Do journals hold rejections against authors? I am BSc student. When I was in the fourth semester (end of the second year), I did my course project and submitted it to my professor. His efforts in order to publish it really shocked me. It was just a course project and I already had a conference paper out of it. I know the article was so foolish and  basic but he is insisting on publishing it. After two rejections he is submitting it to another journal.
Does this journal count this rejections as negative points for the authors? If I am going to submit any paper to this journal in the future do they count this rejections?

Rejections are not necessarily a negative when submitting to a new journal. Of course, it means a careful editor will take an extra careful look at the manuscript before accepting it for review. They key point is, however, that when submitting a previously rejected manuscript it is necessary to, first, be upfront with the rejection and the reasons for it, and, second, to provide clear details on how the previous reviews have been used to improve the manuscript for the current submission. So, clearly, of one simply submit the same manuscript over and over again, yes, there is a chance someone may accept it in the end, but it is very poor work ethics to do so. A manuscript that has been rejected and significantly improved from comments received and additional work done, will have a pretty good chance of being published. As an editor you can then see indications of what may be key issues with the paper. This does not mean, as some seem to think, that submitting half-baked manuscripts and have reviewers beat them into order is the way to write good papers so there are fine lines of good conduct which have to be followed.

As for holding a rejection against you: No, not unless there are repeated sloppy submissions. But even then, every manuscript receives an independent check to see if it is of sufficient quality. A bad reputation just means you will raise flags with editors whenever you submit. And, once will not create a reputation.


Consequences of submitting a job application close to the deadline Do search committee members ever see or take into account the time that candidates submit an application as a postdoc or faculty member. Does submitting close to the deadline (same day or few hours before) carry a risk of predudicing your application due to being considered unorganised for submitting so late.

Since most applications are now submitted through convoluted electronic systems it seems likely that submission are timestamped so this information could in principle be accessed. Any thoughts? I know one could just stumble across an application late in the day but can anyone speak from experience about whether such meta data has an effect (even if legally forbidden, we all know that unofficial or subconscious effects can take place...).

I would say this depends on the department and their hiring practices, but in my department (math at a public US research university) applying early can definitely give you a leg up. In math in the US, there is a centralized application system (mathjobs.org) that most places use, and in my department all faculty get access to start looking at applications well before the deadline.  Many of us do start looking at applications early, partly out of interest, and partly so we can take our time.

The advantage of applying early is that faculty may start talking about some candidates before any search committee meetings and people have the chance to get excited about your file early, which would give you some early momentum to help you stand out when we officially have meetings and rank candidates.

That being said, in other departments, faculty might not look at applications at all before the deadline, in which case there is no real affect.  I do not know how common our approach is, but at least a few of my colleagues agree with me that it is better to apply early.  I have also heard of departments that have somewhat misleading deadlines (they start officially reviewing files before the deadline, which might be in fine-print in the ad), so my advice is to try to prepare you application a bit early, and then submit application when your portion (i.e., excluding the references) is ready.

Incidentally, in mathjobs, the candidates submission date is readily visible, though it is not something that we focus on or analyze.  (Though often we'll sort by submission date to see what files came in since last we looked.)


Is it wise to try to remove myself from predator mailinglists? A predator journal (Americal Journal of Applied Mathematics) regulary sends me mails about how I should submit to them or join the peer review. Recently I discovered there is a Unsubscribe link in the mail. Now I'm wondering if I should use it.

On one hand, if it works, great.
On the other hand a general rule is not to reply to spam in any way. I can't say where I've heard that but that is my usual MO. But the predator journals are not a fake Nigerian prince, so I'm wondering if I should unsubscribe.

I am aware of the fact I can just mark these mail as spam or delete them automatically with a decent mail client. This alternative is known, but not part of the question. The question is if unsubscribing would be without negative consequences. Maybe someone had some experiences with SciencePG (the predator publisher) or similar groups.

EDIT: For future readers I would like to point out Nav's comment, which links here

The problem is that unsubscribing to the e-mail list requires you to follow a link send to you in e-mail. As general rule this is already something that you should be hesitant to do, even with e-mails from reliable sources.

A predatory journal is not a reliable source of course. Even if the journal is not actively trying anything dubious with the link, a predatory journal is bound to be a small scale operation, meaning that they are more at risk of having their domain compromised in some way.

If you do decide to follow the link, please take standard precautions like copy-and-pasting the link rather than following it directly, and checking that the link actually leads to a domain controlled by the journal.


Building an academic career abroad Good side of my background

I'm 27 years old with a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and now I'm about to finish my postdoctoral research.

During my Ph.D. program, I've developed an innovative device that successfully passed a trial operation period and entered into commerce operation. I'm one of the authors of the patent on this device.

Also, I have a number of papers published in scientific journals that are widely known in this field in my country. I have experience in lecturing and supervising students.

Bad side of my background

All of my accomplishments are made in my country's language, not in English. Almost all of the engineering journals in my field are not indexed in Scopus or Web of Science (some of these have translated versions that are indexed).

In short, I'm known in my field in my country only, not world-wide.

Does it make any sense to try to get an academic job (tenure track) with such a background or it's better to build my career "from scratch"  by publishing new research papers in English so that I would get a chance ?
I'm interested in getting a job in Europe or Canada.

My guess is that you could move without a lot of turmoil. As you describe your background it seems pretty solid.

But you could try an intermediate approach first. I'm assuming you are still active. I suggest that future papers be in English (or some European language) and submitted to journals there. I also suggest that you make sure to reference your older work that isn't in English as appropriate.

You can, in parallel, see to getting some of that work (the stuff you cite) translated. If you need practice in English you could use the older work as practice to get an English body of work available, even if on some informal sites. You are probably the best person to do this sort of translation, actually. And if it improves your language skills, so much the better, though you may not need that, I realize.

You can also, if funding is available, start to make a presence in conferences in one or more of the countries you'd consider moving to. Preferably get on the program with talks on new stuff that references the larger body of work.

It might be easier to move if you establish some visibility in the world you want to move in to, but it may not be essential to do that.

And if you have a tenured position somewhere, or even a tenure-track position, you can often move and get some credit for that, resulting in a shorter probationary period than the typical (for the US) seven years.


What is important in a job description? I am applying for a masters programme in Computer Science in the UK.
In the application I am asked to provide a description of any jobs I had so far.

What is important in such a job description, i.e. what information should I include?
How long should it be?

There is an html form with a text field but the maximum length is unspecified.

If I was on a graduate committee, I would want to know

How long you held the job.
What your responsibilities were: e.g. if I was an aide in an undergrad class, did I grade homework? Did I teach the class sometimes? Did I have contact with students? Did I write tests?
How did this job prepare you for admittance into the graduate program. What relevant skills did you obtain?
If the person that oversaw you in the said job is known to the application committee, perhaps say who you worked for. Or if it is a company, say who the company is. There is a huge difference between "Software Engineer" at a company with 5000 employees and "Software Engineer" at a start-up in someone's basement.


Ethics behind communicating research after end of project and unemployment So I have joined my first job in research as a research assistant on an industry-academia collaboration and I am supervised by some professors and a representative from industry is managing the project.

I am employed full-time and am one of the biggest "expense" of the project so to speak as far as the funding allocated to the university goes. It is worth nothing that as division of funding goes, our industry partners received more than 3x what the university received.

Anyway, my employment will come to end soon. However, this project partly funded my degree (I don't want to sound insensitive or ungrateful but the funding received for my degree was a trivial amount), which is totally unrelated to my research assistant work, and that is still ongoing.

The problem is that our industry partners, at the last second, indicated that I might be asked to give out presentation of the work done to the funding body. I have no information about the style of presentation; obviously, effort in preparation for a 10 minute vs a 2 hour presentation is substantially different. However, I will be unemployed soon and have no indication on whether this presentation will actually happen or not or when it will happen. Also one would be right to think that the details are vague as communication between my supervisors and industry partners has been really vague. Sometimes communication happens in 2-3 month gaps because the industry partners does not respond to attempts at communication but there is nothing I can do about individuals' behaviours.

Anyway, my professors want to show good will with our partners and are suggesting that we comply with the presentation. However, I have serious commitments like progressing on my degree and new employment. Sure, I can make some time in my new schedule but I don't think it's fair to expect me to do that. I also want to indicate that I have good relationships with my professors and that they are helping me with my degree, so I do not feel in a position to disagree with them.

So I am interested to know if it is normal to keep on working on projects beyond the project termination date, especially given my circumstance. I'm not aware of what my rights or obligations are in this scenario. Of course, each circumstance is unique, but I would appreciate any tips or pointers of how I can reason about this situation without harming relationships or becoming a dramatic situation.

If your degree is not finished and your advisor feels you should comply with the request to give a presentation, you may not have a strong voice in the matter.

To put it bluntly, college professors are used to getting work from students for bargain prices. And, because they control the gateway to a degree, they usually get what they want. That is a sad reality of academia. Not all professors are like this. But some indeed are. This is why academia.SE is full of questions to the tune of "My advisor/professor took advantage of my labor. What should I do?"

I would consider two points here:

If you have a good relationship with your advisor, address these concerns to him/her. In writing (email) is even better than verbally perhaps. Mention that you cannot do extensive work for free. Express your opinion professionally. You do have a voice here (albeit one that might be ignored).
Be willing to compromise. If your professor still asks you to comply, outline some parameters you would like to have in place. (Two examples below).

I would be willing to work 10 hours a week on this presentation, but I do not feel that I can devote more time to the project and still complete my degree in a timely fashion.
I want to partition some of my time towards seeking full time employment for after graduation. Is their an avenue for me to do such?

In short, you have a voice in this matter, but your professor might disregard your opinion so as to retain an industry connection. This is part of the politics of academia as a student.


How do you prepare to attend a conference where you may have trouble following the talks? I am fairly new to academic conferences. I am registered to attend (not present at) a mathematics conference (graph theory, to be specific) in about a week and a half; I recently received the agenda and, based on the topic, some of the talks seem a little "advanced" for me. I have a decent general understanding of the topic (I have an undergraduate math degree and a master's degree in computer science), but am still unfamiliar with some of the advanced topics.
What do I do in cases like this? How can one do self-study to prepare for conferences like this to make sure that you'll understand the topics?
Also, how much of the talks "should" one expect to be able to comprehend? How much is "normal" for individuals at various "levels" in the field (e.g. undergraduate students, graduate students, working mathematicians)?
I do realize that, given the short time frame, there'll probably be a limit to how much I can do to prepare for this particular conference. However, I would like to be better prepared for future conferences in this area.

Nobody can know everything. Even just in mathematics the last time it was possible to literally know it all was early in the 20th century. Things have advanced too fast and too far for such things now.
A conference might be expected to present the latest ideas in a sub field. If that is your specialty you would be expected to follow "generally" but would probably require additional study afterwards if the subject of a talk was important to your work. But a "general understanding" and a few notes about how and where to follow up is probably enough for most people.
I doubt that your education, as you describe it, puts you at the research edge in graph theory. If you are doing research in that, then a quick literature survey of closely relevant topics would be good preparation, but I'd guess that few  people do that. If the proceedings are available in advance, skimming the papers will give you an idea of where the holes are in your understanding.
But at the conference take a few notes, especially on topics that are not known to you, as a guide for further study. If you attend (physically or virtually) with colleagues, start a conversation over coffee/tea/whatever to ask others for their insights.
On the other hand, if one of the speakers is your dissertation advisor, you'd probably be expected to understand most of it. Or at least grasp the general trend of thought.
Math is pretty esoteric at the edges.

Another kind of "preparation", however, is to prepare to meet new people and share a few ideas. Harder now with thing mostly virtual, but a great way to build contacts.


How can I deal with a professor who refuses to communicate? Required information: Germany, maths, and undergraduate
Situation: In order to finish my undergraduate degree, I have to do one final oral exam with two professors (A & B). However, A and B refuse to communicate directly with each other and use me to communicate. The first exam was "postponed" indefinitely due to pandemic and now I have to organize a new one.
Problem: Professor A is very odd. He does not use email. He does not answer his phone (I was told to call him by the exam office and professor B) and now with only online learning, I had to communicate with A using text messages.
I asked him for available exam dates and he replied with a "yes" and nothing else. He then ignored my other messages. The examination office said if both A and B agree, I can do each part separately. Of course the B replied immediately with a yes. A did not reply at all.
Should I try to reach out to other professors or the dean? I have to do this exam to graduate so I can start my graduate studies, but I do not want escalate the situation.

Given the reluctance of anyone else to communicate with Prof A, it seems less a case of you not knowing the secret handshake to get in touch with him, but more a case of Prof A simply not communicating. It is unlikely that anyone (including the dean) can make him communicate in a reasonable way.
What you need to do is to make sure that the path-of-least-resistance for your department is something that ends with you graduating very soon. My guess is that the best bet for that would be to get someone else to examine you. The "Vorsitzende(r) des Pruefungsausschuss" should be able to authorize such a thing. Phrase it as "Prof A is unavailable for examinations", not as "I failed to get in touch with him". If they claim that Prof A is available, ask them to demonstrate by telling you the date for the exam. Be polite but persistent.


From computational mathematics to abstract mathematics I graduated with a bachelor in math/physics with a cgpa of 2.74/4.00
but didn't study many courses of abstract mathematics mostly computational math . I applied for a master's in the same Uni. and about to graduate. I had a little exposure to abstract math (some real analysis, measure theory and functional analysis) during the pre-master courses (seven courses) I scored 3.8/4 as a cgpa

I want to shift towards abstract mathematics. How can I make the shift?
I'm trying to apply for good schools abroad in the UK and the US. I'm trying to apply for a master's in abstract mathematics but some of the courses in the programs I'm applying for requires a pre-requisite that I don't have so how can I do it right?

For application to a US doctoral program in pure math, I think you would be well situated, other things being equal. This would be especially the case if your chosen field is Analysis or something related. However, the path might take a bit longer than if you had studied a broader spectrum of math.

The program you would be entering would have two essential requirements (perhaps a few minor ones). The first is to pass a set of comprehensive examinations. These are intended to assure that you have breadth of knowledge. The second is to write an acceptable dissertation. This is to show you have the ability and insight to delve deeply into a narrow aspect of math. There might be a few other options at a few places, but this is the standard.

One comprehensive exam will probably be in abstract algebra or some sub field. Another might be in Topology. But there will likely be at least three such exams, and one or more of them might be orals. In fact, there might be two levels at some places: written exams and orals.

But a US doctoral program also normally comes with a fair amount of advanced coursework. This is intended primarily to get you through the qualifying exams. Many US students starting a doctoral program won't have a masters, so the coursework is intended to give them the necessary breadth.

You may be ready for the Analysis qualifying exams, but would probably need the coursework for any others. It would take some time. If you are ready for that, it might be worth applying.

Also note that most math doctoral students in US work as TAs. This provides funding for them and assistance in teaching undergraduates. This adds to the time required to earn the degree, of course.

Note also, that in some cases the pure and applied math departments are separate. In others, they are joined in a single department. It might be a consideration in your case.


What do you do when your best friend cheats and has become top 10 in class of 250? My very best friend cheats, not just looking over her shoulder for two answers, I mean full out cheats - raising each grade from what would be a D to an A. I feel very guilty for doing something wrong, so I can not cheat.

I have a rank 35 in the school (I have only made 3 B's in 4 years of school). Most students above that cheat constantly. She takes mostly AP classes and I do too, but I am getting very frustrated that she and others look very intelligent when they cheat on the whole test before hand. My friend always brags about how she will be awarded a very prestigious award for her grades in Calculus, but my friend just told me she cheats on all the tests. Just recently she got a list of all the answers for a test and just bubbled each in knowing nothing. She will be awarded with many awards she does not deserve. I just don't think it is fair considering colleges look at rankings.

I don't want to lose my friendship with a really close friend, but I can't let this stand. I have tried warning her it was a bad idea. She wants to be a medical doctor and I feel like its important now for her to not cheat. People say that bad things will happen in the future because of what she does now, but I honestly believe she will continue to cheat without consequences.

Side-note: Another friend said, "Why would it matter if she cheats, that isn't affecting you." I just feel like it is affecting me when rank is what colleges look at.

What should I do?

You say that several students are cheating. This is actually good in the sense that you maybe can avoid specifically naming your friend.

One option is to contact a relevant faculty member (ideally one that you know and trust) and say that you know that several of the top graders are cheating. A second option is to do this anonymously.

The advantage of doing this anonymously is obviously that people will not know that you reported this. The disadvantage is that it may be less credible.

BTW your friend is completely incorrect. It definitely does affect you, since the ranking and the prizes can affect your future career. If she can't understand that, then she perhaps isn't such a good friend.


Logo selection for poster presentation I am presenting a poster at ICBC, which is sponsored by the IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc).
I am planning to use two logos for my poster.
I am considering the logos of the following:

The research organization. The presented research is from researchers of this organisation.

ICBC, the conference organizer

IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc), the conference sponsor

Logo of ICBC and IEEE, indicating both organizer and sponsor.
Which two logos are suitable for the poster presentation.

The logos on your poster should indicate the author's affiliation.  Use the logo of the presenting author's university.

Never use the organizer, sponsor, or host logo unless you work for them.  People attending the conference already know what conference they are at.  This information is not needed on a poster.


PhD Qualification on a CV: Should I list it as ongoing in a separate section? I'm just finishing my PhD but don't yet have the qualification.

I'm applying for a post-doc and need to construct a CV.

Should I include my PhD as "ongoing" in a separate section to the rest of my education? Or can I just indicate it as part of my education, but with a note like "2011-present" or something?

Should I include my PhD as "ongoing" in a separate section to the rest of my education? Or can I just indicate it as part of my education, but with a note like "2011-present" or something?

The second option. I.e., just indicate it as part of the education while noting explicitly something like
"2011- 2016 (expected)"


Submitting to a conference without my advisor's input or approval? I am a PhD in CS student in USA. I will be submitting 2 manuscripts in September to a computer science conference (ACM CHI). I have been working on one of the papers with my advisor and the other paper completely independently. The other paper is a passion project of mine which is close to my advisor's research interests but I do not want anyone else to get involved in it because it is a deeply personal subject. I wanted to ask if it is ok for me to submit a manuscript for this paper without consulting or notifying my advisor since I am not asking for his input nor am I using the resources at my school to submit this (I have been working on this paper on my own time i.e. summer vacation + other holidays, weekends etc.). I know there is a very slim chance that this submission will be successful but in the off chance that it is, will there be any awkwardness that I have to face with my advisor? I should reiterate that him and his works are in no way related to what I am submitting. We share the same research interests but my work is independent.

In my view this is asking for potential trouble. What are you going to explain when the paper gets accepted? If you can explain it later, you should also be able to explain it now.

You probably have your reasons why you want to publish as a sole author. The most sensitive part here is that you and your advisor share the same research interest. Even if the work is independent your advisor could be upset because (1) you didn’t inform him, (2) you are working in his field, (3) you did not give him a chance to contribute while he invests a lot of time in your career, (4) you may cause him to feel embarrassed, (5) you could be competing with him.

Personally, I include all my advisors on my papers and I make sure they have a contribution, just to prevent these types of problems. After your PhD you may want to maintain good relationships with your advisors.

If there are reasons you did not mention for wanting to publish as sole author without notifying your advisor, I would indentify those reasons and address them now. For example: your advisor takes advantage of you, you are afraid that he will get or take the credits, you’re afraid that he will not support your individual work, or you’re afraid you will have to adapt and restructure too much. Discuss it openly.

In the end submitting that article as a sole author is your decision (and you are entitled to it) but I would do it openly. The problems you face now are probably less than the problems you may face in the future.


List supervised students on website? As a phd student I am wondering whether or not to list supervised students on personal website (I am tending to a "yes"). Would you only list masters/bachelor student or also other student projects?

I am also not sure, how much information is reasonable. Just the name/title? Abstract? Current position?

Are there any legal issues I should keep in mind?

I cannot comment on the legal issues: I'm not a lawyer and you don't specify which country you are in.

In any case, I'd ask them a written consent before listing any information. In particular:

In the consent form, report clearly which items are going to be listed.
In the consent form, specify the time frame along which you plan to show that information.
In the consent form, specify that they can withdraw the consent any time and you will oblige.
I'd list only name, title and possibly abstract.
I wouldn't list the current position because it is typically subject to change without notice.


Changing my field after having started my project for my thesis I am about a month off of starting my Honors year at university (essentially an extra undergrad year aimed at getting students ready for research) and since I was very eager to get into research, I went around my department 6 months ago asking for a supervisor and found a project joint by 2 professors whom I respect and are very strong in their respective fields. After spending the past few months bogged down in my classes I finally got around to researching the project only to find that while I thought I enjoyed the field I find it bland and uninteresting which has made me a bit depressed at the prospect of having to commit to this for a whole year after next month. As a result over the past few days I have been thinking of swapping to another field which I believe is more 'meaty' and that I would enjoy more (I am already on good terms with a supervisor for that field) but at the same time I don't know if it is a sort of academic suicide for me to drop this project and build bad blood between my previous supervisors as I respect them and have nothing personal against them (will it reflect badly on me for not having researched their fields well enough beforehand?). Essentially, is it possible for me to swap fields to something I actually enjoy while staying on good terms with everyone?

I spent half a year working on something which I did not enjoy and had no expertise in because of making the same mistake. It's not as bad as it sounds. Sure, it's not nice, but half a year or a year is a manageable time and doing this could also be a good learning opportunity. Still, it would of course be better if you could change of course.

To what extent did you discuss the original idea with those two professors? Do they count on you, have administrative loops been taken? If you have only talked on general terms about possible opportunities, it would probably be OK if you back out politely. They will understand that an undergrad can change his interests.

However, I would make sure that you are sure of another project before you discuss it with the old professors. You don't want to be in the situation that you cannot find a new project and have to return to the old project, because they will feel 2nd choice. So, I would advise you discuss this first with the professor where you want to do your new project. Explain the situation, be open, and ask him for advice.


How do journal editors check word count on pdfs? I've read posts from journal editors on Academia Stack Exchange that the first thing they do is check the word count of submitted articles.

How do journal editors check the word count of submitted articles, considering that authors may submit articles in pdf format with numerous tables and figures?

To check my own articles, PDFs produced in LaTeX, I open my PDF, select all, then copy-paste into Microsoft Word. This method overestimates the number of words since it includes all page numbers and all numbers inside tables, but I prefer it to TeXcount (http://app.uio.no/ifi/texcount/online.php) since it includes references and bibliography.

I suspect that in many cases where the authors submit a PDF and the editors do not use Linux (as may be the case in many disciplines, including most arts and humanities disciplines), that an exact word count may not be obtained. Instead, an approximate word count based on the length and formatting of the manuscript can be determined.


Electronic version of diploma in the US universities? In a job application, I received electronic version of diploma and transcript (not scanned copy, but the official electronic file that the university prepared to be printed on official diploma and transcript papers).

Is it common in the US universities to give the electronic version of diploma and transcript to graduates?

I thought that the only version which will be released is that printed on the university official papers.

Is an electronic version of diploma and transcript as valid as a scanned copy?

Some U.S. universities do release electronic copies of transcripts. They treat these as completely official document, and the documents are supposed to contain additional security features, which the recipient can verify.

For example, there is an information page about electronic transcripts from the University of Michigan.

However, if you are concerned about the electronic copy, you could just ask for a paper copy. It is not in any way unusual in the U.S. to ask applicants to have their university send official paper transcripts by mail directly to the potential employer. The applicant will pay the university a small fee to do this, of course, so many employers only request the official transcripts at later stages of the hiring process, and accept informal copies for the initial stages.


Securing an Impact Factor rating for a journal What's the process to secure an Impact Factor rating for a journal?

I am taking over a journal which has been published for 10 years (2 editions a year) and has a wide readership, albeit in a specialist area. I am hoping that by getting a rating we can improve the quality of submissions. The journal is English language, business related and peer reviewed with a strong international editorial board of established academics.

The necessary information is available in the Clarivate Analytics website, which is the official body which calculates and publishes impact factors. The info is based on their citation indexes, which were originally developed by Thomson Reuters.

Information on the journal selection process:
http://wokinfo.com/essays/journal-selection-process/

Journal submission form:
http://ip-science.thomsonreuters.com/info/journalsubmission-front/

Other relevant information on impact factors:
http://wokinfo.com/essays/impact-factor/


Is it appropriate to ask an editor to have double blind peer review even if journal does not offer such an option? The journal that I have chosen for submitting my paper doesn't use double-blind review
(double blind review  means that both the reviewer and author identities are concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa, throughout the review process).

Can I ask editors via email, or make a request for one? Is it difficult for them to organise the editing of the paper afterwards if it is approved or it is appropriate to do that?

With the submission management systems of most journals, it will be an incredibly obnoxious hassle for the editors to support a double-blind review if the journal's policy is normally single-blind review.

The reason is that, even if you remove names from the manuscript, most review systems present the reviewers with all of the key meta-data about the paper, including the author identities.  This information is tied to author accounts in the system, the paper production and publication process for accepted papers, and possibly also external systems such as ORCID.  This is configured right into the software, so the only method most editors would have for supporting double-blind would be to have the authors create pseudonymous accounts and then later work with the production staff to manually intervene and change all of the metadata (likely screwing up their records as well) before the paper actually appeared.  Thus, given the degree of hassle and problems involved, I would expect most editors to refuse without some sort of exceedingly unusual extenuating circumstance.

You can always ask politely, of course, but you should expect the answer to be no.


How should I respond to "no research position available" from a cold email? Yesterday, I sent a "cold" e-mail (i.e., an unsolicited email to someone I do not know) to inquire about whether a professor has open research positions. Today I got the reply as shown below. Obviously, it is not positive.

Thank you for your interest in my lab – unfortunately while your skill set looks to be ideal for the lab – I currently do not have any positions available.

The answer is not very surprising. But how should I respond positively? Because we are in the same city, and probably one day I would have a chance to work in that lab.

There’s no need to respond.

An (uninvited) question has been asked and (kindly) answered. Answering required the professor’s time. There’s no need to follow up, because that will require more of the professor’s time.

  Obviously, [the answer] is not positive.

I don’t know whether you mean “the professor answered that the lab has no open research positions” or the professor does not see you as a promising candidate or similar. Regarding the latter, you should not be concerned. The professor probably receives many such requests and simply doesn’t have the time to provide lengthy replies. (That’s why I recommend not to respond.)

  Why would a professor waste their time with evaluating the suitability of a candidate if there are no positions available

The professor might not have even read the email, let alone evaluated the suitability of the candidate. Indeed, the professor might be using canned responses, which can be sent almost as quickly as an email can be deleted/archived and are perhaps better than non-responses.


Are UK faculty salaries in computer science low compared to salaries in United States? I'm looking at faculty ads for computer science in the UK and noticed that the average salary range seems to be significantly lower compared to the US. Typically, a starting Lecturer ( = Assistent Professor) can expect an annual salary in the range of only 35k - 42k GPD which is in the range of 55k - 66k USD.

On the other hand, if I look at the academic job market in the US, then this would be considered an average PostDoc salary at best, whereas the lower limit for computer science assistant professors seems to be around 80k. Considering that faculty gets this amount for 9 months in the US rather than 12 as in the UK and taking into account the higher income tax rates of the UK, this gap becomes significantly big.

Does the UK system include certain perks that the US system does not have that I'm missing here?

Are there other ways that UK faculty can make up for this quite significant gap?

You are trying to compare a US salary to a UK salary using the current exchange rate. I do not think this is particularly relevant. Even if you are willing to ignore differences between the UK and US in terms of work/life balance, teaching load, and job security, you probably want to compare the quality of life that a salary buys you and not what would happen if you converted it to USD. The starting salary for a CS lecturer/assistant professor, when converted to USD, is much lower for a UK academic than a US academic, but there are differences between the value of a US and UK salary.

While you say the UK tax rate is higher, that is a huge over simplification. Two random online tax calculators I used gave a US income tax of 24% on an 80,000 USD salary and a UK income tax of 25% on a 42,000 GBP salary. This ignores US state (and possibly city) income tax. The UK VAT of 20% is much higher than typical US sales taxes, but not everything is subject to VAT/sales tax. Even if you can accurately calculate an average total tax liability, you still need to account for purchasing power.

I have work in both the US and UK in comparable cites (not NYC/London) and tend to think that the value of my UK salary is a little lower than value of my US salary. It is worth noting that UK salaries are much more consistent across fields. This means that I make the same as a CS lecturer in the UK, but that in the US I would probably be making 10% less than a CS assistant professor. My guess is that for CS there is a substantial, maybe 15%, hit in quality of life that an academic salary buys.

In the US your starting salary is often your salary until you get tenure/promotion while in the UK you get a larger salary every year. There is a performance based pay raise, that essentially everyone gets, which is generally about 2.5%. This means the gap between the US and UK values gets smaller every year and after 6 years, when one is preparing to be promoted, the gap is pretty small. Further, UK salaries also have a cost of living adjustment. For the past few years this has been about 0.5-2% and less than the inflation, but it wouldn't surprise me if the union negotiates a big salary bump, maybe 10%, in the next few years. This would really close the gap.

It is also worth noting that a US assistant professor is not directly equivalent to a UK lecturer. I think a US assistant professor is often a few years ahead in terms of productivity and experience.


Mediocre Thesis Topic. Does this Hurt my Reputation Just curious as to the effects of publishing a mediocre PHD thesis:

After sitting down and taking a cold, detached, look at my thesis topic, I realized I was given a pair of coobook-style problems, i.e., in order to answer the questions I was given to answer, I just need to go over a list of requirements and see if the general results apply to my specific problems. Instead of research level, the problems I was given look more like exercises at the end of a book; a graduate-level book, but still, cookbook.

Question: Once I am done with this, which shouldn't take more than a few months, how will this look to anyone going over the thesis? Since I will be having some extra time, I am considering doing some extra research and tacking it into the thesis. Is there something else I can do?

I suspect my advisor may not have  a very high opinion of me and thought I could not likely handle anything more complicated. This itself brings issues as to the recommendations I may receive when someone asks my advisor for a recommendation.

A PhD is documentation that you can do your own research.  You don't have to take what you're given.  That said, maybe your advisor considers the "toy problems" a warmup for more advanced research?  You should talk to your advisor and also to other faculty members you trust.  Let them know that you are concerned your topic may be weak.  Perhaps they will have some ideas on how you can make it stronger.  Depending on the outcome of these discussions, you may want to shop around for a different advisor who is a better fit for you, both in research interests and personality.  The key is to take charge of your own dissertation.


How frequently can you ask for a personal reference without being disrespectful? When applying for post-doctoral and faculty positions you are typically asked for three (sometimes more) reference letters to support your application.

Given that it is competitive out there, it also makes sense to apply for all positions that are good matches to your qualifications and career development goals (in the case of post-docs).

Sometimes this may mean asking for several reference letters (or pre-application "can you support me if required?" requests) in a short space of time.

Also, there may only be a small pool of people (i.e. 3 or 4) who know your work sufficiently well to give an excellent reference.

I have also been told that referees want to help you out, and that there is no reason to fear asking them.  And, that in many cases once a letter is written it can typically be quickly repurposed.  But there must be a breaking point.

How do I manage this without being disrespectful?  How many requests in a given unit of time is too many, or harms my credibility?   I am asking this question in this forum, as I am interested in the norms in the academic world, which are often somewhat different than the rest of the working world.

How do I manage this without being disrespectful?

Just ask.  Ask at least a month before your first deadline.  (Ideally, your writers should be people who know you well enough not to be surprised by your request.)  If possible, ask in person.  Give them as much information as you can about where you're applying, including your complete application package — CV, statements, sample papers, names of your other references, everything.  Ask for feedback.  Listen.  If they agree to write you a letter, keep them regularly updated as your CV and application targets change.

Most importantly: Given your references a way to tell you which letters they've sent.  This could be as simple as "Please send me email when...", or a private Google doc listing your application targets and deadlines.  (From personal experience: Having a common Google doc for all your letter writers is particularly effective, since each writer can see when the other writers have sent their letters.)  Check regularly that your references are actually sending their letters, and bug them mercilessly if they haven't yet.  This is not being disrespectful; this is helping them to do the job they agreed to.

Finally, keep your references updated whenever you get an interview, get a job offer, or accept a position.  Don't forget to say thanks.

  How many requests in a given unit of time is too many, or harms my credibility?

That's entirely up the the individual writer.  But as Rex says, it's common for one applicant to apply for dozens of positions.  When I agree to be a reference for someone's faculty search, I generally expect to send letters to 30–50 different targets.  I can use (nearly-)identical letters for most targets, but inevitably there are major variations.  For example, tenure-track faculty positions, industrial research lab positions, and postdoc positions all require different letters, even when the applicant is applying to all three types of jobs.

Moreover, there is no standard mechanism for submitting letters.  Some places want letters submitted in parallel with the application; others ask automatically when the application is submitted; others ask only when the application passes an initial filtering stage.  Some places want letters by email; others use standard services like MathJobs; others use home-grown web pages; a rare few still require paper letters with wet signatures.

This is what agreeing to write a job letter means.  Most faculty already know this and won't agree to act as your reference unless they're willing to do this much work.  Still, just as it's important to ask "Can you write me a strong letter of recommendation?", it's important to be completely up-front about the scale of your request.


What differences should an early career UK academic expect when moving to Australia (e.g., research culture, funding opportunities)? I'm currently a Lecturer in Computer Science at a (medium ranked) institution in the UK and I've been given the opportunity to join one of the (top ranked) universities in Australia.

While I do consider the above to be very good news, I'm a bit uncertain what to expect in terms of the different academic cultures and expectations (from me) compared to being a Lecturer in the UK.

Also, are there funding opportunities in the Australian research funding landscape tailored to new staff? In the UK one can apply for an EPSRC First grant scheme but I couldn't spot such schemes for AU.

I happen to be a PhD student in Computer Science in one of top 8 universities in Australia. I don't know much about the available grants, but there seems to be an early career research grant. More information about that and the grants in general in here: http://www.arc.gov.au/discovery-early-career-researcher-award

The Australian Research Council (ARC), in general, is the go-to source for information about government grants. Apart from that, if you are female, there are additional opportunities available such as this one: "APEC Women in Research Fellowship" and for Women in STEM through WISE program.

I don't know about the academic culture in the UK, but here is Australia research staff usually have a teaching load which is about 0.5 of your FTE. It can be more or less depending on the academic, but I'm not sure how it is decided. There are research only academics as well, with no teaching load, but they have a publication target to meet, I'm not sure what happens if they don't, most probably they receive teaching load.

In our university, there is a formal annual review for academic where you fill a form much like the one PhD students fill, but you have to meet targets on publication, teaching and PhD completions under your supervision.

Other than that the academic culture depends on your local research group. I am not sure about the expectations; I think it can depend. Most academics have a crew of PhD students and postdocs and these pump out publications like there is no tomorrow. A few others just chill and hang out, and I have seen them doing that for the past five years that I have been here, no publication or anything and they seem to be doing fine. So I think the expectations depends on non-trivial factors.

Congratulations on your move to Australia. I am just a PhD student so hopefully some academic can give you more detailed information.


Academic Dishonesty: Do cheating students learn from punishment? Scenario:
You catch a student cheating on a graded assessment. While you are required to report them to a student-affairs administrator, it is up to you, the instructor, how to grade the student on the assessment.
The most common response seems to be to give the student a zero on the assessment. If this is an exam, this may mean failing the course.
Question:
Is punishing a cheating student by failing them useful because it results in learning (either by the individual cheater, or by the community at large because of the message it sends), or because it weeds out students who are dishonest?
I would appreciate any references to the effectiveness of punishment for academic dishonesty leading to changed behavior(s).
Note: If a student cheats on assessments, it is clear that you will not have sufficient data to grade their knowledge or abilities there. This question is not about whether we should accept work completed via cheating, but whether rewarding the behavior with a failing exam/course grade is effective in some way. Answers that boil down to "but what else can we do" probably answer a different question not being asked here.

In my opinion, yes. They learned to cheat by seeing their classmates cheat, and cheating is a learned behavior. Since cheating was learned, they can learn from punishment, that this will negatively affect their reputation as a student and their future.


How extended must my extended paper be? I have been approached to submit an extended version of a research paper in a journal.
The original paper is already published in a conference proceedings by publisher A.

What "degree of extension" do I have to provide so that publisher B will (legally?) be able to publish my work?

Also, does "extended version" in this case mean additional results, or purely textual extension?

I don't think there's a single "default" answer here. However, I would suggest that if you are planning to publish in B's journal, that you do both kinds of extension: provide both additional explanations that were in the original material, plus present different results (if possible) than what was in conference proceeding A. You should also avoid direct repetition of material, where possible.

However, before agreeing to this, I would also consider asking the journal editor to provide you some examples of what he or she considers "extended versions" of other proceedings, and review them to see what you think of the extensions. If you're not comfortable with the changes (in that they're not expansive enough to be a "new" paper), then you're free to tell the journal you're not interested.


What does it mean to do research with a phd student? I am an undergraduate student and have recently been accepted by a professor to work on a robotics project in his lab. The professor mentioned that I will be working with a Phd student.

My confusion is as to what work I'll actually be able to do as the Phd student who is obviously more qualified will do majority of the work. So, will I just be left with useless work like analysis/ report writing or will I actually be given work?

You need to work that out with the professor and the PhD student. Before you start, get an idea about what you will be expected to do and how exciting or boring that will seem to you.

But, you should also settle the question about authorship of any resulting publications. You need to know in advance if you will be a co-author or will only get an acknowledgement of your contributions.

At your stage you may not be able to insist on much, but you should know going in what the parameters are. But as you phrase your question, it is impossible to answer, as the key is with those other individuals.


TVöD contract E13 (limited contract 2 year) notice period I am on the 1st year of a TVöD E13 contract (offered for 2 years), and I would like to ask: what is the notice period for resigning from my current job?

If you are aiming for a fixed date and are still on good terms with your boss, it is quite common to create an "Aufhebungsvertrag", that is a contract in which you both agree to terminate your contract at a certain date, irrespective a of notice period. After all, you want to leave and your boss likely wants to hire someone new on your position.
You will likely get a call from the "Personalrat" though, as they want to check that you weren't somehow forced by your boss to contravene regulations this way.


Placing a paper under review on my website? I am wondering if it would be fine for me to place my paper that is currently under review on my website? Since I did not see there is any specific instruction on this issue in the journal's website, my main concern is I am not sure if this contradicts any ethical rules.

The answer depends critically on your field: you need to talk to your advisor and find out what the general policy is.  Three examples along the spectrum of radically different possibilities:

In mathematics, theoretical physics and theoretical computer science, papers under review are circulated publicly long before being published.  This practice is a key motivator behind arXiv.
On the more empirical/applied side of computer science, making a paper under review publicly available wouldn't be a problem except in case of double-blind review, but would generally be considered rather gauche.  Circulating privately in advance, on the other hand, is quite accepted.
Many biology journals aim to tightly control the timing and release of information. In many cases, posting a paper under review could actually be considered prior publication, and result in the paper being disqualified as a submission and automatically rejected.

Find out which are the practices of your field and follow them.


Should one continue their journey on the academic path if they love their field of study and research but are not proficient at it? Suppose a student decides on a topic for their PhD that's interesting and enjoyable for them but they are not very good at it. For example, an experimentalist wanting to completely transition to be a computational researcher, starts with their computational research and enjoys the research. They are conversant with the tools available but they are technically mediocre in the fundamental knowledge of the tools even after taking the courses and working hard on improving themselves on the topic.
They will get their PhD and publish decent papers, but they lack the basic proficiency that others in their field readily possess. Others in similar academic position easily develop the codes that they find extremely difficult and time-consuming.
"For example, papers in my research field of additive manufacturing and machining are easy to produce. I can publish in 3-4 impact factor journals (computational materials science, surface and coatings tech, jour. of manufacturing processes). But I lack the deeper fundamental knowledge to make significant contributions to new code or algorithm development for better predictions. This skillset is possessed by almost everyone in my field, and is a requirement for producing good papers in top journals of my field (international journal of plasticity, journal of mechanics and physics of solids)."
Should they continue on the academic journey, like postdoc(s) after PhD, apply for tenure track position?

Not being able to do certain things is no reason to leave the field. Instead, the student could focus on what they can do, not on what they cannot do. In fact, it is often the people that "lack" the "advanced" knowledge who come up with creative ideas and new approaches that are different from everybody else.
And if it turns out that the student needs fancy new algorithms anyway: all the others are doing that already and it can take as little as a phone call to start a collaboration. Also, the "fancy algorithms" may be in fashion now, but nobody knows what happens in five or ten years.
Of course there is no reason for the student to stay in the field if it does not make them happy. Changing field or changing from academia to the private sector are not as hard as people often assume. There are plenty of interesting jobs outside of academia and it should not be seen as a failure to leave the academic world.


Should I put job talks on my vita for positions I didn't get? I have been on the social science academic market for a couple years, and I have been invited to interview and put together presentations ("job talks). I thought in both cases, the presentations were interesting and thought provoking and I wonder if i should include them in my vita.I have an "invited lecture" section already, so my thought is just to add them, but is that unorthodox? I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Edit:  From the perspective of applied social sciences (e.g., social welfare / social work)

No, a job talk is not the same thing as what is considered an invited presentation and should NOT be added to your CV. An invited presentation is connotes something much different -- that is, something that is akin to a keynote or a presentation at a formal conference / meeting.  Keep your CV clean and don't reach for things that don't belong.  I see lots of recently minted PhD's trying to work things into their CV to make it appear weightier than it really is.  Don't water down your CV with activities or products that don't belong.


I feel that my professor didn't notice a mistake I made on an assignment. Should I have informed the professor of my mistake? This morning, I took my third math quiz of the semester. On the last question, I had solved the presented problem but had not written out the answer according to the directions before time was called, so I simply circled the answer that I did have.

Later this afternoon, I got a notice on my phone that my grade on the quiz had been posted. As it turns out, I got 100% exactly. So, I sent a message to the professor pointing out my mistake.

Should I have done that?

Whenever I've taught, I would find no problem an action like yours.  You might have pointed out a mistake (in which case it's honest and respectable to point it out), and you might have benefited from partial credit (in which case, it's easy for the professor to tell you or to ignore the correction).

I personally would have also found it a delightful breath of fresh air and a break from the students grubbing and grinding for a few extra points, and would feel warm and fuzzy feelings toward such a student.  Anybody who teaches ends up with a distorted view of the student population because most of their time is spend dealing with the most problematic and annoying students, while the vast majority of the student body who are having no problems are entirely invisible to them.  A reminder of the honesty and integrity of the mostly silent many may thus be quite appreciated.


Share prize money from conference presentation award with co-authors? I am a PhD student and I recently won a young scientist award and prize money (~500 USD) at a conference for the "best presentation". I did the majority of the work for the presentation, and I was the only one present at the conference.
However, my co-authors (8 people) all wrote their share for the conference proceedings (that's what makes them co-authors). The co-authors are in various stages of their career, from professors to fellow PhD students.

Should I share my prize money with the co-authors? If yes, with all of them in equal amounts? Or only with those who would be eligible for a young scientist award themselves?
Would it change the situation if I won the award for something else, say "best paper"?

I think that it is important to recognize that the biggest value of the award is its contribution to your C.V. and future career, not the prize money.  As such, I think you should approach the question of the money as generously as possible: after all, you gave a good talk, but many of the aspects of that good talk depended critically on the contributions of your co-authors.

What, then, is a fair way of allocating the money?  Pretty much any numerical formula that you follow will both a) leave some people feeling that their allocation is too big or too small and also b) only be a few dollars anyway, given the number of people involved.

I would therefore recommend defusing the question entirely and turning the prize money into an investment into future goodwill and papers: suggest that it be spent on going out for a fancy dinner together (or similar such outing) to celebrate the success of the collaboration!


Undergraduate supervisor asked me to join his group for grad school. How do I politely say I'm also considering other options? I spent one summer working in a research lab during my undergraduate degree. Now that I am in 4th-year and applying to graduate schools, my former supervisor has asked if I would like to join his group.

I had an enjoyable experience in his group, but I think my talents lie towards the theoretical side of my field (physics). To be perfectly honest, I think that it is more likely I will choose something other than his group. At the same time, I don't want to "rule out" the possibility of working with him just yet because I can see myself being happy with either scenario (his group or somewhere else).

So my questions are:

How do I politely tell him that I am interested, but I want to consider other options too? How transparent should I be with my interest in theoretical research over experiment? Would it be best if he knew that his group would probably not be my first choice?

Just explain to him what you have said here (in greater detail, of course).  If you are applying to graduate school, you are really going to want a strong recommendation from this professor.  You can't get that without giving a clear statement of what you are planning to do.  The professor should not be offended; faculty members  deal with these kinds of situations regularly.


How to find a suitable summer internship university/department abroad? Let's assume I want to look for a research internship at a university in the next year, what are decent strategies to find a suitable professor/department?

A few come to mind:

Ask home university/department/professor for contacts and use that connection? What if I have no prior research experience and professors only know me from classes?
Google and send CV + Statement to (many) professors via email and hope for the best
Google for positions that are explicitly offered for 8-10 week summer internships
?

I am assuming you are an undergraduate; correct me if I'm wrong and I'll amend my answer.

It has been my experience that summer internships at a university that you don't attend are very rare.  My advisor explicitly ignored all cold emails from students asking if they could work with her during the summer (even if they were not asking to be paid).  Logistically, without being enrolled in the school, things like getting access to school servers, badgeing/keys for offices, etc. is just that much more difficult, and professors just don't have the time to vet students from external schools, nor much of an incentive to do so.

With that caveat:

  Ask home university/department/professor for contacts and use that connection?

Absolutely, but it is going to take more than getting contacts to get a summer internship. Unless your professor reaches out to those contacts himself/herself, you're probably not going to get much traction.

  What if I have no prior research experience and professors only know me from classes?

Then you are less likely to entice them to help you.  You're better off trying to work with those professors at your own university instead of trying to use them to work somewhere else.

  Google and send CV + Statement to (many) professors via email and hope for the best

Please don't bother them -- they get too much spam to begin with.  You'll not only waste your time, but theirs as well.

  Google for positions that are explicitly offered for 8-10 week summer internships

This is the best option, but I suggest not limiting yourself to universities and to branch out to look for internship experience in industry (if this is such a thing in your field).  For one, there are probably more opportunities, and secondly, they are generally more structured and you might get more out of the experience.

Incidentally, many professors use the summer months for work-related travel and to take vacation.  This makes it even more unlikely that you will find a position, as the number of professors around during the summer is minimal.  On the other hand, if you happen to find a professor that will assign you to one of his/her graduate students, you could potentially still work in the lab under the grad student tutelage instead of directly for the professor (and, indeed, this is probably what will happen in any lab -- as an undergraduate you will probably work more for the graduate students than for the professor, although this obviously varies by school and professor).


How much can a Professor influence admittance of his/her PhD students? (UK) I was wondering how much influence a professor at a competitive university in the UK has in PhD admissions, when he/she really wants to work with somebody.

I am mentioning UK specifically, since the PhDs here are shorter and its maybe clearer what exactly the student will want to work on for his PhD.

To give a counterpoint to astronat's view, in Computer Science funding usually, but not always, comes (in one way or another) from a budget of the prospective advisor (e.g., her/his grants, startup package, etc.). So if (s)he really wants to work with you and funding is available (not all professors have funding to start with), you will likely be offered funding.  This is often formally independent of admission into the PhD school (i.e., a professor promising you funding does not formally guarantee admission), but in all places I am aware of the de facto rule is that candidates that professors wish to spend money on are also admitted as long as they fulfill the formal admission requirements.

Note that in many places in Europe the inverse is also true - candidates that no professor agrees to fund are often not admitted, independent of CV and letters.

So to answer your specific question:

  I was wondering how much influence a professor at a competitive university in the UK has in PhD admissions, when he/she really wants to work with somebody.

Assuming it's computer science, I would assume that the professor has a very large influence on admission.


Introduction depends on preliminaries. What to do? I am writing a paper but have the following problem. The introduction section requires basic knowledge of things introduced in the preliminaries. As I understand it, it is customary (in computer science) that one has an introduction and than preliminaries which would mean that most people would not understand the introduction section.

How should I deal with this kind of dependence?

We are introducing a new topic (from a comment you made) --- Then you'll want to look at papers that deal with new topics. Can't you just give a non-technical overview, something in which someone who doesn't know this topic can follow, with possibly a statement telling the reader that precise definitions of some of the terms are given in the preliminaries section? I've seen quite a few math papers do this, where there is an introduction followed by a "notations and definitions" section.

Here is a freely available example of a paper with a general introduction followed by a preliminaries section that gives detailed definitions of terms used in the introduction. Also, at the time the paper appeared, the main object of study (sigma-porous sets) was still fairly new and not widely known, and it was almost certainly not known by a typical reader of the journal in which this paper was published.


How can I better equip myself early on for pure mathematics research? From discussions about the nature of pure mathematics research I reached to a conclusion that it requires both- theory building; that is to create rigourous concepts relevant to the problem one working on and then building upon it, as well as usage of clever, ingenious tricks to obtain certain results. There's no real dichotomy in here.

If this is the case then I'd like to know how can I do certain things or develop a few habits that will help me or atleast equip me to tackle the challenges professional pure mathematics research poses before an individual?

Arguably, doing a PHD is supposed to be exactly the preparation you speak of. It is the first time in your education when you are most certainly expected to transform from the mere consumption of Mathematics to also producing new results; the general idea, however, is not that you simply start doing so, but rather that you have an advisor who guides this process. I mention this because you'll do well to remember that your advisor has this responsibility towards you, as you have the responsibility to invest time and effort to make the transformation, which is not an easy one for most people.

That said, here is my list of tips:

You may find yourself under a lot of stress to produce results. Unless (maybe even if!) you are an absolute one in a billion genius, the results may take quite a while to come, months, maybe years. Prepare yourself mentally for this fact. Although, I am afraid, I was told the same thing in advance, took it serious, and I still was absolutely unprepared for the reality of it.
"Having a new idea" is what you rarely learn in undergrad courses, where most people puzzle together theorem statements from the lecture to prove exercise results. This is not a bad thing, you will need this skill to make your ideas work, and you will also need this skill to get into new fields where new ideas are needed. However, having an idea is different and how exactly you come to have ideas, noone can tell you. I have known many different mathematicians and their minds all work in different ways. However, there is one thing they all have in common: They have their best ideas when they are relaxed and at ease. Find ways and time to be relaxed and ponder about Mathematics without feeling stressed out. How exactly you do that will be up to you.
Work with other people whenever you can. Collaboration is extremely powerful both to keep you engaged with a problem and to overcome obstacles.
Be enthusiastic or have the ability to get enthusiastic about your research topic. Without that, you are unlikely to muster the mental endurance required to actually do research in it.
At the beginning of your PHD, you must listen very carefully to your advisor. Towards the end of it, you must make sure that your advisor is listening very carefully to you.
Make concrete examples. I explained this at length in a Math.SE answer. This should work even in very pure fields, even though "concrete" may mean something else for you than for others. The important part will be that it is concrete for you, i.e. that it enriches your intuition.
Find a good balance between intuition and rigor. Relying too heavily on either will get you stuck. I believe that the more experience you have, the more you can rely on your intuition; but for someone starting out in Mathematics, I believe it is healthy to go with a 50/50 approach here.

While it is not my tip, I would like to include this excellent suggestion from the comments:

  Keep a notebook of ideas that might result in fruitful explorations. Review it periodically. These are the ideas that you don't have time to develop now, but might lead to something when current projects come to fruition.


How do I decline a PhD offer by my master's thesis supervisor? So I'm currently finishing up my master's thesis and my supervisor seems to be happy with my work. The subject of PhD came up a couple of times during meetings and while I did say that I think it would be nice to do a PhD, I also said that I'm still thinking about it and considering other career options (not necessarily in academia). Then the last meeting she suddenly announced that the PhD registrations are now open and that I'm able to register. This caught me off-guard so for the next meeting I want to talk about that. In the meantime, I made up my mind and decided not to do a PhD after all, at least not for a year as I'm having another project running outside of academia.

How do I tell this to my supervisor? I'm afraid that she will be disappointed and that the remaining months of my master's thesis won't be as enjoyable. I have no reason to think this as she has always been friendly and praising my work. But you never know if she just was nice to get me to do a PhD. Probably overthinking this last part though.

"I have another project running outside academia and would rather try my luck in the private sector at that stage in my life. I have thought about this carefully and I will not be considering a PhD right now, but I might consider it in the future. Thank you very much for the opportunity and your support, it is deeply appreciated and I would be happy to keep in touch".


How can I hire a professor to answer my advanced technical questions in a niche area? In short, How does one go about hiring a professor or someone really well established in their field for a private tutoring session?

I tried looking online but can’t find much, mainly websites for tutors that are practitioners or “experts” as in with with n years of experience at best. This doesn’t cut it at my level as I am a researcher with a PhD and already have published papers on my topic.

However, I am very passionate about my subject and always looking to grow. So I do have questions, very technical (in my case computer science) and would happily pay a fee for consulting with a professor in the field.

Any advice?

Unless you are in a place where professors are greatly underpaid and generally abused, this seems like a quest that is bound to fail. People are busy and they aren't normally driven by money (other than large pots of grant money).

What I think you want, instead, is a collaboration. That can be started with just an email, provided that you have something to contribute yourself. This requires you to do a bit of research to find someone with common interests to form a two-way partnership.

Perhaps the story of Srinivasa Ramanujan and his relationship with Hardy will be instructive.


Changing supervisor before starting the PhD - not selected I approached a supervisor about a PhD application. At this university, you must have two supervisors, so after a meeting, he invited the other "supervisor" to discuss the topic.
Honestly, this new supervisor doesn't suit my topic. In fact, he proposed some topic changes that I am not happy to do. However, for the rush of the moment and the nervous, I said yes. After, I checked the credentials of the new supervisor. He just graduated last year and I would be his first PhD student.
I received the offer letter and this last supervisor was appointed as the main supervisor.  I received a scholarship from my government (not from the university), so no funding is attached to the supervisors or topic. I haven't "officially" started the PhD.

I will have a meeting soon and I was wondering how I could ask to change the main supervisor? I will argue that I want to focus on my original topic, but what to do if they say that I can change the topic, but with the same team?  Is it wrong that I would like to have a more "experienced" supervisor as the primary supervisor?

Thank you.

Your wishes and concerns are valid, but your options are limited. You say you agreed, which was not your best choice. Of course you realize this, but maybe too late.

Unfortunately this is more of a personal relationship issue than one for rules. I know how bad it can be to have an inexperienced, ill-matched, advisor, especially if you aren't enthusiastic about the topic.

One option is to go elsewhere for your degree - an extreme solution that will cost you time and perhaps, money.

A possible solution, depending on personalities is to go back to the first professor, with whom you seem more comfortable, and lay out the situation, in essence begging to work under his/her direction instead. Don't open with the suggestion that you may need to withdraw if your request can't be granted and think about whether that is actually what you would want to do. But your possible withdrawal might be a last resort argument. It is a bit dangerous to use, however, if made in such a way that anyone, especially this professor, thinks less of you as a result.

One outcome of such a meeting might actually be that the professor can convince you of the correctness of the current situation (with the new advisor and problem), based on his/her reading of the state of the art. It is useful if you have a senior professor keeping a bit of a watch over you and a junior professor as the process unfolds, so maintaining a good working relationship is essential if you intend to continue.


When is it appropriate to close your office door when meeting with a student? Generally speaking, keeping the door open to your office while attending with a student (or students) is a safe policy given the amount of danger one can get in should any allegations be made.  (I mention this last bit in light of the number of Title IX investigations that seem to be on the rise.)

However, is there ever an appropriate situation where closing the office door while meeting with a student or students is okay as a teacher/lecturer/professor?

This is one of those topics for which different people have different opinions. Some professors (and some programs) have no issue with meeting with students one-on-one behind closed doors. Others will avoid it whenever possible. There are many, many factors that can affect the decision - including sensitive issues such as gender, power imbalances, tenure or job security, etc. It is impossible to give one-size-fits-all advice.

That being said, I think it is a fine practice to meet with your door open whenever possible, and simply lower your voice to avoid sharing private information such as grades.  For ordinary meetings, such as office hours, there is no serious reason to meet behind closed doors.

For situations where there are other concerns - such as concerns about of any kind of unprofessional behavior or claims about unprofessional behavior - it is often better to ask another faculty member to be present for the meeting. Even if they do not speak, their mere presence can genuinely help defuse tense situations by keeping you and the student more calm. Moreover, the other person is also able to recount their memory of the meeting should it be necessary, avoiding some issues that can arise when only two people were present for a conversation.


PhD: admitted with TA with 5h a week, is it standard? it is my first time applying to a (pure math) PhD program and I just received my first admission letter (yay!). It says I'm considered for TA and "Teaching duties consist to up to 5 contact hours a week".

Before applying anywhere I was under the impression that TA required ~20h a week. My question: Are they not showing some "hidden time" ? or do I have a special offer (=they "want" me)? Or is it normal for this university (GeorgiaTech)?

If it can make a difference, I'm 32yo/married so I'm thinking they might also want to be nice with me to accommodate for this "special" situation.

"Contact hours" is standard jargon in academia for formal class time: hours when the instructor/TA and all the students are scheduled to be together.

So this basically means you will teach 5 hours of classes or discussion/recitation sections per week.  This does not count the time you will need to spend preparing your material for those classes, grading homework or exams, holding office hours, working in tutoring labs, responding to student questions via email or online forum, meeting with the instructor or course coordinator, and so on. (Although you are in "contact" with students during office hours or in a tutoring lab, the term "contact hours" doesn't include informal face-to-face time like this.)

Once all this is added up, I'd guess it will be around the 20 hours per week that you expected.

This does not seem to be a special offer.  I would guess it's the normal offer that all the accepted grad students receive.  (In any case, decisions to make someone a "better" offer, e.g. less work for the same money, would normally not take into account their age or marital status - most universities would consider that inappropriate or even illegal.  Such decisions would instead be based on academic merit and potential.)

As you consider this offer, you'll want to find out what's actually expected of TAs in this program, and how much time and energy TAs typically have to devote to their duties.  Most math departments invite accepted grad students to the campus for a 1-2 day visit to help you explore what they have to offer.  This would be a good time to ask about TA duties - ask the graduate coordinator about the official duties, and ask the current grad students what they actually experience.  Sometimes there is a difference between the two.


How do I properly cite a research paper? I know this question already has a similar answer but, please bear with me. I am writing my thesis and I realize there are cases I do not know how to properly cite, as illustrated in the following scenario:

In literature review articles, for example, the author gives a summary of an idea that has been previously discovered by other papers. Although I thoroughly read these papers before I include the idea into my thesis, who should I give credit to? The review paper from which I got the idea in the first place or the paper that discovered the idea?
In other cases, the author gives his own educated guess. Yes, he does provide justification for his reasoning but in the end, it is clear his conclusion is only a guess-work. In my case, one famous author came up with a new theory that refute the existing one. The theory is becoming accepted by many researchers but it still holds lots of holes that, to some extends, seem like it is a backward step compared to the existing theory. When it is clear that the famous author is only making speculations to support his theory, how can I properly cite this and distance myself from the claim? I don't wanna say I believe what he says (because he cannot convince me with evidence) but I need to include his paper for completeness of my literature review.
I know I should paraphrase the author's idea and only use quotation marks when I use word-for-word what the author said. However, how much paraphrasing should I do? I am finding myself looking for a synonym of something that clearly does not have any. And in some cases, using a synonym would actually obscure the meaning of the sentence.
For those of you with experience, please add any other citation-related issue you would like me to take into consideration.

Why not both?
"As summarized in \cite{A}, both \cite{B} and \cite{C} equally
contributed to the discovery of $FancyResult."
"Smith et al discussed a new approach in \cite{X}. While the result is not yet complete (see \cite{X1,X2,X3} for work on it and \cite{Y1,Y2} for critiques), it contains interesting aspects that shouldn't be overlooked."
It is usually not a problem to use the same word as an author, especially if it is a technical or predefined term. Especially if you mention the source in the same paragraph, no one should blame you for that. As soon as you start quoting whole sentences, you should make that clear though. If you feel like you are just repeating the whole paper in (as good as possible) your own words, take a step back and think about what you want to achieve with the literature review. You want to give your reader an understanding of what has been done and is currently been done in your field. This should enable the reader to both understand your work, and also understand that your work is a viable contribution to current research topics. One way to do this and avoiding copying papers is to chain multiple together. Think about what you want to discuss, then discuss topic X and put all sources for this topic into your text where appropriate.
Make sure that your citations (bibtex or whatever you use) are all in the same style. Especially if you pull them of the Internet, they might differ, e.g. some places put "Lastname, Firstname", others put "F. Lastname" or "Lastname, F.". You can avoid this, to some extend, by always using the same source for your bibtex code (e.g. google scholar), but even there you should check it properly.
Also, if you have multiple citations in a single \cite, try to order them ascending. Simply because something like ", ... this was already shown in [5,18,2]" doesn't look as nice as "... already shown in [2,5,18]".
Of course, the standard advices like "don't cite what you haven't read or don't fully understand" applies, but I guess you are aware of that.

Overall: Don't worry about formal rules too much. You are telling a story, make it good, informative and interesting to read. Do so why following the rules and stay professional as required in your field of course, but don't make the rules your number one priority.

And just for completeness: Also discuss these questions with your advisor, they might see things differently than this random guy on the Internet, and in the end they are the one grading your thesis.


Is it a bad idea to change/remove a co-author from a manuscript which is revision? One of my manuscripts is in revision. The co-authors in the paper are my advisors. Now I had sent the paper to a journal and it is in revision phase now. One of the co-authors has taken a U-turn and due to ego issues, rejects being a co-author. Now there is actually no significant contribution from this co-author to add his name. But will it be wise now to request the editor in chief about this, now that there is good chance of getting the paper accepted? The above mentioned co-author is known to have mood swings.

You need documentation that this person doesn't believe that their contributions merit co-authorship (or that they didn't contribute at all). I would write them an email like this (adjust as necessary for specifics and to not upset them further):

  Dear Charles,

  Last Monday you mentioned that you do not want to be listed as author
  on our paper "The missing link between dinos and birds" since you believe your contributions to be too minor. I just want
  to make sure that we are on the same page: Can you confirm that you
  would like me to remove your name from the author list?

  Thank you,

  A. G. Install Happyness

If they confirm, you are free to tell the editor that the co-author was included by mistake and agrees to be removed from the manuscript. If they don't confirm you need to clarify what outcome they desire and then discuss this with them and the other co-authors.


Negotiation of a faculty position I've just started to apply for faculty positions and received an invitation for a phone interview scheduled for next week. I am not in rush at the moment to accept a faculty position.

Earlier this year I had a friendly conversation with a chair at a school who I had an opportunity to work with in different capacities and discussed with him a potential faculty position at his department. He is the hiring person and it is a school that I am interested in. He suggested a few months ago that I can fit into a number of projects that are ongoing at the school. Back then I was not as advanced as I am today in my Ph.D. studies and since then I've defended my proposal and expect to graduate in seven months.

However, I expressed my interest in a faculty position and indicated that I expect to defend my dissertation in August this year. Few days ago, I've informed him that I've received an invitation for job interview and indicated that I remain interested in a position at their school. He stated that as of now, there might not be a position because they expect two new research hires and doesn't know how this will impact the school`s budget. Then he stated that if I don't like what I would be offered or don't receive an offer, we can discuss a position.

Just a small update, eight months ago I asked if I could receive a post-doctoral fellowship position at their school.

My question is: I didn't respond to him yet and I am confused how to understand this last statement that he made?. is this part of the negotiation process?. I prefer this school over other schools for now until i find something better.

FYI I am not in a medical school, but this seems relatively straightforward to me. Hopefully someone will correct if there is a different norm in those departments.

Most departments receive authorizations to hire faculty positions ("faculty [budget] lines") from entities that are higher up the organizational hierarchy, such as a dean or other central administration person. So even if this person is a department chair, they may not have the authorization to create new lines. They may have the authorization to create post-doc positions, since those can come out of shorter term pots of money.

This person may be implying that a non-faculty (post-doc, perhaps) position would be possible, depending on how much of the budget gets sucked up in the two new researchers' salaries/packages. They seem to think you would not be a great fit for those two new research positions. But they won't know about the post-doc until later. They also assume you will also not be able to decide on this until you have explored your faculty positions, since, for most people, permanent/faculty positions dominate post-doc positions.


Is it possible to have a career in academia and not be confident in their field of research? I thought getting a PhD in my mechanical engineering field would lead in gaining confidence in the field. However, it became other way round. I am far less confident on my skills and knowledge than I was when I started my PhD.
I am well published in my research field, I have decent theoretical knowledge about my field. However, I am not confident. I often hesitate with my answer, even though I know I am right.
I get afraid before starting a new project and technique even though I am sure that I can acquire new skillsets easily.
Self doubts is a recurring theme during all research endeavors. When I feel low confidence, I also start to regret my decisions to be in academia and pursue masters and PhD.
Does anyone else get this feeling? How to cope up? Can I find a place in academia with this issue?

This is very possible. Many people in academia struggle with impostor syndrome and find themselves on the "I know how much I don't know" side of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
While this is common, that doesn't mean it's a good thing - it makes you miserable and so it's worth doing something about it. There are a number of things you can do:

Check if your university has counseling services. This is something they'll have experience with.

Having the occasional honest talk with your peers. It can take a big load off your shoulders to find out that other people at your level also aren't always confident. One of my professors noted that a lot of academics like being a "magician", able to conjure amazing results seemingly without effort. But most magician's tricks take lots of practice that you never see.

Teach or coach students at a lower level than your own, like Masters or beginning PhDs - you have a lot to share with them, and it can help ground your confidence to see just how much you do know.

Find colleagues you can trust to occasionally talk over your work with. They don't have to be exactly in your precise field, but close enough that they can ask critical questions. It can boost your confidence to know that you do have a backup that helps you avoid missing "the obvious".

To summarize: what you're experiencing is not unusual, it's a normal result of being smart enough to know what you don't know, but you don't have to suffer. Help is available.


How likely is that a high school student has a paper published in a peer reviewed journal without any help from a professor? Most often high school students do research in a university under a professor. Has there been any instances where a student published a paper in a peer-reviewed journal without any help from a professor?

It's unlikely but not impossible.

To use an example, I once had a colleague reviewing a paper where a high school student produced some results from a commonly used mathematical model in epidemiology. While not duplicative, they weren't exactly novel. Yes, no one had published for this model and this disease in this population, but these results were very much of a "Yes...and?" variety.

But the journal in question was pushing the "Papers should be technically correct, and excitement or novelty is less important."

I don't know the final outcome of that paper, but it's conceivable that it could have been published.


Do research grants from USA governmental agencies (e.g. NSF, NIH, DOE, etc) require that all of the PIs be affliated with a university? or to other research organizations for example government labs?

I am currently a post doc at large and would like to co-write a proposal (probably NSF) with a Professor at a nearby University. With the funding, I'd be getting a salary and doing the majority of the work and the lead PI (the prof) would work partial time and time in the summer.

Every US funding agency has its own rules, and most agencies have many different types of programs with different intentions.  For most (maybe all) agencies, this includes both funding to universities and funding to corporations, particularly under SBIR programs.  Some agencies will also fund individual consultants directly for various specialized roles, but that tends to happen mostly with rather senior individuals.

Your options are even larger if you are not the PI, however, but a co-PI (I think this is actually what you want to do).  For most agencies and most funding vehicles, the PI's organization can subcontract work with a fair degree of freedom.  Also, there is only one PI, from the point of view of the contract: it doesn't matter if you call all the leaders PIs, the government is going to negotiate with one organization per contract, and that organization is going to be asked to designate one person be the PI, and in practice everybody else is co-PIs.

For you, then, there are three main paths to take:

Propose, with the professor as PI, under the plan that if funded you will become affiliated with the PI's university
Propose, with the professor as PI, where you will be contracted as a consultant.
Set up an LLC, from which you can propose as PI, and subcontract to the professor.  You'll have to comply with government contracting rules, which are painful, but much less so for SBIRs.

Number 1 is probably the best, unless you have some reason to avoid affiliation, in which case #2 is a good alternative.  #3 doesn't have much advantage unless you intend to apply for SBIRs, and is still a pain to get started.


How does having a PhD from Latin America impact an academic career in mathematics in the US? Due to my wife’s job, we’re moving to a country in Latin America (Brazil). I’m finishing my undergraduate in mathematics in the US and I’m starting to think about applying for PhD positions.

How does having a PhD from Latin America impact an academic career in mathematics in the US?

The institution from which you have a PhD is of minor significance compared to:

What you've published
Where you've published
Who you've published/worked with (particularly, your advisor)
Who can recommend you to others

With all of those being equal, a PhD from a better-rated university (not country) will improve your evaluation as a candidate to some extent, I suppose.

However, I believe you're thinking about this the wrong way. I would suggest trying to find specific potential post-doc hosts - researchers whose work is related to what you are interested in - and contacting them directly rather than thinking of "applications" in the general and the abstract.


Strong opening and closing paragraph I'm going to apply for graduate studies and one of the SOP outline points says

  Have strong opening and closing paragraph

What could be considered a strong paragraph? In my case, the opening paragraph is a mild introduction, not describing things in specific terms, but giving some base points. The closing paragraph sums up the middle-ware (mostly education, work experience and other interests), states my academic goals and future perspective.

Do I understand them, the paragraphs, properly?

Strong is subjective and likely to mean one of two things, either thought provoking or emotionally moving (and possibly both). In general a closing paragraph should not only summarize what has been said before, but synthesize a new statement (or direction of inquiry) from the supporting statements. In academic papers, one leans more towards logic and less towards emotion, however in a proposal like this, you want to get your reader excited about your idea.

You want to stand out for the work you plan to do. Use language that is not 'soft', be confident and point towards facts. Show how your ideas will lead to increased knowledge or productivity and do not make it about you.

Use your conclusion to state how your idea builds on what you have done, what others of done and what positive advances it might lead to if the work is done. Then you might state how this has inspired you to pursue this field.