How to regain lost focus? I seem to have lost the focus that I once used to have. Few years back I was able to study for 4 hours straight but now its hardly possible for me to focus for 15 minutes. Any advice on how to regain lost focus in studying?

This situation is not that uncommon and there are several approaches you might try. Few month ago I couldn't barely manage to sit down and start to read or write for my master thesis. Therefore, I also tried several of the possible approaches until one worked. The short answer is: Change something.

Plan to only study for 15 minutes straight, make a 5 minutes break and go back again to work for another 15 minutes and so on. If this works out, try to stretch the working time to 20 minutes and see how it goes.
Turn on or off distractions, e.g. I usually need distraction and noise around me to study, so I gave the opossite a try. Turn background music on or off.
Change the place where you study. Relocate yourself into a coffee shop or a park. Look for a shared workspace and try coworking.
Play games or challange yourself by setting small achievable goals and honor yourself for achieving them with whatever you like, e.g. some time off or treats. I know that this one sounds kind of weird but give it a try.
Take a longer break for several days, if you can afford this in terms of time.
Turn the internet off, i.e. no smartphone, no browser.
Try other working hours like in the morning or in the night.
Mix the material you have to study or the methods you use, like watching videos, reading, writing, summarizing, structuring, collecting.
Add physical exercises to your routine, e.g. short exercises of only a few minutes every hour (stand up, stretch, walk) and/or more challenging exercises once a day or every few days.

I'm pretty sure that there are much more options. These are only the ones I personally tried. Good luck.


How to respond the reviewer who reject my paper but editor ask to revise The editor asked me to revise my paper and answer the reviewers' questions. Two of three reviewers asked me to revise some parts and agree that it is quite new and can improve it but one of them reject my paper in all parts e.g., contributions, research model. How can I response to the reviewer who rejected my paper? Do I need to email to editor to consult him?

Thank you very much

The same way you respond to the reviewers who didn't reject your article: you take the reviewer's criticism and argue why it's irrelevant, inappropriate, unfair, has been fixed in the revision, and so on. If the reviewer rejected your article without giving reasons, then you can safely ignore the reviewer (since the editor decided on revise, he/she clearly already disregards the reviewer's report).

There's no need to email the editor.


Slides for 30 min~1 hr Skype tenure track application interview Is it good to prepare slides to present during the video chat even if the search committee say you don't need to prepare slides?

What's the strategy of impressing them then?

Before we decide to bring faculty candidates to on campus interviews, we would like the search committee or department head to have met the candidate before. This used to happen primarily at the major conferences in our field for any candidates that we did not already know. Now it can sometimes happen alternatively in videoconference interviews. These will generally last about 30 minutes, but are planned a bit longer in case things go really well.

You should absolutely not have slides prepared, and you should not be tempted to refer to slides to answer questions. The goal here is to see how you interact spontaneously with other academics, how you talk about your research, how you talk about your career goals, etc. We are absolutely not interested in a canned presentation. In fact, we would prefer that your answers do not sound too well "rehearsed" or "coached" at all!


How to cite information removed from a working paper when it was published Here's a simplified version of a bibliographic problem I'm facing.
A working paper estimated that Public Policy X caused Social Indicator Y to increase by 25%—practically significant, but not statistically significant at p < .05. So the paper's authors, as they told me by e-mail, omitted the discussion of Indicator Y when the paper was published in a journal.
Other studies of Policy X have found effects of 20%–40% on Indicator Y, so I'd like to cite the 25% estimate to corroborate these other studies. I'm writing for semi-popular consumption, so I'd like to minimize bibliographic clutter in the main text without confusing readers who can't find Indicator Y in the published paper. (The working and published papers have identical titles. The working paper is paywalled on every website that hosts it, and the published paper is unpaywalled on the website of one of its authors, so readers may find the published paper if they chase a citation to the working paper and aren't told that the two differ.)
What's the best solution? My current idea is this, but if there's a standard method, I'd prefer that. My publisher generally follows Chicago format.

In main text:
Kent and Parker found that Policy X increased Indicator Y by approximately 25%.1 Though not statistically significant,2 this estimate corroborates independent studies' estimates, such as [etc.]
In footnotes:
1 Clark Kent and Peter Parker. "Various Effects of Policy X." NBER Working Paper No. 90210, June 2016. Discussion of Indicator Y is absent from the version ultimately published: Clark Kent and Peter Parker. "Various Effects of Policy X." Los Angeles Journal of Sociology 16, no. 1 (2017): 42–50.
2 Peter Parker, e-mail message to author, October 31, 2017.

This is a rare situation, because “interesting enough to cite” and “interesting enough to include in the final draft” tend to be highly correlated. Therefore I wouldn’t expect there to be a “standard” way to do this.

However, there are standard ways to cite working papers. For Chicago style, it’s this:

  Author. Year. “Title of Paper.” Title of Series. Sponsoring Organization, Month Day.

  Add URL at the end if available online.

  Deal, Ashley. 2009. “Collaboration Tools.” Teaching with Technology Whitepaper. Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence and Educational Innovation, Carnegie Mellon University, January 23. http://www.cmu.edu/teaching/technology/whitepapers/CollaborationTools_Jan09.pdf.

Source: CMOS 14.228, as quoted here.

I would switch the first part of your citation to match this format. The additional commentary that the result was excluded from the final paper is, in my mind, extremely important to include. I would do exactly what you’ve done (after correcting the second citation to Chicago style as well).


Publishing a paper in a low impact journal when I already have higher impact publications I am a student who will be applying to PhD programs next year. In my field it is relatively uncommon but not unheard of for students to have publications before applying for their PhD.

At this point, I have three solo publications. The journals I published in are all reputable, and range in impact from low to medium-high, with increasing quality over time (meaning that my last publication is in a higher ranked journal than the previous one, etc.). I can reasonably expect to have another medium-high tier publication by the time I apply (though of course nothing is guaranteed).

(I use the terms ‘impact’ and ‘tier’ to loosely refer to ranking and how these journals are viewed by researchers in the field).

I have an old manuscript which has undergone review in several medium-impact journals. Reviewers’ and editors’ comments are generally the same: the paper is fine (in terms of writing, methodology, and results), but it has limitations in terms of scope, which preclude it from getting published in these journals. The findings are still valuable and do offer a minor contribution to the field, but it’s simply not competitive enough to warrant publishing in these venues.

At this point, I can either forget about the manuscript, or try to publish it in a low impact venue. This would either be a low impact journal (though of course, nothing predatory), or a ‘working papers’ style journal (which is peer reviewed). ‘Saving’ this study and expanding on it in future works is not a viable option for me.

There is a similar question on this (For undergraduates, is publishing "weak" research better than not publishing?), but the difference in this case is that there I already have a relatively good publication record for my stage, and I'm worried that this publication would weaken rather than strengthen my research potential in the eyes of the admissions committee.

My question is: from the perspective of grad admissions (and possibly future career), would I be better off not publishing this paper?

Also if I do decide to try and publish it, will it look better to publish it in a low impact journal or in a ‘working papers’ journal?

What does an academic researcher do?  They contribute to academic knowledge by (i) doing new research and (ii) publishing it so that others can benefit from it.  You have an academic work that is not only completed but has already been peer reviewed, with the following verdict

  The findings are still valuable and do offer a minor contribution to the field

So you've made a minor contribution to the field...if you get the paper published.  If you don't get the paper published, you've engaged in almost the entire time and effort of the research and publication process, but without completing the final, key step of broad dissemination.  Since the next thing you have to do is just resubmit the paper -- apparently without any change at all, since

  the paper is fine (in terms of writing, methodology, and results)

from the ground-level perspective of what academic research is all about, it would be pretty strange to stop now.  Indeed I do advise you to resubmit in a lower tier (but still reputable; there are many tiers of reputability) journal.

You ask specifically:

  My question is: from the perspective of grad admissions (and possibly future career), would I be better off not publishing this paper?

No, I don't think so.  Some considerations:

I strongly believe that completion rate of projects is one of the things that separates successful academics from unsuccessful ones -- I know some people who are brilliant and hard-working but somehow never manage to finish anything.  Obviously you are not such a person since you have already published multiple better papers, but still you should be thinking in terms of the time you put into various projects and what the outcomes are.  To work on something for months and years and have nothing come of it is a big problem for an academic.  To be fair, to spend time on something that turns out to be mediocre could also be a problem -- it may be keeping you from doing better work.  But that's a great argument in favor of choosing your projects more carefully; it's not a great argument in favor of bailing out on an already completed project.
I want to add that the above viewpoint is not universally shared.  It is much more common in technical, STEM-like areas of academia than it is in the humanities: e.g. many famous writers have novels that they have completed and decided not to publish.  (Sometimes novels get published decades later, and it gets very interesting: in some cases you can see why they were not originally published, and in some cases you really can't.  Most of the work of Franz Kafka was published after his death by his literary executor, Max Brod, against Kafka's wishes.  These wrongly published novels are some of the highlights of 20th century literature.)
My own field of mathematics is somewhere between the humanities and the hard sciences in its publication sensibilities.  Many of the very greatest mathematicians publish much less than second or third rate mathematicians.  Gauss's motto was pauca sed matura ("few but ripe").  I am in the same mathematical field as Andrew Wiles, the person who solved Fermat's Last Theorem in 1994 and recently won the Abel Prize in mathematics.  He is 23 years older than I am, I have more papers than he does, and his mathematical contributions are immeasurably greater than mine.  But "even I" do not publish every result that I get, and "even I" sometimes referee papers and see results that I knew how to prove but didn't find valuable enough to write up.  However, I don't think that applies here, because you already submitted your work for publication.
In the current academic climate, the vast majority of people are served a little better by having one more paper, even if that one more paper is not as good as some of their other papers, as long it is still of sufficient standard to be published in a reputable journal.  If you go on the research academic job market, you will be compared against hundreds of other applicants at every stage.  In order to get a serious shot, there need to be some people in the department who think your work is very exciting, and having one more paper is not going to make much difference there.  However, these people also need to promote and defend you against the candidates that other people in the department are very excited about.  If it's between Dr. A in subfield B and Dr. C in subfield D, after a point it will be hard to tell an argument in support of
the quality of Dr. A's research from a statement about the relative merits of subfield B versus subfield D.  The department members who are far enough away from these two subfields are likely to take other considerations into account: if one of the two candidates has four very nice papers and nothing else and the other candidate has four very nice papers and two solid ones...well, it's obvious.  So yes, even mediocre publications can work to your advantage.
Early in your career is the best time to pick up an additional publication that is not as good as the others.  Most pre-PhD students in most fields don't publish at all.  Most who publish one paper don't publish two.  And so forth.  Having been involved in multiple projects at this stage provides further clear evidence of your ability to do academic research.  Twenty years later that is not so valuable, but it sure is valuable now.  And the flip side: if one of your early papers is not as good as the others, it shows intellectual growth!  That is an argument for not only resubmitting your work but doing it as soon as possible.


PhD in Education - How competitive is it and what are admissions committees looking for? I currently have applications into several top tier education programs.  I am a bit worried about my chances.  I have about 7 years working in education, a unrelated masters and a masters in education.  My GPA in undergraduate was a 3.8 and in graduate school a 3.9 from a top 25 university.  I did well on the GRE verbal but poorly on GRE math.

Does anyone have any insight as to what they are looking for and what my chances are?  I read in another post to look for brutal honesty, so bring it on.

It sounds like, on the whole, you're in a pretty good place regarding your credentials. Have you checked out the Grad Cafe? The forums there are a fantastic resources for people in the process of applying.


What is the timeline for hiring tenure-track Professors during the Summer? I'm curious to know if anyone has any experience with conducting a tenure-track job search during the summer for positions in the US.  I've noticed jobs posted from late May through early July.  What's the timeline for hiring decisions this late in the cycle?  Should I expect a typical interview / campus interview / offer process?  How late are these decisions typically made?  If I applied for a position in early June but haven't heard anything by early July, should I assume the position is closed?

I'm looking for positions within English departments at four year teaching institutions and HBCUs, pretty exclusively.  Thanks so much!

In my academic circles, it is essentially verboten to do tenure-track hiring over the summer.  (One cannot count on having a quorum of faculty members in-town, and those who are around probably have other plans.)  You might get better advice by specifying your field and the kind of institution you've applied to (e.g. research university, four year college).

I just saw @aeismail's answer: yes, I think that summer tenure track hiring is likely to be a kind of "Plan B," or alternatively comes from an administrative initiative rather than the departmental level.  (In my experience, upper university administration can be surprisingly out of step with faculty hiring timelines.)  But to me this kind of hiring feels "exceptional," and some of the standard hiring practices may be abridged or otherwise bent.

As a general rule, I would not assume an academic position is closed until they tell you.  If you are still interested in the job, send a short email to the chair of the hiring committee.  She will tell you whether the position is still open.  You should know however that sometimes "the position is still open" means that they conducted their search, interviewed their candidates, and found a candidate that has indicated willingness to accept but hasn't filled out the paperwork yet.  You should certainly be pursuing other options, and you should be aware that in almost any academic field, there will be many more hiring opportunities available during the academic year.


How does the ranking of a university relate to a future career in mathematics? Although I am an active user of SE, I have chosen to remain anonymous because of the nature of this question. I am currently a graduate student at a university that lands in the mid 70s among U.S. News' top graduate schools in mathematics, which by my understanding is very poor. My grades were quite good and although I didn't do terrifically on the subject GRE, I had a few offers from schools in the mid 40 range which I turned down. This was partially because I think I undervalued the importance of choosing a better school, and for a variety of personal reasons. My university has some unique opportunities in applied math, but is otherwise unremarkable.

As I enter my second year, I am increasingly convinced that a career as an active research mathematician is what I want for myself. However, I've heard so much contradictory information that I'm unsure if this is a realistic goal given the status of my university. While a variety of people have told me that there are plenty of desirable jobs available in "industry," the general consensus is that graduate students from low-ranking schools tend to end up as community college professors. The fact that most universities (including my own) are full of doctors from strictly high ranking schools seems to support this.

I have the chance to receive a terminal masters at the end of this year, rather than continue on for another four and complete my PhD, so I'm considering trying to retake the GRE and reapplying (I am unclear whether this is frowned upon in the math community in general, although at my school I have been reassured it is not). On the other hand, my university has a few professors who seem to be well known within their niche, mainly because their particular specialties are very unique.

My general questions are these: How important is the quality of the university when it comes to having a full career in pure mathematics research? Is a well known adviser a factor, possibly outweighing the school? Is this significantly different among applied mathematicians?

First, let me answer an easy question.  It is not frowned on to get a masters at one school, then transfer elsewhere for a Phd.  In fact, this is often encouraged.  Next, let me confirm that yes, the ranking of your PhD institution really does matter for a future career as a research mathematician.

In some sense, Gerry is right when he says that the ranking of importance is (1) quality of dissertation, (2) reputation of adviser, and (3) ranking of department.
One big problem though, is that many of the people evaluating you won't know how to evaluate criteria (1) and (2).  Hiring committees often include many (all?) people who are not familiar with your research area.  So they will often rely on what they (at least think that they) know, which is quality of department.

I have written elsewhere about why you should go to the strongest program that you can get into, particularly if you want a career as a research mathematician.
I don't know all the details of your personal situation, but I strongly encourage you to at least take the GRE again and reapply.  It may be possible for you to wait to see whether you get accepted to a school that you prefer before you decide whether you'll leave with a terminal masters or not.


Infusing Graduate Studies with High Quality video content Recently there has been a revolution in graphics technologies, which can aid in explaining (math and other) concepts visually to people (for example, the high quality content produced by 3Blue1Brown on YouTube).

Is it possible to infuse the current academic system with such kind of technology? It would, in my opinion, be of enormous help, especially at average universities who can only hire average professors.

The question of course is one of scalability and cohesion with the current system.

Let me discuss two aspects of a good course that are most important to the student: Content, and Learning. There are others, of course, but I'll leave them out of this discussion.

I don't think that content and learning are independent, but they are quite different things. So, if you are asking if improving the content of a course would help improve a course, then sure, it would. But I think only at the margins.

But learning is much more than content. If it were only content, then you could go to the university bookstore, purchase 15 or so books and then carry them to the registrar's office to collect your MS degree. Um, no, I don't think it works that way.

Perhaps you are confusing education with entertainment, at least a bit. If you listen to a brilliant lecturer speak, in a classroom or (more likely) at a conference, you won't really learn a lot beyond what it will be important for you to study. It is the study, not the content or the brilliance that will result in learning.

For learning to occur the student needs to do a lot of work, solving problems, writing, getting and evaluating feedback. Then, more problems, feedback, etc.. Eventually some insight will emerge, we hope from the hard work. Learning involves changing the brain and developing long term memory and connections between ideas. Content alone, even brilliant content won't do that. Only hard work, usually involving repetition will.

Perhaps I'm a case in point. I'm probably just an average professor and I worked at mostly just average universities. But my students learned a lot and some of them have gone on to surpass me, getting their own doctorates and now teaching at top universities. Some others became leaders in industry and government. But I never relied on fancy videos. I just made them work hard on meaningful things and gave them a lot of feedback. I also let them improve on their mistakes by resubmitting old work. How the content was delivered mattered much less.

And, of course, you can't interrupt a video lecturer to ask them a question. So, if you miss some point, you are just stuck until the video ends (assuming it is delivered in a classroom situation, rather than offline in a "flipped" classroom). And then you get farther and farther behind the presenters ideas.

My philosophy of teaching is that it matters much less what I do in the classroom than what the students do. So, course design starts with the exercises and projects that the students will do to actually learn. Over the years I came to rely much less on lecture and much more on reinforcement of key ideas (not presentation, reinforcement).

But, I didn't always think that way, sadly. At one time I developed the absolutely perfect way to teach (hmmm, lecture on) statistical sampling. I created the absolutely perfect lecture. When I delivered it, brilliantly, I think, I noted that only about 5% of the students actually understood what I was talking about. OOPS..

On the other hand, I've had the experience, teach math and/or cs, as have many others, that when I stumble through a lecture and have to figure it out as I go along, backing up and moving forward.... that the students afterwards thank me for giving such a nice lecture. That is because that stumbling is how they often have to work and seeing a prof stuck in the same way is both reassuring and shows them how the "smart folks" really work.

And note, of course, that great content already exists. Great learning and great teaching is another thing altogether. And don't denigrate the "average" professor or the "average" university. A lot of deep learning goes on there. Likewise a lot of really incompetent people graduate from top schools. I've met some of them and some of them are public figures.


Name of a college career At my school, we call a list of courses (or classes) a semester or a term - as in Spring 2014 semester that includes 5 classes.

I'm looking for a word that means "list of semesters", whether it has been completed or not, for the actual degree. I've heard this called an "undergraduate career", but I think that can get confused for one's actual employment career. Does anyone have another word for this that would specifically refer to their college career?

I have always used the following words:

Program - as in "our undergraduate finance program"
Course - As in an "international finance master course": WARNING: This can be confused with an individual class/module

I would avoid the use of the word degree because it can be confused with the piece of paper one gets at the end. I would also avoid the use of coursework as it implies the subjects one will study. However, to be fair, I have heard both of those words used quite frequently and one fun thing about English is that it gets modified by common usage, even when that usage seems wrong to some of us - we must go with the flow.

Another reason to be cautious about using the word degree is the common separation, by some, between a certificate (short duration), a diploma (medium duration), and a degree (longer than the other two). Using the word degree could cause confusion to some who might be looking at a certificate or diploma program.


Grading curves in quantitative subjects In U.S. colleges, in quantitative fields of study like engineering and mathematics, how do instructors curve their courses?  That is, how do instructors decide, in a given course, how many As to award, how many Bs, how many Cs, and so on?

I do not ask the opinion-based question of how an instructor should curve his or her course. Rather, I ask the fact-based, or at any rate experience-based, question of how a normal, responsible, experienced instructor does curve his or her course.

I do not ask the opinion-based question of how an instructor should curve his or her course. Rather, I ask the fact-based, or at any rate experience-based, question of how a normal, responsible, experienced instructor does curve his or her course.

I think the following would be a typical story of the process. Jane is hired to a tenure-track faculty position in physics, and she is going to teach freshman mechanics her first semester. To find out what is considered the normal academic level of the course at this school, she looks at available information such as the text being used, the lab manual, the problem sets assigned by previous instructors, and, if possible, exams set by previous instructors. She looks at myedu.com to see histograms of grades given by other teachers at this school in this course.

Based on this information, she tries to set standards that will seem somewhat easier than average at this school. She wants to make sure that her grading isn't seen as too harsh, which could result in poor teaching evaluations and endanger her hopes of tenure. She can't afford to be as stringent a grader as some of the senior faculty, because she's not insulated by tenure as they are. She can use an infinite variety of factors to adjust the level of difficulty, but she is constrained by this need to appear a little more lenient than average.

In most cases, people end up teaching at schools that are less selective than the ones at which they got their own degrees. This is the case for Jane, so after the first midterm she finds that her best attempts to be perceived as a lenient grader are failing rather badly. Many of her students are very upset. Jane is alarmed. She has recently acquired a mortgage, and a terrier that everyone says looks like President Trump.  If she doesn't get tenure, she and the dog will be out on the street. She makes further downward adjustments in her standards. Within a few semesters, she arrives at a set of standards that become the ones she considers normal for the rest of her career as a "normal, responsible, experienced instructor."

Jane gets tenure, and as time goes on, more tenure-track faculty members are hired in her department. These new folks go through the same process described above, arriving at standards that are in turn incrementally lower than the ones Jane uses. This trend continues over the years. By the time she retires, Jane owns a bulldog that everyone says looks like President Bannon, and she has become legendary as an extremely harsh grader compared to her younger colleagues.

For more on this topic, see:

Arum and Roksa, Academically Adrift, 2011

Valen Johnson, Grade Inflation: A Crisis in College Education, 2003


Should I explain change of major in my statement of purpose? During my masters program I changed my major from Molecular Biology to Biotechnology.
Should I explain in my statement of purpose for PhD programs why I changed my major?

Should I explain in my statement of purpose for PhD programs why I changed my major?

Yes, this is a substantial enough change that it's worth at least a brief explanation.  As a general rule, it's better to explain than to make the committee guess.  There might not be much to say beyond that you realized biotechnology was a better fit for your research interests.  If so, then say that; if there is more to say, then it's worth clarifying further.


How to explain a life as a researcher to friends, family and partners who aren't? My friends, family, and partner often mention that they worry about my life as an researcher/academic mentioning how I work too much (I love my job!) am never satisfied (I want to go great work, and great work is hard to do!), and that I'm often distracted (I think about my research a lot!). I've tried to explain these facets of academic life to them, but I have trouble completely communicating each of these feelings.

Are there any good articles or stories that you have found particularly useful in helping others understand your lifestyle as an academic?

For people outside of academia who you feel understand your passion and drive, how did they come to do so?

[This response may be specific to my culture/situation, so take it for what it's worth.]

As a student in the health sciences, I find it helpful to explain my passion in terms of 'needing to know'. The human body--and it's response to disease--is so complex, with so many interactions that we don't fully understand, I find myself continually in a position of wonderment. "The more I learn, the less I know."

I am passionate about becoming the best healthcare professsional I can be, and the individuals who are important to me seem to be able to understand this. I know that I cannot expect them to totally understand the fascination of research, or the passion that drives me to devote all available time to learning, reading, writing, etc. Both they and I have come to accept this. I do not push my world onto them, nor do they demand that I be able to explain.

Perhaps the really crucial part of this is taking time to be really present with the non-academics in your life. Let them know that you care for them and accept their non-academic lifestyle as well. Understanding and acceptance is often a two-way street--be willing to give as well as get.

This really only answers your second question. Perhaps others may be more able to respond to the first query about stories/articles to help your loved ones understand the fascination of research.


What are some reasons to get (or not get) a PhD? Lots of people start PhD programs, but far fewer finish (in some programs the drop-out rate is 50% or higher).  Some people are motivated to get a PhD by: wanting a job in academia, wanting a job in industry, personal pride, or simply a lack of direction and an aptitude for the field of their PhD program.

Have you noticed that people with certain motivations are more likely to finish their PhD than others?  If so, which reasons correlate positively with success?  Conversely, do you have warnings for someone considering starting a PhD?

I won't tell you what are and aren't good reasons for getting a PhD.  However, to get a PhD, you must stay remarkably determined for a minimum of 5 to 6 years.  If you cannot, you will quit.  Earning a PhD is hard.  When I earned mine, it was easily the hardest thing I had ever done.

During your PhD, you work long hours, for a low salary, with little respect, and bleak job prospects.  Most PhD students are at least fairly smart and/or moderately hard workers.  Nearly all of them could make more money  with less effort elsewhere.

So, why get a PhD?  You need to find your own compelling reason.  I couldn't imagine not studying math.  Undoubtedly, I would be studying it now, even if no one would pay me.  I'd never cared too much about money (easier to say when you're in your 20s and single).  I was far from balanced, so long hours didn't bother me.  I really loved teaching (and still do), and after working with high school kids, I decided I'd much prefer college.  So I decided I'd be a math professor.  That was my vision, what I clung to in the midst of the storm.  And it worked, eventually.  Your story will be different.  But it must be just as compelling to you, or you likely won't make it.


Should all computer science courses from a reputable university contain programming? Right now, I am taking a BSc in computer science from a more reputable online university. Courses from there are transferable to most major Canadian universities. I would have preferred to take it from a brick-and-mortar place, but I wanted to just get as much done as fast as I can. In addition, I already have a degree.

Now, many of the programming courses (e.g., Beginner's Java, C++) are quite intensive even coming from a programming background. Some courses like Data Structures go through the concepts as well as have you code them (also fairly involved). However, some courses like Operating Systems and Computer Networks do not have a programming component. They are quite intensive, but I’m worried that not having a programming component will render my learning useless by future employers. (Though, on the other hand, they do have courses like socket programming that does cover that aspect)

So, I am wondering: Do brick-and-mortar universities typically have every computer-science course require you to program?

No, computer science is much more than just programming. That's what makes it science.

Introductory CS course tend to focus on programming, but as you get deeper into the subject programming becomes less central. Thus many (maybe even most) graduate-level CS courses at top universities do not involve programming at all. (Of course, graduate courses on systems or security will still involve programming, but it's no longer universal.)

By the same token, assembly code, digital circuits, and semiconductor physics are all vital to how computers work in practice, but we don't expect those to be a ubiquitous part of computer science education. We are able to abstract away from the implementation details of how our Python script gets executed. Likewise, more advanced topics in computer science will abstract away from the practical aspects of computing.

For example, course in computability and/or complexity theory is unlikely to contain programming aspects. The reason being that these subjects focus on what is impossible to compute and such impossibilities do not depend on what programming language you use or how good you are at debugging. That is, these scientific questions require you to think more abstractly. Similarly an advanced algorithms course may avoid programming assignments because (i) it's assumed (i.e. is a prerequisite) that the students could in principle implement the algorithms and (ii) the algorithms are complex and it would take a lot of time to implement them with little pedagogical value.


Should I change the format of preprint before publishing it as a working paper? I submit a paper to a journal which allows to publish the preprint as a working paper. After submission, I thought I can just take the version I just submitted and publish it on ResearchGate. But then I thought that it might be problematic to use the same format I used for submission, since then everyone knows to what journal I submitted (or at least, to what publisher). Then, if my paper gets rejected, everyone knows that.

Is this an important consideration? Is it important to change the format of the paper before putting it in a preprint archive?

Personally, I wouldn't bother changing the format.  As a wise colleague once told me, if you aren't getting some papers rejected, you aren't submitting to good enough venues.  If you're proud of the work, there's no need to try to obfuscate where it's been submitted.


Impossible further progress on problem of PhD thesis I am a PhD student in Mathematics. My advisor proposed me a problem 6 months ago, and I did a lot of progress on it. I have reached a point where I have quite substantial results (admittedly, adapting techniques from other areas, so not a great deal of originality). They can surely form a paper, though not a great one. The original question remains unanswered in its full generality, but I felt that a complete answer would be impossible from the very beginning, and now I have very concrete reasons showing that a complete answer is indeed very hard (in the sense that a general answer/formula might simply not exist). My advisor wants me to keep working on this, but I honestly don't know what to try anymore, and he did not suggest anything. I guess this is a common occurrence during a PhD, what should I do?

This sounds very familiar. Concrete advice in this situation: Focus on writing the paper.

You have some contribution, new arguments as to why the general problem is hard, progress on parts of the general problem. This really sounds like a possible paper - so write it and, if discussed with your advisor, submit it to the right journal.

Postpone your decision on further steps to this point. The situation may have changed completely until then - and if not, you will still be much better prepared to discuss the matter and to decide.

(Caveat: It may also happen, that, during writing, you'll find new ways to attack a more general version or find flaws/gaps in your current reasoning… anyway, writing the paper also help with this.)


Submitting to a different journal after "Major Revisions" This feels a bit like a grey area to me.

A student of mine has submitted a paper to a journal and has received a "major revisions" response. Instead of doing the revisions she wants to submit to a different, higher-impact journal. Is that ethical?

I understand that it may not be the best idea in terms of probability of acceptance, etc, etc, but she's approached me specifically to ask about the ethics of it, and I don't have a ready answer for her.

Law is concerned with the actions; ethics is defined by the reasons and motivations behind those actions.

Unethical: Dr X employs an original method to improve his publications. Instead of spending a lot of time on literature review, improvement of his arguments and proofreading the manuscript, he simply prepares a first unpolished draft and sends it to a mediocre journal. The journals asks two or three experts to peer-review the paper; they voluntary spend their time to read Dr X's manuscript, spot the problems and suggest the ways to improve it. Dr X's collects the feedback, uses (some of) it to improve the paper, and sends the manuscript to a better journal. After a few iterations, the paper is accepted in a high-rank journal. Dr X is listed as the author, although the work is largely done by his anonymous peers.
Ethical: Dr Y has spent a lot of time on her experiments and manuscript, before sending it to a journal. She is a bit shy and she chose a mediocre journal because she was not sure that her work deserves to be published in a better one. Two of three reviewers responses are very positive; one reviewer clearly did not understood the paper and requested a lot of major changes. These changes are unlikely to improve the paper; the reviewer simply requires to compare Dr Y's method with his own weak results from far far ago to get fresh citations. The editor takes the reviewer's point and requests the major review. Dr Y performed the comparison, but it is clear that there is no academic benefit in publishing it - the reviewer's method is clearly outdated. Dr Y decided not to include this comparison in her manuscript and sends it to another journal.


What to do when advisor does not want to work together? I have been a PhD student for 3 years (UK), and recently there has been severe trouble with the relationship with my primary advisor.

I had been struggling on a problem, for quite some time, with only very little advice or feedback aside from vague responses, and decided to try a related problem to see what could be done. There was quite a lot of success, and interesting developments, so I sent the early progress through and got encouraging feedback. So I continued down this track, and was clear to ask, "do you think this is publishable? what do I need to do in order to make this material publishable?" and so on. I got encouragement, so I continued and we built up a paper together and worked towards completing the thesis.

Now very shortly before my submission, he has told me that he recalls this was already done and so much time has been wasted as we cannot use this material. Now my shock was when I find out he was the first author of said research, with a prior PhD student doing this as part of his thesis.

I was absolutely furious (and bewildered) but I will be very clear, I made no negative comment. I went for a long walk and then took the day to think about what to do now.

I tried to ask what other work I could do, could I collaborate on other research he had going on, but got only a vague refusal. I asked for advice on how to proceed from here but got only vague suggestions. So I did what I felt was my only option and mentioned these issues to the panel because important things were going to be postponed. I made it very clear I had no personal issues with him and did not want to assign any form of blame, but that I needed some real help in a path to get some research progressing which I wasn't getting.

The next day he went on a furious rant which involved him calling me lazy in many different ways and telling me to go and work with someone else, that I cannot continue working with him.

At this point, I have only one member of the panel who is willing to work with me, but I have a primary supervisor who is very clear about not wanting any kind of working relationship with me, at least for the time being (which considering the time pressure I face as a student, means effectively that it is over).

What are my options here? I really feel that I did everything by the book, and I see this behaviour as a serious failure in supervision. I just don't know how a previous student's thesis gets re-researched. I certainly cannot rely on a reference from him to start a new PhD, and I don't know if I can continue when the relationship is this bad.

Since you want to go forward, rather than quit, you have only a few options. One is to find a way to get everyone, including yourself, calmed down and focused on the future. The other is to find a different advisor locally or at another university.

I don't think it is unusual to work on a problem for a while and have it end up with nothing. I've done that and so have many others. However, your advisor should have been more aware of the situation if the work had previously been done. But your literature search should also have turned up a hint of that, at least.

Maybe someone at your university can set up a "soothing the waters" meeting in which you all come to an understanding of the way forward for you. Focus on the future, not the past. If there is blame about the past, then it is likely shared. It is also normal for people to be upset, and your advisor may be acting badly because s/he is embarrassed about misleading you.

You probably need to have that meeting even if you want to move to another university so as to make it possible to get good recommendations. Nothing good will come from acting out of anger or in the presence of the anger of others.


Can my UK PhD permit me to use the title "Dr.-Ing." in Germany? I'm moving to Germany in a couple of weeks and I'll be setting up as a freelancer. I'm just curious about my title though.

I got my PhD in the UK in 2015, it states "Doctor of Philosophy" on the certificate, as usual, but my research was in Computer Science, specifically experimental application of Computer Science techniques to Engineering problems (in fact, my work was actually funded by an automobile company based in Germany whom I visited quite regularly).

I'm no longer in academia, but last summer I was briefly at Hannover University, where somebody suggested that I would be eligible for the Dr.-Ing. title instead of the plain Dr. title.

Fact is, I would like the Dr.-Ing. given the technical nature of my freelance work, but I am not sure whether I am legally allowed to use it.

Can anybody advise me?

One important thing you need to know about the German Doktorgrad is (alongside other non-academic titles) that its use is restricted by federal law. Adding a Doktortitel to your name in public without being entitled to do so is a punishable offence. This means that you should not trust any answer that you get from the Internet on this topic. Make sure that you verify whatever answer you get with an official side. One way of doing so is pointed out in @Cachapa's useful answer from the point of view of someone who already went through this.
Having said that: First of all, a British Doctor of Philosophy is indeed considered equivalent to a German Doktorgrad. You can verify that using this database (unfortunately only available in German). This means that you're fully qualified for whatever position or task that requires a Dr.
However, while you're entitled to use your PhD in public as an academic title, it is not possible to convert your PhD into a German Doktorgrad, and doing so might be an offense according to German law. This is based on a statement issued by the Kultusministerkonferenz (the "Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in the Federal Republic of Germany"). These are the crucial points:

Akademische Grade sind in Deutschland rechtlich geschützt.
Der ausländische Grad muss ordnungsgemäß verliehen sein.
Die Umwandlung eines ausländischen Grades in einen deutschen Grad ist nicht möglich (…).

My translation:

Academic titles are protected by the law in Germany.
A foreign title has to have been granted lawfully.
It is not possible to convert a foreign title into a German title.

This statement is very explicit in my opinion, and it means that you cannot just add Dr.-Ing. to your name if you haven't been granted the title by a German university. It also means that no German university can grant you a Dr.-Ing. simply because you have a foreign equivalent title.
Yet, you can use your PhD in public, because it's acknowledged as an academic title. Plus, the Kultusministerkonferenz has decided that EU members can also choose to use Dr. instead of the designation used in their country of origin, this is regulated in (2) in the "Vereinbarung
über begünstigende Regelungen der 'Grundsätze für die Regelung der Führung ausländischer Hochschulgrade'" (thanks to @Pont for pointing that out), but this does not include the "-Ing." part. To quote:

Hochschulgrade aus Mitgliedstaaten der Europäischen Union (EU) oder des Europäischen Wirtschaftsraumes (EWR) […] können in der Originalform ohne Herkunftsbezeichnung geführt werden.

This means that academic titles from the EU, the EEA may be used as part of the name in their original form without stating their origin.

Inhaber von in einem wissenschaftlichen Promotionsverfahren erworbenen Doktorgraden, die in den in Ziff. 1 bezeichneten Staaten oder Institutionen erworben wurden, können anstelle der im Herkunftsland zugelassenen oder nachweislich allgemein üblichen Abkürzung […] wahlweise die Abkürzung „Dr.“ ohne fachlichen Zusatz und ohne Herkunftsbezeichnung führen. […] Führung beider Abkürzungen ist nicht zulässig.

This means that a holder of a doctorate from one of the countries described in (1) may decide to use the abbreviation Dr. instead of the abbreviation that is usually used in their country of origin, but without the addition of an abbreviation indicating the title-granting discipline – that's the part referring to the -Ing. suffix. Also, it's not possible to combine both abbreviations, i.e. "Dr. Schmuddi, PhD" is not allowed.
Edit (March 2021)
The answer above reflects the state of affairs from 2017, a time at which the UK had already voted in favor of Brexit but was still a EU member. Now that the UK is not a member state anymore, paragraphs (1) and (2) don't apply to UK PhD holders. Consequently, the "Vereinbarung" was revised in 2019 by adding the UK to the list of exceptions in paragraph (4) (alongside Australia, Israel, Japan, Canada, and the US):

Inhaber von folgenden Doktorgraden [...] Vereinigtes Königreich: „Doctor of ...“ mit jeweils unterschiedlicher Abkürzung [...] können anstelle der im Herkunftsland zugelassenen oder nachweislich allgemein üblichen Abkürzungen die Abkürzung „Dr.“ jeweils ohne fachlichen Zusatz und Herkunftsbezeichnung führen.

According to this revision, any scholar from the UK who holds a PhD (which is an instance of a „Doctor of ...“ degree) may still use Dr. in their name, but as before, you may not add the degree-granting discipline. So, at least as far as the regulations concerning using an UK PhD in Germany is concerned, Brexit didn't cause any substantial change after all.


If someone turns down a university fellowship does it open up a spot for the waitlisted candidates in the same department? Recently I learned someone who received a university fellowship (with no TA duties) turned down the fellowship and position at a department I applied to for a doctorate. I was placed on a waitlist for admission to the program.
I'm wondering whether this creates a vacant spot (in the same department) or the funding goes somewhere entirely different, given it's funding provided by the university and not the department.

It's impossible to answer in the general sense. The two main constraints on PhD admissions are funding and mentorship capacity.
Someone who received a fellowship turning down the department might not free up any money, so it is possible the department does not have enough money to accept more people.
But that does free up a supervisory spot. So if the PI they intended to work with has the money, perhaps they would move to the waitlist.
Other factors can include the size of the previous cohorts. If they were large, then the department might take this opportunity to reduce the size of the department by not going to the waitlist.


Returning to university I graduated from an undergraduate maths course from a prestigious university. However, I was rejected from attending it's master's program due to poor showing in the final exams. I'd like to study at said university again sometime within the next few years, applying for the same course. In applying though, I will almost definitely have to use the same final exam results. What can I do to show that I have improved, if I indeed have? I am not currently enrolled in any graduate level program.

At many schools, particularly those rated highly, the most important parts of your PhD application are your letters of recommendation.  What many applicants don't grasp is that a PhD program is so different from undergrad that past performance in the latter is only a poor indicator of future performance in the former.  For most students, the hard part of a PhD is doing original research.  So, as an applicant, you must convince the committee that you will excel at doing research.

One way to make your case is to have already successfully done research (or some "research-like" project).  In the absence of this, you must somehow convince your letter writers that you will succeed in research (and then they convince the admissions committee).  Meet with your letter writers and ask them what they suggest.  You might even ask them if you could work on some research with them (prior to being admitted to the PhD program).


Does gold open-access with article processing charge (APC) really help access to science and save taxpayer money? I value the reputation of the journals to which I submit articles. Mostly, I wish to confront my work with the most competent researchers in my field through peer review, in order to have an expert opinion on its quality. In my field, the best ranked/most reputable journals are dominantly subscription-based (although all offer 3'000$ open access (OA) options, that not many researcher choose). So I give priority to reputation/quality over OA policy. On the other hand, I'm well aware that subscription journals are a big weight on universities budget.

So, does OA* really help access to science and save taxpayer money?

The arguments I know about that suggest it does:

I'm aware of the arguments (very efficiently publicized by big OA publishers like Frontiers) that OA is good karma because it gives access to science 'for free'. People argue that when the taxpayers pay for research, they should also get to read the results without paying a subscription.

Reasons for which I'm not sure it does:

I believe that if every article costs 500-3000$ just to publish, and the total number of article explodes, taxpayers (or private scientific funding agencies) are not winning a lot in the change. I also think that people can go to the library to get access to research.

Isn't it reasonable to use the options that we have to freely give access to our work (self-archiving, sending preprint to people who ask politely, etc.).

ps. I published in both OA and subscription-based, and I will gladly submit to OA journals if they end up being the highest quality ones in my field.

*I'm talking about OA journals with article processing charge. I'm aware of the existence of completely free OA journals (funded by universities I presume), but they are only relevant for a few research topics. And not mine.

Edit apparently the science funding agencies of the UK think that gold OA is not that good of a strategy.

I also think that people can go to the library to get access to research.

You're assuming that libraries can pay for access. That's not the case anymore. Even Harvard univerity, one of the richest in the world, can't pay for all the journals its researchers need. I think none of the Universities I know have access to all the journals it needs. So, you can imagine a public library won't grant access to all the existing literature.

That's even worse in developing/not too rich countries. In this case, you can notice that most Open Access (OA) journals adapt the cost of publication to the wealth of the country the article comes from (for example Plos).

It can also be a problem for small enterprises, that aren't very rich, so they can't subscribe to journals and have to pay "per view", but need access to the latest research in order to innovate. So, non-OA journals are an impediment to the technological progress too.

And I will also add the fact that, even in rich countries, it is not always that easy to go to a library. For example, when answering here on Stack Exchange, I try to add links to research articles which can be more precise than my own answer. If the OP is really very interested in a complete understanding of the answer, he could go to a library. But in most cases, if he doesn't have access to an article through the Internet, it will just waste an opportunity for him to learn.

  I published in both OA and subscription-based, and I will gladly submit to OA journals if they end up being the highest quality ones in my field.

However, you're pointing to a real problem here. If the "best" journals are not OA, do you have to compromise your career (or your students') to publish in an OA journal? In fact, some people would answer that the Impact Factor-based ranking of journals doesn't make much sense (see for example this article). And it is one of the reasons for the creation of Plos One, a "mega-journal" accepting articles only based on their scientific value, and not on an estimate of the interest its conclusions might have in the future. But for sure, this is a hot topic.

And another real problem here is money. If the Universities have to pay both for keeping access to non-OA journals, and for publishing in OA journals at the same time, it will be even more expensive. No university can afford it. A proposed solution is green Open-Access, where the articles are just put in repositories, and nobody needs to pay neither for publishing, nor for accessing. With a good post-publication peer-review system, this could work. But it also implies a huge paradigm shift, with new problems.

  Isn't it reasonable to use the options that we have to freely give access to our work (self-archiving, sending preprint to people who ask politely, etc.).

That is in fact kind of green OA. But, depending on the license you agree with when you publish in a journal, that's not always possible.


"Write your future plans with less than 51 words": what is the purpose of this question? I'm an undergrad who is applying a scholarship for Phd. I have already sent heck a lot of documents ranging from my academic background, letter of purpose, research statement etc.; it took more than two months to prepare them. There I - more than once - explained my future plans extensively.

Now, we are called for an interview, and we, again, need to fill a document where there is this question:

What is the purpose of this question, exactly ? What do they expect to see ?

I mean I have already explained what I wanted to, what are my plans extensively, and now they want me to (I guess summarise) write it again with less than 51 words.

I suspect there are two purposes.

To make it easier for the committee by giving a synopsis. They are busy.  A short blurb is helpful to keep track of the different applicants.
To test your ability to synthesize and present information concisely.  (The "elevator speech".)


How can I refer to multiple equations with "Eq. (i)" style? Assume the manuscript format for referencing the equations is as "Eq. (i)". How can I properly refer to multiple equations at once? For example which of the followings is more acceptable?

In Eq. (1), Eq. (2), Eq. (3), and Eq. (4)
In Eq. (1,2,3,4) or Eq. (1-4)
In Eqs. (1,2,3,4)
Any better idea?

In my old copy of the AIP style guides (American Institute of Physics) they use (Section IV Mathematical Expressions, C. Displayed Equations, 2. Equation numbers) the format of

  Eqs. (3)-(5)

in their text.

But, as noted, check the author guidelines or style sheet of your particular journal (or just look in the articles for an example).


Introductory books in the public domain I came across several collections that are of great interest to me: they are books that summarize the knowledge of a specific field in about a hundred pages. There is, for example, the "Que sais-je?" collection in France or Oxford's "Very Short Introductions".

I was wondering if an equivalent project existed under an open source license to freely translate and distribute the texts.

There is no commercial intent.

What your looking for looks a lot like the wikimedia project wikibooks.org.
Here a quote from the main page :

Welcome to Wikibooks,
the open-content textbooks collection that anyone can edit.
3,072 books with 83,999 pages

Also there are a lot of old textbooks in the public domain published in different languages. One repository of such books is project Gutenberg, where I find the category page helpful to get books in the right context/science.
Also some books, event recent ones are published with a open licence and as such you are allowed to read, copy and translate them at will, such books are for example published by framabooks (mostly in french).
These are must have books and there are some others to be found.
Also some book are freely readable online, copyright holder being aware, eg see VMLS if interested in maths or Motion Mountain for physics, but a big mouthful, not just 100 pages.  (not sure for the licence, couldn't check it).
These are more often than not typeset in latex... So you might also ask on the author for the sources.
(I hope this answer isn't too much out of the context of the question)


do references count towards page limit of journal paper I am writing a paper and the journal recommends it be 8 pages and 6000 words. I have almost 1 page of references making it difficult to cut the paper down further. Therefore do the references contribute to the page count ?

It depends entirely on the journal, as well as the purpose of the length restrictions.  Some journals do not count the references toward the length total.  However, many others do count the references, especially when the printed version of the journal is still deemed important, since in that case the issue may be related to the physical length of the issue.


Can a teacher to refuse to follow their late work policy? My teacher handed out a syllabus at the beginning of the year,  claiming to have a late work policy where he only reduces the max percent you can get on an assignment for every day it's late. The exact writing of his late work policy can be found here.

Two weeks into the school year, I handed in an assignment 1 day late, and received half credit. I assumed I received half credit because we went over it in class, so I didn't think anything of it. Three weeks later, I handed in another assignment 1 day late, which I received half credit for too.

When I confronted my teacher, his explanation was that he added the exact writing "The teacher reserves the right to change or amend this syllabus at any time without notice." inside of the syllabus.

Regardless of it not being morally right, is a teacher allowed to do this? I see no reason to give students a late work policy and then completely disregard it. Because I was unaware of him ignoring the policy, my grade dropped by nearly 20%(and my school is already half way through the first term).

Are teachers/professors allowed to change to completely ignore a late-work policy without notice?

I doubt anyone can state conclusively that it is wrong for a teacher to change their policies in the middle of the semester. However, I think many can agree that a teacher does not want to be perceived as whimsical or mercurial by their students. If a teacher develops a habit of arbitrarily changing policies in the middle of a course to the detriment of students it can create a lot of ill-will between the teacher and the students.

Sometimes it is necessary to make changes. Examples include a true oversight by the teacher that needs to be addressed, obvious abuses by students of a policy, etc. Becoming more lenient is always popular while become more stringent should be in response to inappropriate behavior.

Whenever a change is necessary it must be communicated to the class clearly with some form of explanation. This is as a courtesy to maintain a productive learning environment. If this is neglected students will search for ways to fight against what they believe is unfair changes through such as methods as complaining, low course evaluations, or even academic dishonesty.


Academic Progression via Promotion vs via Recruitment I'm currently a postdoc at School A at a certain university in Australia. On another campus of the same university, there's a vacant assistant professor position at Shcool B. I was intending to apply for this position, but the HR is telling me that I cannot and that my application should go through the academic promotion procedures.

Is this fair under the equal opportunity principles? I checked the policies available online in this regard but didn't find any explicit interpretation of cases like mine. Why should be disadvantaged just because I'm already employed by the university?

Edit: The academic promotion round takes place once a year in March. So I'll be missing out on this opportunity if I wait till next year.

In many universities in Germany you are not allowed to get a professorship at the same university as the one you are currently in. So from that perspective, the fact that there are promotion rounds at all seems luxurious... (If all involved really want it, then there are ways around it, but the hurdle is very large; a single person at any stage in the process can block it.)

As I understand it, such policies are there to avoid a situation where a department mainly hires "its own" people. After a couple of generations, such a department becomes completely sealed off from the outside world. I think it is plausible that such a process could occur (without bad intent of any of the participants), and apparently there are historical examples of that actually happening. Having rules in place to avoid that is a good thing. You could argue that that should not apply to moves across departments, but apparently they did not think of that when writing those rules or they thought that that would invite to many loopholes. Anyhow you can't change the rules once the hiring process is set in motion. So you just had bad luck.


How much value do papers without new scientific information have, i.e. seminar papers such as overviews of or examples for current methods in CS? So I wrote a seminar paper in grad school (MSc) with examples on how companies use method x to improve their security. It includes zero original research, no new methods and it would never ever be published in a journal, because the substance is really not there.

It gives a theoretical background of the problems itself and then different current examples from 2 companies that I researched over the internet and a conclusion. Thus, not only academic sources but also other sources (companies) are used and it basically shows the application of academic concepts.

Other researchers could use this paper to potentially find ways on how to dig deeper and how to address some problems specifically, but I did not point something like that out myself.

My question:

Does this count as research and does it make sense to hand those kind of papers to PhD admission departments?

This is akin to a review article, in the sense that you're interpreting and reporting on existing work, rather than creating something new. There's nothing wrong with a review article, and many scientists do write them during their careers (but usually not before they've started a doctoral program!).

That said, while I believe that it is not nearly as good as a "standard" research paper in establishing one's capabilities to do original research, it may have some merit. If the schools to which you are applying allow you to submit additional documentation, then you could consider sending it in, if you believe it is of sufficient quality.


Using typographical variants of the same letter as mathematical symbols in a paper Sometimes I struggle in choosing notations for a mathematical paper. There are probably no explicit rules, but unwritten conventions. In a discussion, is it proper to use different typographical variants of the same letter to denote different variables?

For example, is it acceptable to use an italic K (), an upright K (K), a blackletter K () and a calligraphic K () for four different variables in one section?

Just an opinion: I think four variants of the same letter in one section is probably too much. In particular, I think (non-bolded) upright letters don’t work well for typesetting mathematics.

Also you say ”for four different variables”; this suggests that maybe you want to denote four of the same kind of thing in four different variants. (If I'm wrong, ignore the rest.) That is definitely to be avoided. As @Wrzlprmft says, the variant should reflect the kind of object you’re talking about, and related objects of different kinds should be denoted by the different variants of the same letter. The first example that comes to mind is a Lie group G and its Lie algebra  (blackletter g).

Here’s an apposite quote from Littlewood’s Miscellany, via Milne:

  It is said of Jordan's writings that if he had 4 things on the same footing (as a, b, c, d ) they would appear as a, M3', ε2, ∏"1,2.

Bad Jordan!


Switching theoretical base for Ph.D. studies I have a Master's Degree in a Humanities/Social Sciences discipline. I'm interested in pursuing a Ph.D. studies within this discipline.

My Master's thesis had a Posthumanist theoretical base. Would it be possible to so to speak "switch lanes" to a methodological-theoretical perspective more aligned with Culture Studies/Sociology?

I do understand that this all depends on circumstances and University orientation, but would it be possible to give a general answer to this question?

Most of the time, research "resets" between a master's and a PhD, and you are not obligated to continue your research focus between different programs.

(Besides, some faculty change their "base" several times during a career—why wouldn't they let students do the same?)


What do teaching faculty do during semester breaks? I'm specifically asking about full-time teaching staff (unlike part-time teaching staff such as professors, who as I understand it can just spend more time on research during semester breaks).

I understand US universities pay their professors only 9 months a year, which effectively means they're free to do whatever they want in the remaining 3 months. Does this apply to lecturers too? If so, since professors acquire funding so they can continue to draw a salary during these 3 months, do lecturers also have funding targets? In that case, are they even full-time teaching staff (since they also have to do research to actually acquire funding)?

What about non-US universities where staff are paid for the entire year?

From what I know about high school, there are some duties that teachers must do during the semester breaks (such as grade exam papers & discuss what to teach next year), but they are few. Once these duties are done then teachers have no duties - they don't have to show up to school - so they usually take the chance to go on holiday. However, at least in the high school I studied in, these periods are short - there's a maximum of 2 months of teaching downtime in the academic year (this neglects the afore-mentioned time taken to grade exam papers etc), which is well below the downtime at university. Surely lecturers don't just go on holiday for 3 months (they must run out of annual leave)? But if they don't go on holiday, what do they do?

In the United States, the "9 month salary" for a faculty member is typically paid out over 12 months.  For those faculty who engage in research or other pursuits during the summer months, the "9 month" designation gives the rate at which their salary can be enhanced through external funding.

So, what do "full time teaching" faculty do over the summer?  Colleagues of mine in such positions generally still look at this time as an opportunity to focus on their professional interests, whether that is doing research or some other field-appropriate equivalent such as writing books, directing theatrical performances, etc.

Teaching responsibilities may also extend through the summer (and may be additionally compensated or not, depending on circumstances). Examples include teaching summer courses, preparing new course material, and supporting student groups' activities (summer is a common time for technical competitions, for example).

And some, in some circumstances, really do just take the summer slowly. In my experience, though, that tends to be the exception rather than the rule, with so many other opportunities and responsibilities at hand.


Final round of reviewing for a Program Committee I've been recently involved in a Program Committee, and I was wondering what exactly was expected of the PC members from the PC Chair. Once all the reviews have been collected, are the reviewers expected to engage in a discussion about the paper? Or do they need to wait for specific questions from the PC Chair? Are the reviewers expected to comment on the other reviews?

In case it matters, we are using the EasyChair system, so everything is done online, and I don't know the identity of the other reviewers.

In my experience, usually the PC chair sets expectations by providing explicit instructions and guidance on the process.

In my field, the deadline for submitting all reviews is usually a week or two before the PC meeting.  That last week or two is reserved for a "online discussion phase".  During the discussion phase, reviewers are expected to read the other reviews on the papers they were assigned and discuss what to do on each paper, to try to reach consensus on the final discussion.  This might involve some discussion on points where reviewer opinion differed or on technical points of disagreement, for instance.  Each reviewer is expected to take the lead on beginning the discussion, without waiting for the PC chair to prompt you or ask you a specific question.  The goal is to try to reach a clear decision before the PC meeting in as many cases as possible, or at least reach agreement on what the strengths and weaknesses of the paper are so that a final decision can be made on an informed basis.

If there is no in-person PC meeting, the online discussion phase becomes especially important.

But that's just my personal experience and my field.  Practices may vary in other fields, for all I know.  If your PC chair did not instruct you on what he/she expected, it is completely reasonable to contact him/her and ask what he/she should like you to do.


MFE program entry chance If one applies to a bunch of universities, in two programs each, One is  Masters math/stats and the other in Masters Financial eng/fin math/ computational fin. If it fair to assume that one will get into a university with better reputation (overall) with the math/stats application than with the MFE applications?

Surely this depends on the strength of the candidate and their interests. IF they can prove theyre interested in math finance or finance in general, then theyre more likely to get into the MFE. I'd hope that the top institutions don't only choose candidates based on Maths knowledge, but also on there interests. I'd like to think that lecturers want to teach students who ask interesting questions on the finance side as well, rather than delving deep into the theoretical side.

I just finished an MFE, and it turns out that the theoretical maths is almost useless in practise. Its nice to see how it all works, but what is more useful is having a feel for stylised facts related to metrics such as volatility, and also the understanding of different products. I'm not saying the technical maths is useless, i'm just saying I cant see many people using things like levy jump processes in practise. The point is, you should have an interest in finance, and not only apply for the good potential salary after, because if you don't enjoy going to work, whats the use of the salary? You'll go through 5/7 days of hell earning £ which you can spend on 2/7 days, and you can see that this isn't the ideal balance (5>2 =D). Sorry if the end is abit off topic


Should you let the editor of a paper under review know when you post preprints of additional papers that build on the paper under review? Let's say that one author has a paper under review, and continues on subsequent works based on the paper under review.

When the author puts preprints of subsequent works available online, should the author let the editor of the first paper know about those subsequent works?

No, there is no need to do this.

If you submit a work to a journal you submit it as is and related to the current state of the art at time of submission. Things that happen after submission should in general not interfere with the current submission. While it could be in some exceptional cases that events after submission may influence the perception of the article, in general the article should be processed with respect to the date of submission.

If I imagine that people would start sending any kind of "additional information" after an article has been submitted, I would expect that this could lead to a great mess (articles submitted which are in fact only preliminary, additional appendices added at a later stage, corrections/amendments…). So I would guess that an editor would generally ignore the additional information and even may find this a bit strange.

However, you may add additional information in case of a revision/resubmission and this is the right time to add anything that could be relevant (with the only exception of severe error in your work - if you find one inform the editor immediately).


How often do techniques/methods that are considered old or obsolete become relevant again? In many, if not most, disciplines methods age, get old and eventually become more or less obsolete, in the sense that some other method perhaps using a different technology becomes common-practice for a particular type of experimentation. One such example could be Edman sequencing, which used to be the method for sequencing peptides, but is pretty much outdated nowadays, not because it does not work, but because it's costly in time and labor.

In my experience, these old/obsolete techniques are taught both at Masters and PhD level, primarily to give a deep understanding of the field, albeit being more theory than practice. Are there any other benefits in learning/studying older methods, rather than only studying the state-of-the-art?

I was wondering how often, if at all, such old methodologies come back (perhaps following a breakthrough in overcoming some original limitation) and regain popularity. Are there known examples?

As a follow-up; is such change in methodologies a phenomenon observed in experimental research, or are there equivalent scenarios in theoretical research as well?

There are some important examples of techniques and problems being "revived" after having lain dormant for many years. For instance, in my own field, one of the cornerstones of computer modeling was originally derived in the 1920's, and then basically remained undeveloped until the 1970's, when it was brought back in fashion. (It has since been replaced by faster methods, but it is still regarded as the "touchstone" for high-accuracy calculations.)

Similarly, entire fields of research may have been developed before the applications caught up with them. Again, bringing up an example from my own field of research, the class of materials known as ionic liquids was known as far back as the early 1900's, but again were forgotten until the 1990's (or so) when they were "rediscovered" because they were nonvolatile materials and could be used as replacement solvents in the chemical industry. (It also offered the ability to do "combinatorial chemistry," which was also coming into fashion.)

THe point of these examples is that sometimes theoretical and even experimental techniques may be developed in one era, but the ability to exploit the technology to its fullest extent has not yet been attained. Keeping awareness of such methods thus can have some use. Whether it should be taught to every student of a field is a different issue.


Should professors with Chinese names be addressed with surname only or both names? How would I address a professor with a Chinese name?
I am unsure whether I should use only the surname, or both forename and surname, because the order of mentioning forename and surname is reversed.
When my professor's name is forename: Yi, surname: Zhang, should I then address him with

  Dear Professor Zhang,

or with

  Dear Professor Zhang Yi,

Being an Asian myself, I'd use 'Dear Prof. Zhang.'

In Chinese culture, it can be considered rude for a junior to address their senior by the full name, that's just the way we're brought up to address our seniors, well at least for me...


Alternatives to rushing to start with a bachelor thesis before my favourite advisor leaves the university? I wish to write my bachelor thesis with a particular professor, who is looking for a new job. He will be there for another semester, but might leave afterwards (depending on the outcome of his job search). Due to other courses and constraints, I would prefer to do my bachelor’s thesis not in the next semester but the one afterwards, when my favorite professor may already be gone.

According to my university’s rules, the primary supervisor of my bachelor thesis needs to be at my university, so even if my favorite professor agrees to supervise me, I would have to find a primary supervisor from my university, who will be responsible for my final grade. Unfortunately, the only other professor doing my favorite topic has a very bad reputation.

As far as I see it, I have two options with three possible outcomes:

I do my thesis in the next semester, having to cope with a tight schedule due to other courses.
I do coursework in the next semester and my thesis in the semester after that. This bears the risk that my favorite professor is gone.

Do you see any other ways to solve this dilemma?

There may be another alternative.

Faculty change positions, sometimes even in the middle of an academic year, so there are often situations where students might get caught in the middle. The university is not likely to “punish” students because the advisor had to leave and usually make exceptions whereby the old advisor can finish the supervision of the student after their departure. I know I have done this for PhD students even after I made a similar move, so a bachelor’s or master’s thesis should be comparatively easy. The key would be to make sure the Betreuung (supervision agreement) is in place before the faculty member departs.

You should check with the office in charge of registering theses in your program before making a decision, as they will have more specific information relative to your school’s requirements and what is allowed.


Is it acceptable to ask a professor to write a reccomendation letter now to save for later? Through the last three years of my undergrad, I have worked closely with a professor in my university and we published several papers together. Once I graduate this spring, I plan on working for two years before going back and applying for graduate school.

I am wondering if it would be “weird” if I ask my professor to write me a reccommendation letter now and save it for two years when I apply. He has previously told me he’d love to write me a very strong reccomendation letter for grad school. However, he is a bit old and he tends to forget some details in a few months so I am worried that in two years he would forget many details he would have otherwise included in the letter.

It's certainly acceptable to ask. But:

In the US, at least, most universities require the professors to electronically upload their letters directly. So, having him write a letter and hand it to you might not be all that helpful -- you'll still need him to upload it when you apply to grad school. If you're worried about him dying, you might be able to get another professor to upload his letter on his behalf...but that gets a little tricky.
A lot of students have plans to go to grad school N years after graduation -- but at least anecdotally, it seems like the vast majority of those students change their plans and never end up in grad school. So, he may be reluctant to write a letter that has a good chance (at least statistically) of never being used.

I would just discuss this openly with him -- tell him that you plan to ask for a letter in 2 years, and want to make sure that all the details aren't forgotten before then (it is not necessary to suggest that he is senile or at risk of dying).

He may write some notes to help himself write it, or he may agree to write the entire letter now.
If not, this conversation gives you an opening to write your notes and e-mail them to him -- including some bullets that summarize your work and others that record any subjective evaluations he's shared with you. Then, two years from now, all you have to do is reply to this message and tell him you need the letter.


How to become a Data Scienctist I have done part time MBA in SAP (SD & MM Module). I am very good in MS Excel (Certified MCAS from Microsoft) and Data Analysis. I have around 15 years of working experience in MIS & Dashboard. I have basic knowledge of programming but not an expert.
How can i become a Data Scientist with this qualification and experience?
Regards,
Hitesh Gaur

Data Science is still a novel field. Some might dispute whether it actually is a field in ints own right or rather an intersection of statistics, computer science, perhaps linguistics and quantitative methods (quantitative political science, sociology, or finance, econometrics, computational biology...). With the right specialization, enrolling in a program of any of these fields might give you the skills a data scientist needs. There are, however, also new dedicated data science bachelor and master programs popping up left and right. You have to compare several universities' websites to find the one best suited to your needs and interests.


Seeking publishing advice for an academic textbook I have written a new academic mathematics textbook that I think can become popular, perhaps even very popular, as far as math books are concerned (which I recognize in the broader scheme, alas, is unfortunately not so very popular). What is the best way for me to proceed?

I can of course follow the traditional route and pursue the usual academic publishers, such as MIT press or OUP and so on. But I think that royalties are often somewhat low and prices rather high, so I'm not sure this is the best way. Meanwhile, I have some experience with newer publishing arrangements, such as Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing, which pays an astonishing 70% royalty rate for electronic books (but they limit the book cost to $10). That style of publishing appeals to me and per book, that amount is probably higher per sale than what one might get from a old-fashioned publisher.

My question is, is it a bad idea to put my textbook first on KDP, which would be very easy for me to do myself, before I find a serious academic publisher?  Does it help or hurt my negotiation status with them? I think I can remove my book from KDP at any time. I have thought that having a proven sales record on KDP might help my negotiation, by proving my worth, but perhaps this is wrong, and that the big publishers will simply reject me for already having electronic sales in which they are not partaking. Which is the correct way for me to think about it?

Any advice is appreciated.

One factor you should keep in mind is that most academics consider publication to be permanent.  Books used to go out of print because it was economically infeasible to keep them available, but with print on demand and electronic publishing, there's a broad expectation that anything available now will remain available forever under similar terms.  This doesn't really apply to standardized low-level textbooks, which can disappear if unsuccessful and are regularly replaced with new editions if successful, but it applies to anything with noteworthy scholarly content.  Based on your stackexchange contributions, I bet your book will fall into this category (and I'm certainly looking forward to reading it).

In particular, if you publish a book through KDP and later withdraw it to do something else with the book, you may upset people.  I'd certainly be unhappy if I had decided to use the book in a course (or had recommended it widely to students) on the basis of price, only to discover that it had abruptly been removed from KDP and now cost substantially more from another publisher.

I assume you would have to remove it from KDP, and couldn't keep it there while publishing a paper edition elsewhere.  It doesn't seem impossible, but it's not plausible that another publisher would put work into promoting a book that was available much more cheaply online from a rival publisher.

I don't know how academic publishers would react to having had a previous edition published by KDP.  I'd bet they would be open to it in principle, the same way other books occasionally move between publishers when the rights are available, but I also suspect they'd worry about anchoring to a very low price.  I think the only way to know for sure is to ask representatives (for example, you can easily chat with them in person at big conferences), since reluctance to do this could easily vary between publishers.

I'd also keep two additional factors in mind:

Academics who are enthusiastic about electronic publishing are often wary of digital rights management.  By emphasizing this aspect, KDP may decrease some of the enthusiasm for this approach.
If your book is not particularly successful on KDP, it may undermine your negotiating position with mainstream publishers.  This means you may need a plan to get publicity for your book, since you won't have advertising (outside of the Amazon ecosystem) or bookstore sales.  There are a lot of factors that are difficult to predict.  For example, will anyone publish book reviews if the book appears to be essentially self published and you are said to be seeking a mainstream publisher?  If there are no reviews, it will hurt your visibility; if there are reviews, they probably won't review it again upon finding another publisher, which might lower other publishers' enthusiasm for taking it on.


Create something impactful or just generalize results? I am a second year Pure Maths PhD student in Asia. My research interest lies in functional analysis, particularly Banach Space Theory. My aim is to work in academia as professor.

Recently my PhD advisor told me that it is not good for academic career if I just simply generalize some results. For example, if someone has done A+, then I should not just consider doing A++, as this kind of research very hard to continue.

Instead, I should create something on my own and try to investigate it. This will make my research more doable and more lively.

Now I am a bit loss. I know that if I can create something significant then of course it is a good thing and it will impact my future academic career. But I know that it is not easy in research to just create something impactful, especially I left 2 years only for my PhD.

I am not sure whether I should follow my advisor, that is, spend a bulk of my time to think of something completely new , or should I stick with my original plan, that is, try to generalize some results?

The people who can truly follow your advisor's advice are actually very rare. The advice is good, but not necessarily the best way to begin your career. In the long term you want to look at what can be done that is entirely fresh, but in the short term, you need to finish your degree and find employment.

If you want to make a big impact, IMO, you need to be able to work in a highly collaborative environment in which a lot of productive people are willing to share ideas in seminars and such. Depending on your current university, that may already be happening around you. But when it comes to finding employment, seek a place with a larger, rather than a smaller, faculty. Or, if it is small, make sure that they collaborate closely on semi-related ideas.

However, you need to follow your advisor's advice enough so that s/he will approve of and sign your dissertation. Most people at your stage of career are happy enough with A++. But it is even better if in doing that you gain insight into the larger issues of mathematical creativity.


Is it ethical to seek a PhD program if you suspect you may want only a Masters? I'm considering a PhD or Master's in engineering in the US, and I haven't really decided which makes the most sense for me. There are many questions and answers here that mention leaving a PhD program with a Master's and how it's not a "failure" or "dropping out", but it occurs to me: what effect does this have on a person's adviser/professors?

What about references, future relationships, etc? Is it taken negatively or as an insult, or cutting ties, to bow out with the lower degree?

What prompted this question is that a few programs that most interest me state explicitly that there is very little funding available for Masters students (so you are mostly expected to pay your own way), but full funding and additional opportunities are available for those admitted to a PhD program. The way they are worded, they seem extremely interested in good PhD candidates, and not at all interested in Masters students.

I'm not considering seeking a PhD solely to get a Masters/funding, because that's just outright dishonest and I wouldn't stomach such deceit. But, what might the ethics be of not being certain whether you want a PhD or a Masters, but applying for a PhD program?

If one's adviser and/or program and/or professors are explicitly harmed by having someone complete their Masters requirements, then I'd be much more hesitant to even consider a PhD application unless I was certain that's what I wanted. If being unsure is considered normal and the "harm" caused by bowing out of the program with a Masters not so great, then that would certainly ease things the other direction.

To be clear, these departments also specifically suggest you pick Masters OR PhD, and generally discourage you from applying to both. Thus my quandary!

My background comes from Biology so I don't know the details of engineering graduate programs. However, a graduate student is a significant financial investment for the graduate program and advisor. For the student it is the time and emotional investment. Graduate programs that offer funding i.e. stipend and tuition waivers to PhD students do so because it will take the student 4-7 years of full-time+ work to complete their courses and dissertation work. They are typically expected to devote all of their time towards their degree and are discouraged from outside employment. Thus the stipend to cover living expenses.

A MS program is typically 2-3 years and varies in requirements from program to program, ranging from just coursework to coursework plus thesis.

The learning curve is steep for someone who has no previous research experience and the time and money that is spent getting the student up to a productive level is significant. In our program, PhD students typically advance to candidacy around the time that a MS student would be finishing the program. Before this time the PhD student and the MS student are working under comparable conditions. This is also the time that if a PhD student were to not be meeting minimum expectations then they would be denied candidacy and exit with a MS degree.

There is less pressure for a PhD student to begin a project that will result in their dissertation early on because they have more time. MS students must find an advisor immediately upon entering the program and thus begin generating something meaningful if they are to complete and defend a thesis. The body of work is much smaller than a PhD student and is typically just a demonstration of their advanced breadth of knowledge in the field.

Many advisors in my program view MS students as an extra pair of hands and receive less attention when it comes to mentoring. Their projects will often be small offshoots of a bigger project that a PhD student or post-doc is working on. You must understand that they are treated differently from the beginning not because of discrimination but because research projects take a long time to develop and often meaningful results do not come until a few years of work, which is too long for a MS student.

For you particular situation, I would say if you are unsure about which program is right for you I would say take some extra time to figure that out. Whether that means get a job in the area you are interested or something else. Just be sure if you sign up for a PhD that you really want to do it. It is a difficult and really trying path, not for the half-hearted. Even for those who are extremely passionate about their work will question their place there and consider quitting during the bad times. Going into a graduate program with a clear focus and interest (PhD or MS) will make things go much smoother. Do not expect to show up and someone tell you what to do, or you may spend 6 months to a year just floating along trying to find your way.

Now selfishly speaking you are right, you could enter the program as a PhD student and feel it out, but in my opinion I would discourage you from doing that. You will likely waste your time and take longer to get your MS than you would if you went in from the beginning knowing you wanted an MS. You also risk soiling relationships that you could otherwise depend on to help you later in your career. Who knows if the advisor you picked will be angry that you left the lab with a MS when they were expecting a full 5-7 years of work out of you. The people I know who quit their PhD program often quit because the tough times made them realize they liked the idea of having a PhD but didn't really understand what it was going to take to get one. Make sure you know exactly what to expect.

Lastly, whatever you decide, pick an advisor very carefully. Advisors like bosses all have a range a personalities. Some are jerks that will call you during dinner time or saturday afternoon asking to meet with you. Some you will consider filing a missing persons report because you haven't been able to get ahold of them in 2 months. Make sure whoever you end up working with goes well with you.