, and I'd like to test it with a large collection produced not by myself, to be sure that the application will handle it correctly and to assess its responsiveness (with large I mean at least a thousand of entries). But I cannot find any such collection available for download, even though there are many resources that provide bibliographies for queries online via html-pages. Does anyone know where I can download a large .bib file? (The topic of the collection is irrelevant.)

For your purposes, I would highly recommend you to use The Collection of
Computer Science Bibliographies by Alf-Christian Achilles. This extensive collection contains 3M+ references on the various CS subjects (grouped in about 1500 collections) and, besides offering search and browse interfaces, allows one to download the actual bibliographic data in BibTeX format - just select a particular bibliography and you will see the links to the source files - uncompressed and/or zipped.

P.S. Don't forget to acknowledge the value of this resource to the maintainer of this meta-collection (a thank you note will do) and, perhaps, even attribute the source, if your software will be citable.


Leave of Absence from PHD What are the benefits and harm of taking a leave of absence after the first year of PhD?

......My situation is as follows.... I just completed the first year of PhD in Epidemiology at one of the top 5 programs in the nation and failed all my classes both semesters. All year long I'd battled with PSTD, Separation Anxiety, and Depression brought on by psychological and physical abuse experienced after moving back in with my parents for a few months while I applied to PhD program. This was exacerbated by the subsequent 3 months stint of homelessness I experienced in order to flee the real risk of physical harm.  Unfortunately, this all occurred immediately before the start of classes in September. When the academic year started, I moved into academic housing and dissimulated my problems but could not hide it very long as my performance was less than optimal. My depression was so severe that I forgot how to speak, I experienced memory loss, could not write comprehensive essays, and even forgot how to spell simple words on tests.

When my professors became worried that I was not cut out for the program, my chair and academic advisor were made aware of the situation. Since then, they have worked with me to link me up to services on campus, meet with me regularly to check in and advise me on how to manage several situations.

The issue now is that although I am getting better and my grades have improved, they are not competitive to keep me in the program. Luckily, I have been given a temporary academic disability status to allow the university to make accommodations for my situation.  Provided that my improvement is a work in progress, my chair is recommending a year's leave of absence to help me get back in good health before resuming studies.  This is a swell idea for if I was younger than 30, was financial stable to be able to afford the luxury of moving out of student housing or had a family to rely on,  had a job waiting for me.  I am having a hard time seeing any benefit to taking a year off, even if it means  starting fresh.

If anyone has had a similar experience, please offer some advise or anecdote to how you handled the situation.

Universities have procedures for that. Moreoever, universities are run by people who have lives, families, friends in such situations and who can understand and sympathize. It sounds very much as if the people in your department fall into this category and are supportive of you.

What matters is that you get your footing back and get healthy again. If that means taking a leave of absence, then that is what you should do. If there ever comes a need to explain what you did for the semester or year that you took off, you can always say "for health reasons" -- which is true, and which everyone will understand is an important and legitimate reason to take time off, and which nobody is going to count against you.

Of course, the reasons you cite against it are all very good as well. I don't think anyone here can suggest useful strategies other than finding some low-stress job that helps you pay the bills, get you back on your feet, and allow you to come back to the program in better shape and with better prospects. The alternative, however, is not all that appealing either: as you state in your post, if you keep doing what you're doing, you may fail out of the program and then you're in no better situation either. In fact, the situation may be worse since it's easier to come back after taking a year of absence than come back from being kicked out of the program.

Ultimately, what matters is that you get healthy again. Everything else should be a secondary consideration.


How to find a "virtual" mathematics conference? How can I find conferences in mathematics which accept guest articles/notes without the guest physically visiting the conference?

I have two problems which prevent me to physically visit conferences: 1. no money to pay for air tickets; 2. bad spoken English.

Can I nevertheless contribute to proceedings of a conference?

I found one such conference, but my article was judged not on-topic and rejected. It was the only conference I ever seen without the requirement to physically travel there to participate as an author.

Again: My question is how to find a conferences. Maybe you can suggest a specific Internet site(s) listing such conferences?

Mathematics research is mostly published in journals, sometimes books. Not conferences. Submit your papers to journals instead. You do not need to travel or speak to do that.

Conferences in mathematics are pretty much exclusively an affair of presenting your own research live in front of a mostly captive audience, and talking to the other participants between the presentations. A "virtual conference" (an online list of notes?) fills none of the missions, so I do not expect many to exist.

Even things called "proceedings" work much more like journals than conferences, to my knowledge. Most conferences have no proceedings — at best a list of abstracts online, perhaps even a copy of the slides if any.

(I have heard of (one) conference happening in two cities with live retransmission of talks from city A to city B and vice-versa, but that does not seem to be what you are looking for.)


How long should a cover letter be when asked to include statements of teaching philosophy and research interests? I am a PhD graduate applying for teaching (assistant professor) positions at smaller liberal arts colleges. I understand that generally cover letters should not exceed 1 page, especially when applying to large research universities. However, are longer letters acceptable when applying to smaller schools? Again, the job posting requests that statements of teaching philosophy and research interests be included directly in the letter. If more than 1 page is ok, how long is appropriate?

For readability, it is certainly preferable to append.

If you feel your cover letter is a little skimpy, I suppose you might put something autobiographical in the cover letter, that was perhaps a little to personal for the actual statement.  For example, "my teaching philosophy was largely developed during my year as a VISTA volunteer teaching in ...."  (That's just an example -- your situation could be completely different.)

The cover letter is a good place to tie the threads together of the various portions of your application, to show yourself as a whole person, to project your personable qualities, and to get the reader interested in learning more about you.

I think you're right to keep it to one page.


What steps should I follow in order to be able to start conducting research if there's no sign of support within my department? My understanding of research is that it's a way to find solutions/answers to questions/problems in a certain subfield of a bigger discipline, which in my case would be Computer Science (honestly, it'd be more like Computer Engineering).

I think I know, however, that if these problems and solutions are too simple or banal, the whole process of doing research is irrelevant because

surely somebody else has already worked in that, and
there's no sense in working in something that won't contribute a significant amount of knowledge to the discipline.

This means that in order to get worthy (or at least relevant) problems to research, you must be at the cutting edge of the field so that you have an idea of what's not yet known and you can start working on it. Am I right?

If I am, that sounds kind of complicated. I have heard that I should read lots of papers in an area of my interest and work from there, but I'm sincerely not sure about how to start doing even this. I have access to the ACM Digital Library, for example, but I don't know what to search for, what to read, or in what order to do so.

I am alone in this, for my university is weak in research and no professors seem to be interested in it. Do you have any tips, or any specific set of steps that you followed to get into research?

It'll certainly be easier if you can find a professor willing to supervise you, so I strongly suggest that you keep trying on that front. But even if you can't, all is not lost! Here are the steps I recommend. Note that this may not be the only way to get started, but it's a way that works for many of my students:

Step 1: Start by identifying an area of interest

A good way to start is to identify a topic in class that interests you. Approach the professor for that class and ask him/her to suggest some related papers for further reading.

Step 2: Get a better view of this area

Thoroughly reading those papers may take a while, since this is new to you. Don't be discouraged by this! After you have a reasonable understanding of the papers suggested by your professor, start to branch out: look up the papers cited by/citing those papers to get a broader view.

Step 3: Reproduce some existing results

Somewhere in all this reading, you'll come across something that really interests you: a proof, a design of a system, a software implementation of an idea. See if you can reproduce this result (by going through the steps of the proof, writing your own software, running a simulation, etc.) Again, this may be more difficult than you expect; don't get discouraged.

Step 4: Do something new

Now that you've reproduced someone else's results, can you extend them? Is there a small variation on the system design that could improve the results, an interesting application in another domain, a stronger result you can prove? Get to work.

Step 5: Communicate your results

Congrats, you are now almost a bona fide researcher! Go show the professor who recommended the papers what you've been working on. A big part of doing research is communicating the results, once you have something to show. (And to get into a good grad school, you'll need to impress some potential letter writers.)

You should also consider writing a draft of a paper and soliciting feedback on it.


Is it possible to receive private tutoring for graduate-level courses from faculty members? I am having a lot of trouble understanding the material in one of my courses. I feel like the professor often rushes through the material, leaving me without enough time to catch up in my busy schedule.

This professor is also really esteemed for his/her research contributions and speaking to my adviser about this (who also happens to be close to this professor) would make me feel very uncomfortable. I even spoke to my peers in the course about this and they seem to agree about the speed at which things are delivered.

Anyway, I often think about what I can do in this situation since exams are coming up. One idea that I ponder is the possibility of privately hiring a tutor within the faculty who could better explain the ideas in the course to me; after all they have relevant teaching experience.

I'm not certain if this is a good idea or not and because of this, I would really appreciate feedback relevant to this idea. If there aren't any appropriate solutions, what else can you suggest?

Note: I don't really want to give out any other details that would compromise his/her reputation. So I'll just leave it at that.

As a faculty member, I feel that most students who struggle

don't put enough time into the course materials; most courses are designed with the expectation that you put into the course around 10 hours a week.
don't seek out help, or don't speak up to communicate their difficulties; there are office hours by the professor, as well as the TAs, and most of these people would be very open to hearing your opinions of the course. If the course is going too fast, tell them.
don't talk to their peers; sometimes understanding the material requires talking to others about it. You may all have been confused by the material, but by struggling through the assignments together, you will probably all learn (but remember to credit your friends).

If you have done all of the above and you are still struggling, then hiring a private TA may be the next step. One tip for choosing a good TA: I actually think that asking someone just a couple of years ahead of you is the best thing to do. They see from your perspective, and they often understand/remember what was hard about the material better than the faculty members. It's cheaper, and you'll learn better. As a faculty member, I would never agree to privately tutor a student. Teaching is only a small part of my job, and I prefer to be doing research instead of spending more of my time with an undergraduate student.


What computations of the Lotka function exist for publications in humanities meta-disciplines? Given Lotka's law's general applicability to publishing rates and bibliometrics; what computations of the Lotka function exist for the meta-disciplines in the humanities?  (Philosophy, History, Literary Criticism by language, Film criticism, Anthropology, History and Philosophy of Science / Science and Technology Studies)

I wish to test cultural assumptions ("work culture") about publication rates of sole authored papers against Lotka values to check managerial assumptions, and my own assumptions, about productivity levels and "workload".  Yet I have no adequate grounding to find computed Lotka functions for discipline.

There have been a few papers published in this space by bibliometricians/scientometricians already. Having said this, why would you need pre-configured values of lotka's law for certain sub-disciplines in the humanities?

I would collect data (perhaps using Web of Science/Google Scholar/Wiley/Elsevier etc.) ; then do empirical testing with the generalized Lotka's law on particular sub-disciplines and then control against your cultural assumptions and other variables. This is because every discipline changes over time and a paper published on this in the 1970's may yield different results now with the same methodology. Most of my references cited below point this (or some variation of this) out as limitations of temporally specific computations of these laws.

Having said this, there are a few papers which might help you in this task if you haven't found them already:

This paper specifically looks at generalizing Lotka's Law in the humanities and formulates the same queries that I laid out earlier about it being spatio-temporal specific.

This paper is the Pao's modification to Lotka's law for humanities and has some empirical evaluations from certain humanities literature.

This paper is an empirical modification of Pao's variation (see above) to Lotka's Law in certain humanities disciplines.

This is an editorial response to Lotka's law applicability in the humanities.

This is a general paper which looks at quantifying author productivity and impact specifically in the humanities. It is a very good read for approaches.

In other words, do some up-to-date empirical evaluation and then perhaps, run your study. The first could actually make for a fine empirical paper by itself in the scientometrics world. Pre-configured function values are like using empirical regression estimates ; they are fine and specific to that study but may not be generalizable across all studies.


Scanned detailed comments for a paper review Sometimes I find my self reviewing papers with authors who are not very capable English writers. I am a non-native speaker myself, and I know how difficult it can be to proof-read a paper in English, in particular if you don't have access to any native English speaker. If the scientific content of the paper is otherwise good, I therefore try to do what I can to correct grammar, poorly constructed sentences, spelling mistakes etc.
It often results in very long referee reports, which take ages for me to type. I was wondering if it would be proper form to simply scan a version annotated by hand, and attach it to the referee report? If you received such a thing, would you be grateful for the time spent, or would you consider it lazy that I did not type in all the suggestions in a proper report?

I think it really comes down to the editor. You should first ask the editor of the journal if there is any issue and then think if your handwriting is clear enough. Hoewver, please keep in mind that scanned copies cannot be copy - pasted. You could return a pdf or Word version of the paper with annotated comments, either on the side or baloons (Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader allow for that and I find it very useful when finalising a draft). This sounds to me like a more convenient solution that a scanned copy.
I would like to stress that, despite your good intentions, the full responsibility of presentation and language falls on the authors, not the referee. A paper is not just about content but also sound presentation and communication of ideas.


Undergraduate visiting student advantages I have been recruited by a professor on a well-known university in the US east coast for a visiting student program during the summer (it's an only-research program). Since this program isn't an all-costs paid one, I'm deciding if I should go.

Which are the advantages of being a visiting student? How can this help to have a better graduate application even if I apply to a different department (from this program's department) but at the same university? How does the impact differs from a REU?

I've read this Quora reference, but I want to have an insight from this particular forum. Thanks in advance.

Btw, I'm a foreign student.

The main difference from being an invited, visiting student, an REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates), and a summer research program is usually related to funding issues. REU is what the National Science Foundation (NSF) calls it's program, and the funding provided usually only supports "U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, or permanent residents of the United States". Students who are part of the program usually get a stipend as part of the package. Some programs who are advertising an REU still accept international students, it's just that the funding for those students are not provided by the NSF - read 'terms and conditions' if there is a formal program for more details.

Being a visiting student or being in a summer research program is similar, but generally supported by institutional resources (which may just be administrative, with no funding).

However, the meat of the issue is what you get to do while you are there. If you are interested in graduate school, then ideally you would work with a professor in a group on a real research project. Ideally it could potentially lead to a publication down the road, but this is neither necessary nor guaranteed - but it's good to work with that as a long-term goal to help guide and motivate the work.

I was part of an NSF REU on the east coast as well, but based on my conversations with other students the benefits I'll mention below still can apply.

So the main advantages possible are:

working hard and doing good work that could be the grounds for a very supportive letter of recommendation, ideally from someone who is well known (and from a well known University is good as well)
networking, which is to say expanding your social circle and developing contacts with people with similar interests and direction (very hard to do without physical presence for an extended period of time)
building your confidence and making you more comfortable in your statements and future work
learning more about different aspects of the research process, which you may not have seen in this particular way before
living in a place you've never been to before, which is not only valuable as a maturing and learning experience in its own right, but can help you decide if you might really be OK with moving to such a place for multiple years away from everything and everyone you know
if you work hard at networking and socializing (while still doing great work), you can potentially meet a future advisor, or even just someone who will help you with your application materials, statements, give you an introduction to someone else, etc.
it can be a great way to see behind the curtain and experience both lots of good things, and even more importantly, lots of unpleasant and bad things. Academia is no utopia, and I don't think it does anyone any good to go into a graduate program thinking there aren't all kinds of messes and complexities. This could be a chance to see more of that first hand, to help you be more realistic.
beyond just getting into a graduate program, the networking and experience can aid you in doing well in research, knowing people at conferences, etc.

While I personally strongly encourage everyone to seek out such opportunities, it is up to you to consider the costs and decide what is right for you. On the downside:

it is often expensive. Even though I was funded quite reasonably, I would have had lower expenses and had higher income if I had stayed home and worked for the summer.
it can be hard emotionally. You are in a new place with people you don't know, away from family, friends, food you are used to eating, the comforts of home, and more. It can be so great to meet new people and form new friendships, but that doesn't erase the hard parts.
it is very time-limited, which means everything is compressed. It's enough time to start to get comfortable before you have to leave, while also being long-enough to develop homesickness.
you are a short-timer, and just because you are there does not mean you are automatically an insider or in-group member. Some people will be accommodating and friendly, and other people may ignore you because they know you will be gone soon anyway. Some people will take time out to meet with you and give you advice, some won't give you the time of day.
there is no guarantee of anything. You may find people you thought you would work with become unavailable, the project disappears (one person I know at a different place found the 'project' was unavailable, and they ended up having to make their own project by talking another faculty member into letting them work on their stuff instead).
if you are doing things in the academic off-season (like summer in the US), many people will be gone regularly, lots of vacation and conferences, most students won't be around, many food places on campus might be closed, etc. It's just different.

I'm very glad I chose to do a summer REU, and things worked out nicely for me - I'm very happy with the results. I can't tell you the future of how things would go for you - but if you are excited (if not nervous) for the potential positives, willing to work hard and get way outside of your normal comfort zone, and are ok with the potential negatives and willing to roll with whatever difficulties you find, I think you would be a great candidate. Budget out the costs and make sure this expense won't prevent you from having the funds to apply to grad school (it's expensive, especially in the US), travel for potential campus visits if you get accepted, have your own personal living security, etc.

Whatever you choose, good luck!


Improving a bound in a problem in "some cases" by using the extra information available in that problem which was unused in the earlier bounds Suppose I am improving a bound in a problem in "some cases" by using the extra information available in that problem which was unused in the earlier bounds for that problem. However, in general, I am not able to show that my bound is better than the earlier bound. Can this result be considered to be a reasonable result?

The result might or might not be reasonable. The following would speak for it being interesting:

The special case is interesting. A good argument for this is that others have looked into it or that it has applications or other relevance in other fields of science or mathematics.
The method of proof is new.

But, in general, the only way to know is to write it down, talk about it and submit it to a journal and see what the response is.

When writing the result down, you will want to emphasize the relevance of the result and refer to similar results, applications and the new features in the proof.


Is it okay to go solo in research? I am a PhD student third year and I almost finished working on a research with my supervisor. I have few research problems in my mind, I told him about one or two but he did not paid that much attention. I want to try one or two research problem on my own. I am little hesitant to ask him about this. Am I suppose to work with him on each research problem during my PhD?
I don't know what will be his reaction. What you people will suggest me to do? I strongly believe that I can do it. There is no funding problem. Second part of the question is  how to increase the chances of that the research I will on my own will be accepted in some conference ( definitely I can take some help from my supervisor )

There are two components to this question. "Is it okay to work on my own 'independent' project in a PhD?"

Yes, definitely. The purpose of a PhD is to train an independent researcher. An advisor who feeds their student the tasks or jobs to do throughout their PhD is probably doing them a disservice, as they would not have the opportunity to learn how to devise and carry out their own independent research projects. Being in the third year, you have probably finished your classes and accrued enough research experience to do so. Of course it is expected that you keep your advisor in the loop if you do decide to work on such a side project.

Now, with regards to "What would my advisor think if I worked on my own 'independent' project?"

That depends entirely on the advisor and your funding situation. If you are full supported by a specific grant, it is probably a bad idea to work on an unrelated topic. Ideally, you should work the problem into something which can be related to the grant. Of course, if you are self-funded or have a no strings attached fellowship, things can be more flexible for you.


How do I co-author my first paper? I am new to the world of academia and pursuing a Masters degree in HCI (Human Computer Interaction).  One of the goals I have set for myself is getting my first publication(s) before I graduate.

Now, obviously, I'd like to work my way up to potentially being a first author but that seems a bit beyond me since I have never published before.  Therefore, I figure it might be easier to work with someone else and establish myself as a co-author.

Now, how do I go about even finding someone who is working on a paper and approaching them asking if I can help them out to potentially being a co-author?  It seems like a very taboo subject and might be insulting to ask?  How do I go about doing this?  Any suggestions or advice is greatly appreciated.

You don't first co-author a paper, you first collaborate on a research effort. Then, if said research effort leads to interesting results, you co-author a paper. So you need to look for someone doing interesting research that you think you can contribute to. Talk to professors in your department and ask about the research they and their students are doing.

Of course, since co-authoring a paper is important to you, when you find the opportunity to be part of a research project you should ask the professor: "Do you think this is likely to lead to a paper before I graduate?" Nobody can promise you a paper (even if you do everything right, the nature of research is that we don't know everything in advance). But he/she will probably have some intuition about it. You should also ask what you specifically need to do to merit co-authorship credit on the paper that comes out of the research.


Can reviewers ask questions of or communicate with the author outside of the formal review process? It's typical in my field that after we post to the arxiv, people from the community reach out to the authors to ask questions about the paper. Every time this has happened to me, I've responded with more explanation to try and address their specific questions. Sometimes it does seem like the person is arguing with the central results of the paper, and frequently the communication extends past what I'm willing to do (asking us to generate more data or wanting additional plots beyond what are in the paper) and I usually decline these requests. I don't really have the time, and I also don't like the idea of sharing plots/data over private communication. I would be happy to show additional plots in a more public forum, like for example in a seminar talk, where it's clear where the work originated, and where I get some credit for the labor I've done in preparing the presentation.
Recently I've been wondering: what if someone participates in such an exchange, and is then tapped to be a reviewer of our work during the journal submission process? Is this ethical? Should they disclose that they had informal previous communication with the authors? Should I factor this possibility in when I think about how accommodating I should be?

In general, I would consider it unethical for a reviewer to deliberately communicate with an author outside of the formal review communication channels.
The reason for this is that the person ultimately in charge of the decision is not the reviewer but the editor who is managing the process. The communications in the reviewing system are thus the record that they have available to work with and that form the basis for their judgement not only of the paper but of the quality of each review and the weight that should be given to each reviewer's opinion. Moreover, if there are questions that arise later around the paper, that is what will be used to audit the process that was used to approve the paper.
If a reviewer takes their communications outside of these channels, then they are essentially choosing to hide their communications from the editor and the scientific record (even if it's a normally confidential portion of that record). That can have bad effects in both directions, causing a good paper to appear less supported (because they wrote a weak summary review based on a complex communication) or a bad paper to appear more supported (because information was communicated that weren't actually in the paper).
So what if a reviewer has already been communicating with the authors and then is asked to review? Well, first of all, they should let the editor know; the editor might or might not see this as a conflict of interest and wish to choose another reviewed. If the editor doesn't have an issue, then the reviewer should at that point stop having out-of-band communications and communicate about the paper through the review system---where they might be able to turn around a review extremely quickly if they already have a well-formed opinion of the paper!
But should any of this affect your choices as an author? I don't think so. Ultimately, the reviewers are just some of your first readers, and the impact of your article will be determined by the many more opportunities that people have to read it after that. If people are contacting you to talk about your work, that is already a great sign---even if they don't like it, they were interested enough to engage with it!


How long it takes for GRE score to be delivered to graduate school? I would like to know how long it takes for a General computer based GRE score to be delivered to graduate school in US. Some graduate schools mention do not take GRE later than specific date so I am wondering does it really take long time to send the score online?

Per the ETS website, for the online general GRE (emphasis mine):

  About 10–15 days after your test date, your official scores will be available in your My GRE Account, and your scores will be sent to the score recipients you designate

It is up to the receiving institution to decide how they want to receive those scores: online (which doesn't add additional delivery time), or paper mail (which adds some additional shipping time).


Global number of publications over time We always hear about the increasing number of publications published every year and the resulting information overload in science. I wanted to show this trend to students to highlight why they should care about information literacy and search strategies. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a reliable source that highlights this trend, e.g. in an easy understandable figure.

I searched for publications including this information and even hoped for Web of Science or Google Scholar to publish this information but couldn't find anything useful. It is not that important what kinds of publication types are included, e.g. only journal articles or all kinds of publications.

Has anyone a reliable and relatively easy to understand source highlighting the trend of increasing global number of publications over time?

I found an archived version of the 2018 STM Report, which is now available directly from STM again. Among other statistics, it has this plot of the scientific output from 1975-2018 and four different databases:

The  Web of Science (WoS) line looks rather similar to the earlier results of Bornmann and Mutz (2014), who produced this figure for 1980-2012 using a copy of WoS' database:


How much should poster/talk prizes be spread at a symposium? I am one of a group of students organising an institute-wide symposium (by and) for PhD students.
PhD students will be invited to apply to give a short talk (about 8 spaces in total) or to present a poster (~40 perhaps).

We intend to award prizes for best talk and best poster. It is my view that it is fairer and kinder to have two runners-up in each category and to spread the prize so that more individuals are recognised for their good work and effort. To me, awarding prizes only for 1st place, or 1st and 2nd, ends up assigning reward in a noisy fashion or according to bias in the judging, which ignores the fact that there are many good students doing diverse work at the institute.

My peers did not seem to find this nor the format of judging important - but I feel that spending institute money on rewards in a competition style ought to be done thoughtfully and properly. Having a narrow prize spread acts as a greater incentive in tournament theory; but in my mind the symposium is an infrequent instance of recognition, not incentive, and assigning the prize will be noisy or biased which is smoothed out by spreading the prize.

How much prize spreading do you think is appropriate or optimal? Also, how much monetary value of prize do you think is appropriate in this setting? £100 for first place talk has been suggested. Is this better/worse than a £25/£25/£50 spread? I'd like to hear about people's previous experience with running these competitions and/or winning one of these awards.

I am a volunteer with the IEEE in Connecticut, USA.  Each year, we give prizes to EE-related projects at the Connecticut Science & Engineering Fair at Quinnipiac University. This is a fair for High School students (mostly) to present their projects.

What we do is award a first place for each of the Senior and Junior sections of the fair. This prize is worth $200.  Then we award $100 prizes to 6 other students as "Honorable Mentions".  These other six tend to be 3 for the Seniors and 3 for the Juniors, but it depends on the relative quality of each pool.

To answer your question is a little hard. Here is the full list of science project abstracts at this year's fair. Not all of those (or even half) are EE-related. My guess is that we'd start with a list of about 100 projects (50 each in Senior vs Junior) and then make a determination from there.


How to respond to reviewer's comment that "magnitude of effect too small"? We received a decision letter of major revision recently. One of the four reviewers raised many comments like "Fig. XX, magnitude of effect too small." or "Fig. XX, scale condensed, magnitude of effect is very small", etc.

I have to say that the P-values are highly significant (P < 0.001 in many cases) and our statistical analyses are solid as recognized by another reviewer in his or her comment. Although the absolute differences of measurement between two groups are quite small. The variation in each group is also very small. Therefore, if we quantify the magnitude of effect with effect size (a stanardized version of magnitude of effect), the effect size for the observed differences is medium of large based on the criteria here.

The reviewer has no specific comment about what we should do. How to respond to such comment properly?

I do not believe the reviewer is impugning the significance of your results. Instead, it sounds like the reviewer is suggesting that the scaling used on the graph makes it too hard to see the magnitude of the effects you're talking about. Perhaps he wants you to show a blown-up subset of the graph?


Is it a good idea to add cross references in conclusion Is it a good idea to add cross references in Conclusion section of a research article?
For example, can we refer to results described in previous section of paper in the conclusion section?
Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Yes, if your paper is quite long, that could be helpful.


Authorship of PI and/or other advisor on independent work? I'm a graduate student in a biological sciences lab. About 6 months ago I started an after-hours (does such a thing exist?) project with a fellow graduate student in a different lab doing computational physics. We principally work on the weekends and late at night, and I like to think that the time we use would otherwise have been spent playing video games, drinking, etc (not doing lab work), but who really knows?

Our collaboration has been extraordinarily fruitful and we have one paper ~90% written, and a follow up ~50% written. Both are highly theoretical, and have no direct relation to our respective theses work. Also, both our PIs know and are supportive of us pursuing this project, and neither has so much as even hinted at wanting authorship. And neither is an expert (or even an amateur..) in physics.

1) Should we include our PIs? They could potentially contribute to editing and big picture, but are not able to even assess the validity of what we've accomplished. As an "experienced" graduate student I know they shouldn't be authors, but they are also making it possible for us spend our time thinking, and they've supported our endeavor at least in spirit.

2) Suppose our PIs are not included. We're just two graduate students. Is it even possible to get a fair review with neither of us having the requisite degrees? How do we pay for publication ($1000-5000)? I'm interested in the "meta" discussion as much, or more, than the ethical discussion. For example, there is a third faculty member in this area who we've had some discussion of the science with, and who is a computational physicist. Should we include him on the manuscript as a signature of credibility? Should he be last author or a middle author, if so? If there are any physicists perusing, I'd be particularly interested in your thoughts, as my experience in publishing has been solely in the biomedical journals so far.

Thanks for considering my dilemma.

There have been a number of discussions on this site about authorship, and looking at the authorship tag will reveal them.

Ultimately, the conclusion of all those discussions has been that conventions on authorship are field-dependent and define "contribution" in different ways for different areas. In your case, it sounds like your advisors have both encouraged you to work together and have not requested authorship. Since the usual response to questions like yours would be 'ask your advisor', it sounds like they've answered, by saying that you don't need to include them. But I'd check with them anyway.

The remaining part of your question deals with purely tactical considerations: to whit,

  Can augmenting the author list increase chances of the paper being accepted for publication ?

I think the consensus on this site, and in general, is that misrepresenting or exaggerating contributions for any reason would be considered quite unethical (where again contributions must be evaluated in a field-specific manner).

The work must stand or fall on its own merit, and be reviewed accordingly. It might be rare in your community for graduate students to author papers without PIs, but there's always a first time (and in my community it's quite common).

On the more mundane issue of paying for publication (I assume you're thinking of one of the open access journals that charge such an amount), that's a discussion for you to have with your advisor(s) before submission. They might suggest alternate journals, or even be willing to pay the fees (again, the equivalent would be a PI in my field paying for a student to attend a conference and present a paper not co-authored by the PI: this is also quite common)


How to request a positive reference letter from my former PI who does not know me very well? I worked in a research group and now I am applying to a PhD program. A positive reference letter, especially the one from the big-named Principal Investigator (PI, project leader), will be very helpful.

My direct supervisor was a Research Scientist instead of a professor (PI). The professor (PI) of our group knows me, but not very well, since he has dozens of Postdocs and dozens of students to take care of. So I am think about having my direct supervisor write the letter and having the PI to co-sign.

However I've heard that two people signing a single reference letter is extremely uncommon is US. Not sure what is my best option.

So, as suggested I'll try to expand a bit my comment. I will assume you did a good job in your work and that the reference you would receive from who actually supervised you will be strong.

In my opinion, you can ask for two recommendation letters. One from who actually supervised you, i.e. the Research Scientist.
The second, from the PI, as you feel this might help you. In the end, you formally worked for them, so it would also be strange not to have a letter from them.

I think they will gladly accept and can write a nice one even if they don't know you that well, but if you feel it's necessary you could suggest they consult with who actually followed your work, i.e. the Research Scientist, to have a better idea of your skills. I would mention this to the Research Scientist when you tell them about the letter, something like "I will also tell the PI to write one for me, but they might ask you some tip on what to write, if that's not a problem".

Good luck on the admission!


What address to put in bibliography for Springer (and others)? Some publishers like Springer appear variously with different addresses.  Sometimes (in the case of Springer) it's "Berlin, Heidelberg", sometimes it's "Heidelberg, New York", or even "Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, London, Paris, Tokyo".

Should I, eg. in a thesis, just settle for one address per publisher and stick to it, or is there a different correct address for each publication?

It's better to put what is on the copyright page of the book in question. If you don't have it, then you may have to punt, but wherever you can use the full reference, you should.

Edited to add: The goal in a citation is to allow your reader to find the exact work that you used, so you need to be as precise as you can. If there are different editions, etc, they may have different publication locations, so make sure you described the physical volume you have precisely. If you don't have the physical version, then be sure to give your reader 50 years from now the ability, as best you can, to track it down.


How much of a paper does a reviewer fact-check? I'm mainly interested in the level of fact-checking of computer science conference papers. Do reviewers normally read the entire paper and exhaustively check the correctness of proofs, algorithms and claims?

I have read papers at top conferences where implementation details are sketchy and conceptual claims are inaccurate.

My guess is that an exhaustive level of fact-checking is often not done particularly in cases where the reviewer might not be familiar with all the concepts in the paper. Is this true? If this is so, then it seems unfair that the merit of a paper is essentially just based on how well the paper is pitched in the first one or two pages.

I'm afraid there is no one-fits-all answer to your question. It highly depends on the tier of the conference. There are some that examine more into the work than others.

However, the level of scrutiny in CS conferences are generally less than that of a journal of comparable reputation. This is because, such journals go through multistage reviews and edits before the final print is published. Most conferences look only into the conceptual matter and usually have insufficient time to exhaustively implement and test the proofs of each of its candidate papers with limited reviewers.

Having said the above, there are some journals that scrutinize lesser than some conferences. Like I stated before, it all depends on the tier and reputation of the publisher.


Why are women even less represented in engineering than in other STEM? We know that women in much of the developed countries are less represented in STEM studies. However, such a statement hides the fact that women are approx. half of the students in biology, chemistry and maths (check e.g. here ) but barely 20% in engineering. It is often stated that women tend to choose careers where they feel more useful towards society but that is difficult to reconcile with the fact that the share of women in Chemistry is 50% but only 35% in Chemical Engineering, here. I have tried to find sources that would address this difference but in general the topic treated is STEM as a whole.

Are there studies focusing particularly in this difference in gender representation, engineering vs sciences?

I suspect that this is yet another example of the fractal nature of the gender binary. STEM may be coded masculine in general, but within STEM different fields are coded "more masculine" than others.

I'm very familiar with this in my own field: IT in general is masculine, but UI/frontend is more feminine than backend, on the backend system stuff is more masculine than application stuff, writing it in C is more masculine than writing it in ruby, ... This is sometimes even explicitly expressed as "your beard has to be this long to write/understand this code"

I've never found a good explanation for most of these associations, they seem fairly random to me (and apparently change between cultures as well).


How to email current students in graduate programs you're considering? What is the right approach for sending emails to contact the graduate students in the graduate schools that we are applying to?

Some questions to ask current graduate students are suggested in this related question.

When asking such questions by email, what are things to consider to maximize the chances of a useful response?

My email has been posted at both my MSc and PhD department's website. I do not mind cold emails, even before applications are submitted. I answer this question maybe 3-4 times a year before applications are even due: "If you could go back in time and start over, would you still come back?". Applications cost money, I don't mind spending an hour or two every year helping people whose shoes I was once in.

Most people are the same I'd think.

Edit:

I'll read anything with my advisor's name in the email, so, if you title the email "Prospective student for Advisor" or something like that, then It will probably at least get read.


Research Article Submission I got my article with major revision from "Renewable Energy" but as per my knowledge the major revision are seen to be like minor questions were asked by the two reviewers. After submitting my revised manuscript, after 15 days my status was in "under review" the next day it was changed to "required reviews completed". Now so far, for 16 days my article still in "required reviews completed". Why is the editor taking very long time after the second review completed? Please, any one of you gives me the answer.

Why you all people have marked the duplicate of an existing question. My question may be old to everyone, But this question what I raised is new to me....if you are willing to give the proper answer to the question, I am very thankful to them. But don't say existing question for what I asked

You should note that "Required Reviews Completed" status does not entail that "all" reviews are completed. It just suggests that a "minimal" set of reviews have come in.

For example, for few journals, the required number of reviews to make a decision could be 2; but, sometimes the editor sends an article to more than 2 reviewers. In that case, if he is not satisfied with the received reviews (i.e. at least two), then he waits for the few more.

In my recent paper, the status remained as it is for 2.5 months. Then, I reminded the journal EIC to expedite the process. Still, I had to wait for a month to receive the final decision.


Citing unpublished figure from an ex colleague A former colleague has created a figure. The figure is not published and serves only as a mean for information sharing. I used to be a part of that research group and thus had access to it.

I published an article featuring a modified version of this figure, to explain my current experimental set-up. I did not cite the author of the figure as the figure was not found in any published material. I didn't know what to do - perhaps add them in Acknowledgments?

Have I done the wrong thing?

The correct thing to do is to cite them for the figure by name, if they will permit it. List the citation as "private communication". You should also probably indicate the it is "adapted from a private communication..."

You have committed plagiarism if you give the impression that you are the source. But it is easy to avoid with a citation.

You can probably handle it in acknowledgements if you are clear about what you are acknowledging. Use language similar to the above.


How do I correctly abbreviate compounded first name for academic publications? My first name (legally) consists of two names separated by a space, but I only go by the first in everyday use. I'm from Scandinavia and having a first name that is a compound of two names is not that uncommon.  I also have a middle name that I rarely use.
Let's say my name is "John Andrew Smith Fitzgerald" in which "John Andrew" is my first name, "Smith" my middle name, and "Fitzgerald" my last name.
What would be the appropriate way to cite the author's name in an academic publication?

John Andrew S. Fitzgerald
John Fitzgerald (omitting second first name and middle name).
John S. Fitzgerald (with second first name omitted)

Personally, I would prefer to use the last format.
Does it actually matter or is consistency key?
I apologize if this has already been answered. Most replies that I found pertained to the use of middle and last name, not a compounded first name.

The most important thing is consistency. Choose now, and write the exact same name on all future publications.
A few things to consider:

This is the name that everyone, except the people that know you personally, will use. So make sure you are not going to regret it.
It is better to choose a name that identifies you as well as possible. If your first and last names are very common, it may be beneficial to add the second part of your given name, or your middle name, so that people are sure who wrote the paper just by looking at the name. If your name is already uncommon, this is a less pressing concern.
Many people, especially in North America as I have found, are completely unfamiliar with the idea of compound names. Somehow, even generally open-minded people are reluctant (I do not use this word light, if I wanted to write "surprised" or "unfamiliar" that's what I would have written!) to accept that a name might not fit their traditional "GivenName MiddleName Surname" mental framework and will try to fit your name into their expectations, not the other way around, even after you have explained it to them. It is really frustrating and invalidating, but be prepared.
Computer systems are also a beast to be prepared to fight. The big international ones are almost always written with North American expectations in mind.
If you decide to use both parts of your given name, I strongly recommend joining the two with a dash, even if that is not culturally appropriate for you and/or does not match your ID card. This makes things a lot easier as it is clearer that these two parts are linked and cannot be taken apart. My surname is from a language where dashes do not even exist, and until I decided to use a dash I had to face incomprehension, even from people to whom I had carefully explained what's what.

For your particular case, if you are willing to be called "FirstName M[iddleNameInitial]. LastName", that sounds perfectly fine. Dropping the second part of your compound given name is fine if you are okay being called with just the first part, in emails or daily conversations. There is no requirements, legal or otherwise, that your legal name must match the name on your publications.


When looking for a PhD advisor, will it matter if I send them an updated version of my masters thesis? I am about to finish my masters degree, and I want to apply for a PhD in the near future. I know that when contacting a potential advisor, they will ask you to send your CV and your previous research. The issue is that, according to my current advisor, my masters thesis will have no issues on being approved and my grades are good. Due to the pandemic, though, I was not able to be in the country my university is located in; communication and feedback with my advisor was very complicated. In my opinion, my thesis could be improved in some ways, but now I am lacking the time to do so.
My question is:
When a potential advisor asks me for my masters thesis or my previous research, it is compulsory to send the document I submitted for graduation? Can I send an updated version of it (I know I will be able to improve it, because I will work on it at my job)? Is this wrong?

There are no strict rules about this, so you should do what is in your own best interest: send them the best version you have available.
However, you should consider that your potential PhD supervisor may talk to your the supervisor of your master's thesis. It is possible they will discuss the thesis, and it could cause lots of confusion if they unknowingly are talking about different versions. Therefore I would recommend to let your prospective PhD supervisor know that you have sent them a version you updated after your graduation.


How to write an Statement Of Purpose for Masters' in Computer Science given it covers a broad range of topics? All the guidelines for writing a Statement of Purpose emphasize on how you need to properly explain why you would like to pursue an Master's in the specific branch along with proper examples
However, a Master's in Computer Science is a very vast branch. So how do you mention that you want to do a Master's in Computer Science with examples to explain why when every example in itself will talk about some specialization or another?

I suggest that you think, and write, more generally. Don't emphasize that you want to learn topic X and Y and Z. Think about why you want to learn this stuff and how you intend to capitalize on that in the future. Think about your career plans (your long-term purpose).
If you have already determined a narrow specialty, which is probably uncommon for a masters applicant, then you can focus somewhat on that, but the why of it all and the future goals are probably more important. It is also more likely that it is that the admissions committee is looking for.
Long term, not so much short term goals.


University Teaching Certifications for Different Countries A while back I asked this question which was about teaching certifications. As I dig into the subject more, it seems teaching certifications are quite rare for university teachers in many countries.

The UK has the PGCHE (post graduate certificate in higher education) - optional
Canada has the UTC (university teaching certificate) - optional
I'm unaware of the US having anything required or anything optional for university teachers
In Switzerland I don't see any information on university teaching certificates

I'm curious about European countries, especially Switzerland, and what teaching qualifications are accepted or required for university teaching.

Is anyone familiar with this topic in that geographic region?

Traditionally, the formal teaching requirement at universities in continental Europe is the so called Habilitation. It's a formal exam which requires submitting a thesis and defending it in a colloquium much like the PhD, but (supposedly) on a higher level. Usually it also includes a teaching-related element. The habilitation used to be a requirement for being appointed as a professor, but in recent times also other criteria, which represent a comparable achievement to a habilitation, are being used. In Germany, having passed the habilitation allows you to use the title "Privatdozent" (even before being appointed as professor), with the same teaching entitlements as an ordinary professor.

However, also other personnel may teach at the university. Even fresh graduates from one study program may find themselves in front of a class of students who could be just a year or two behind them. However, that will always be under the supervision of a professor, or on the formal commission of the department dean.

In addition, there are recent efforts to offer a more formal teaching education for university staff, including certificates for those who take part in the programs. I'm mostly familiar with the situation in Germany, for example this or this (in German), but I imagine similar efforts exist in neighboring countries. At the moment, these certificates are however not a requirement for university teaching, and I even doubt that they will become so in the near future. Yet, in some announcements for professor positions it seems to be included as a desirable applicant qualification.


What happens when a professor makes damaging comments about another in front of students? I have had some very negative comments made about me by a small number of students, which my institution is taking seriously enough to terminate my employment.

I know that a particular colleague has been influencing the students to feel negatively about me, and unfortunately, most of the students I have taught over the past 2 years have been in direct contact with this colleague (sometimes on a daily basis). One course I taught last year actually had fairly good student reviews, and that was because my colleague had nothing to do with those students. In fact, if one looks at my evaluation results from the past 3 years, the students who had nothing to do with my colleague gave me good reviews, and the ones that were in frequent contact with him gave me terrible reviews and made horrible personal, and sometimes offensive comments about me. However, my boss is not willing to consider this and sees only that my evaluation results have taken a downward trend.

In my institution, the lectures are recorded, and I have recently discovered a recording of my colleague talking to my students (who are also his students) before his lecture. In the video, my colleague is heard to make several derogatory comments about me, my teaching, my professionalism, etc., and a student is heard to say "this does not bode well", about the course I was about to start teaching them. This was right at the beginning of the semester and the students did not even know me yet. By the way, the comments made by my colleague were untrue.

As a result of interaction with my colleague, the students were very negatively predisposed to me and made very nasty comments about me and gave me extremely low ratings on their evaluations, which has caused my institution to initiate termination procedures against me.

What can I expect to happen? Has my colleague committed a terminatable offense, and can I expect him to be fired for this?

The way this has turned out is that some students (with whom my colleague also had close contact) complained so badly about me last year that a course was stripped away from me and given to him for this year, and a project that I received research funding for (as the principal investigator) has been taken from me and given to him. He had previously applied for funding for this project and did not inform me or put my name on the proposal (i.e. he was trying to steal my project from me). I have been suspended from work, and forbidden to have any contact with students, for 2 months now.

Of course, the video is from this year, not last year, so I can't prove he did the same last year, so is the one video enough to prove that my colleague has been actively and maliciously sabotaging my career even last year?

Could I still be fired and my colleague kept on after my boss sees what's on the video? That prospect is unthinkable to me, but I have been treated so unfairly so far I could almost see them doing that. I know that my boss likes my colleague and doesn't particularly like me.

Do I have any recourse, legal or otherwise, if, even after seeing the video, my boss fires me and my colleague suffers no consequences?

Thank you.

Further information: I'm in the UK on a fixed contract. My understanding, however, is that they need a good reason not to renew a contract when it runs out.

I am sorry this has happened to you. I have observed this at my place of work too. The poisoned well around you will make you sick. I suggest you get out fast and use our remaining dignity to find someplace where you are appreciated for what you do. Your boss or other colleagues are unlikely to help you because the writing is already on the wall that you are suffering negative consequences of someone else's unprofessional, jealous, petty and just plain bad behavior. Unless you are a mean street fighter, best to dodge this battle and understand that even if you win, this colleague will not change their behavior and likely cause future trouble. Do you really want to face that for the remainder of your career here? As fas as I know, this type of harassment is not protected by laws. Even your friends at work will not want to be involved as they will fear the wrath of this nasty person turning on them, if they speak up for you. I am really sorry. You sound like a sincere person who is doing their job the best they can, but it is hard to contribute well when so much of your energy must be sapped by fighting this stupid battle. Find yourself a nurturing place. The world is bigger than this narrow well.


How do you respectfully give a teacher feedback about their teaching? My teacher's teaching style isn't working for me, and he asked for feedback about the class and how he could teach it better.  He teaches with powerpoint and gives quizzes that are all about rote memorization of the slides.  Most of the class finds these quizzes to be of little help in understanding the information, but nobody knows what to say to the teacher about it.

Basically, I agree that what xLeitix said is the gist of if: as long as you are respectful, you should be fine.

To elaborate a little, my only experience with giving feedback back to the professor is a bit specific: a fairly young professor, that just got the course for the first time and was trying to improve it. Like in your case, he also said that he would appreciate feedback.

I'll try to give some specific advice, with a specific example of my situation:

again, be very respectful

(In my situation, this meant that I didn't start loudly complaining in class as the reading material quality (made by the prof) steadily degraded during the year. Rather, when I found enough time, I passed by the professors office during the office hours and asked him if he would be interested in my feedback on his reading materials.)
be as informed as you can about the coursework for which you disagree with the teaching approach

(Basically, why would I take your advice on how to teach X if you don't even have a rudimentary understanding of X?)
be specific, and give argumented reasons

(For me, this meant, when he agreed to listen to my feedback -- he actually scheduled a meeting outside of his office hours for that class suspecting it will take some time -- I didn't just come and said the materials were getting worse. I had specific examples of pages and exercises that I had trouble solving, marked in the script. I also offered information like "it took me X hours to finish and understand the first script (good quality), while it took me 4*X hours to finish the second one (worse quality), and they are supposed to cover approximately the same amount of coursework". For you, it might mean explaining how and why you don't think the feedback you're getting from quizzes is not helpful.)
make specific recommendations or suggestion (but don't demand anything)

(Again, in my case, alongside some of the things I marked, like exercises and definitions I had trouble with, sometimes I had my own versions of definitions, or I would re-phrase the examples in a way that made it easier for me to understand. It also help pointing out the ambiguities in the original and saying why you think your formulation resolves it.)
be committed. The bigger the change you want to make, the more committed your will need to be.

(As you can see form the above, making a substantial change, at least according to me, will probably require you do to a substantial amount of work on your own -- without the professor's help -- to be able to give suggestions well supported by arguments. Of course, you don't have to take all the points super-seriously if you just opt for a short 5-minute chat giving some suggestions and examples.

On the other hand, in my case, where I loved the course, I thought it was important, I thought the prof was great and trying really hard, and I had a (young and naive) wish to make a change for future generations, I took a few days to prepare my notes, I came to Uni a few days after the summer break has started in order to have time to give all my comments in as much detail as the professor wanted, and it did help that the prof actually knew and remembered me from the courses and valued my opinion at least a little.)


Quantum information Science PhD position interview Recently I got in touch with a professor in the field of quantum information science. I am really interested in the PhD program. After extensively talking with the professor he has agreed for an interview on skype. What should i expect from this interview and how can i be better prepared.

More and less:

Asking personal questions about your motivation to choose the target program.
Asking about any of your potential ideas, as the main subject of the Ph.D. thesis.
Asking about your financial status and any need to support.
Asking technical questions from your undergraduate and M.Sc. level to assess your knowledge.
Talking about any of your stated stuffs within the CV to check their credibility and truthfulness of your claims, e.g. your expertise to work with an specific software (Be on the edge of your sit and just do not mention the case within the CV, in which you're not proficient).
Testing your linguistic capabilities within the interview, especially speaking skill, for devotion of some related positions such as teacher assistantship, based on your presented level of integrity.
...


When presenting an idea to a professor: Be optimistic or realistic I'm trying to convince a professor about my research idea, but when I would start writing that email, I get stuck: should I be optimistic, for example, If we apply my idea, then X, Y and Z could happen (Z could refer to "change the world") but I am not sure enough about X, Y and Z. Or to be realistic, for example, I would say: "Okay, that idea, presumably will lead to x. Thank you".

What I was thinking is if my idea really can lead to X, Y and Z then I will impress that professor, but if my idea cannot (at least in that professor's opinion) lead to anything of what I'm supposing, then he will delete my email immediately. I read a book on how to sell any of your idea or product to people by being optimistic not realistic, but I want to ask if you share the same view.

As a professor who reads/receives  tons of such emails, what is the most thing that impress you, a realistic talk or an ambitious/optimistic talk?

As a side note: I'm holding a bachelor degree, and I'm presenting my idea as a working subject in my master study

Be realistic. A seasoned professor has (by necessity) developed a keen BS detector (required to wade through teaching, at very least). A (prospective) student who doesn't know how far they can realistically go will either turn out reckless (and dangerous to the project) or get frustrated when things don't work out, perhaps dropping all (and thus being dangerous to the project). As the professor in turn stands of falls with his successes (and "my PhD student failed me" is no excuse, really), it would make you a risk not worth taking.

Yes, it is nice to show that you know where success in the first step(s) could take you, but they might fail, or turn out unexpected results leading elsewhere.


Percentage of total scholarly literature available in open access repositories by year of publication broken down by discipline I am looking for the percentage of total scholarly literature available in open access repositories by year of publication broken down by discipline.

I am aware of the following figure, however it is old. Are there any more recent statistics?

Swan, Alma. Policy guidelines for the development and promotion of open access. UNESCO, 2012.

As far as I see, to answer this question based upon a more recent data set one has to create the needed data set in advance.

An overview article (open access version) published in 2013 is the most recent work I could find. Even an article from 2016 analyses only articles published between 2010 and 2012.

Unfortunately, neither the data set behind the shown picture nor the method used to create the data set is given in the report (see footnotes 63 and 64) but I found the corresponding pre-print.

The needed data set has to include all published articles, the publication year, the information of the access state on article level (gold/green) and a consistent classification.

One could start by using google scholar or the Thomson Reuters list to collect all published articles and repositories or a web trawler to find corresponding green open access versions. One could also use a data collector as BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine). BASE offers browsing using the DDC which should help to identify the publications of the different disciplines, if one has no access to the Thomson Reuters list. Additionally, each article has an access state. The access state of an article can also be collected from oaDOI.

There are definitely several ways to get the needed information. Unfortunately, it seems that no one has done this work recently.


How to deal with scooping when doing open-source tools development? I am developing a tool for bioinformatics ... it is an application that will be open source when finished. It is something that has use outside of bioinformatics as well.

I am also using some open source tools to develop my application. When I need help with the open tools I'm using, it's kinda difficult for me to get the help I need without telling the people what I'm using it for.

I asked my prof if I could make the app public while it's in development, and he suggested it might be a bad idea to do that because of the potential of someone scooping the work and publishing it before we get a chance to do so.

My questions are:

How serious is this problem? Do people really just take someone else's work and publish it as their own? And do journals really allow this?
My prof mentioned this in terms of someone developing the tool on their own and then publishing it (i.e. take the idea but not necessarily the code). Is there anyway I could have my cake and eat it too - i.e. make the tool public and still guard against scooping?
How does your lab deal with open source tools? Do they get released to public before the publication?

Having developed academic open source software for 20 years, I have never heard anyone getting "scooped" by putting code out there. And I know lots of people who do all of their development out in the open, often years before they have it all together to make it into a publication.

I believe that the reason why this never happens is that it's difficult to take someone else's code and understand it in sufficient detail without the author's deep familiarity with the subject. Certainly to understand it at a level that would allow that person to write up a publication about it and claim that it's their own invention. (That's in addition to the fact that everyone knows that that would be unethical.) It's so much easier to collaborate with the original author if one had to add something because then one would have the person who understands it all help you with it.

So I wouldn't worry about this. Put stuff out there and see that people use it. You'll build a reputation that way, and that's what you're going for. If you keep things secret, nobody will know it but you also aren't going to gain any reputation points for it.


Math graduate, not enough physics coursework to apply straight to physics MS I have a BS in math (2.9) and a MA in teaching (Pass/fail online program)
I am teaching math at a high school but now miss my college days and the upper level material. My end goal would be a PhD in Physics at a US university.

I don't have enough course work in Physics to try and apply straight to a Masters in Physics, as well as a low GPA to apply with.

What are my options? (I have ideas but am unsure as to what is realistic or worth doing)
Community college classes until I have prerequisites for physics?
Non-matriculated schooling?

If you are studying in the United States, you should take the core physics undergraduate courses from a reputable university.  Then you should apply directly to PhD programs.


Is it always bad if you continue to publish with your PhD advisor? What about the small country vs. big country bias? Is it any biased view from a viewpoint of a big country, where you have many chances to change laboratories/universities/working groups, vs. a small one?

Suppose you are from a small country when there is only one laboratory in your field and you want to stay in that country due to family reasons. Then you probably have these options:

stay there and get published with your supervisor;
move to another country for some years and come back (and you will
end up with your supervisor);
move to related field and you will probably end up with    some sort
of collaboration with your supervisor anyway.

Are these options considered "weak" from an academic's perspective?

Do good work and publish in high impact journals. As long as you're doing good work, then it really shouldn't matter who you are publishing with. I don't think I've ever read a paper from a small country and had a preconceived notion about the quality of the work. However, if your lab becomes well known for a research area then I think that's a benefit and not a hindrance.


I am looking towards getting into a good PhD program in Germany. How can I convince any professor to take me as a student? I'm a non-EU resident and I want to pursue a PhD in pure math in Germany. I am currently in the process of writing to as many professors in my field of interest (functional analysis) as I can requesting that they take me as a doctoral student under their supervision.

I don't want to do research in the same area that I specialized in during my masters education (in fact, I want to switch from algebraic geometry to functional analysis). My question is how can I convince someone to take me on as their student if I'm making such a big leap and hardly have a clue as to what research in functional analysis entails? Professors naturally look for students that are already very familiar with their research area and don't need much training before they start working.

Usually when I email a professor requesting them to take me as a student, I attach a short CV (not that impressive either) and transcripts of my masters education. I don't have a research proposal for them and I feel that's hindering my likelyhood of getting an acceptance letter. I'm sure I'm not the first student with this problem and people in my situation do get admitted into a PhD program doing work unlike that which they did during their masters so I was wondering how do I become one of those people?

Thank you for your help.

@PaulGarrett: Since I can't comment below, I'll clarify here: I have some research experience in the area of fixed point theory (which is close enough) working as a research assistant for a professor in our department. I can get a reference letter if there is a need. I don't have a paper published, however, but I did learn a lot and so this is how I believe that that's what I want to work on. I of course realize that saying I've read a few articles and enjoy the work is one thing but convincing someone to pay me for 3/4 years to do some work in this area is something else, but that's all I can say and I can sense it doesn't really sound very convincing. I hope my situation isn't so hopeless that I either have to force myself to learn to enjoy algebraic geometry or start again with first getting another masters degree.

I work in computer science, but I think it doesn't matter in this case.

Please don't think it's a stretch to say that, but how do you achieve attention of someone on an online dating site? That's right: by standing out. As a professor, I get occassional emails from prospective students. They differ a lot in terms of content, language and attitude, so they make very different impressions on me.

There is no, and there can be no universal rule: people are different, and it is not possible to give a recipe that works for everyone. Some professors are simply not interested in getting new students (it's a "load"), and thus won't reply positively regardless of the quality of your mail.

For me, "a request, a CV, and a transcript" looks like something that you send in bulk, to dozens of people. Why should I react? Basically, I treat any bulk mail as spam. Yes, I get it: as a student you might simply want to enter a certain resonable university and study a certain field you want to work in. But what should be my (professor's) motivation to support this endeavor of yours? It is a commitment both for you and for me.

What works for me is when people are genuinely interested in my research project, and they wish to support it, so they will be not just a burden, but my assistants. Fake interest ("I am very impressed by your work and want to be your student") is easy to spot, BTW. I have no interest in studying random people's CVs and transcripts; if I wished to do it, I would work in HR.

Bottom line: connect what you already studied with something that you want to study, think how to present your previous experience and obtained knowledge as a valuable asset for the prospective professor's lab. Find a person who does something that you genuinely like. Read his/her research papers (i.e., do your homework), try to propose a possible direction for your studies. Try to be a collaborator, not a burden.

I must also say that things become more complicated when you need more than just "an approval". If people just wish to come and join our lab, it's different from asking to fight together for their scholarship, for example.