Career advice - Getting a Math PhD admit in a good program with computer engineering background I have read other threads along similar lines but I am looking for slightly different advice. And I am posting this anonymously because I would rather my current employer did not find out my intentions!

So, I have a bachelors and a masters degree in computer engineering and currently work in one of the top microprocessor companies, which would otherwise be considered the "dream job" for someone with my degrees. However, every day I realize how much I miss Math and really want to go back and have an opportunity to work more with math, particularly in the field of numerical analysis, scientific computing, matrix algebra and the like.

Supporting factors -

I have always done well in math. I can get great recommendation letters from math professors I have taken courses with.
I am a CRLA level 3 certified math tutor. I used to be one when in undergrad.
I am preparing for Math GRE and am confident I can do well in it.
Good undergrad math and engineering GPA.
My masters thesis involved quite a bit of dealing with numbers, since I worked with various LINPACK benchmarks and linear algebra solvers.

Negative factors -

I am not from a very highly reputed school.
I have not published any papers, even though I did write a thesis for my MS in Computer Engineering.
My math courses are the basic math courses engineering students take, along with graduate level math courses in numerical analysis, scientific computing and the like.

How do I go about getting a PhD admit in a reputed Math graduate school? How do I begin to convince professors / hiring committees that I am capable of doing a PhD in Math? I am only looking at quitting my company and switching to PhD studies around either of Fall 2013 or Fall 2014, so I have time. What are some extra-curricular 'outside my day job' activities I can pursue that would further solidify my application in the meantime?

A concern (raised by your background) that occurs to me is that do you really have a clear idea what graduate programs in math are all about? I don't think that any reputable grad school would allow you to study numerical analysis alone ... [Edit taking note of Willie's remark] within a graduate program in pure math - the scene is markedly different if you are applying into a program in applied and/or computational math. I apologize for not knowing that such possibilities exist. My smalltown background left me with the false impression that math and applied math always come together. Such programs may be better suited for you![/Edit] (continued rant) ... For the simple reason that doing research in math requires familiarity with a variety of tools and theories from adjacent, nearby and occasionally relatively remote areas of mathematics.

Is entering a computer science/computer engineering graduate program not an option? Probably you can specialize in scientific computing/numerical analysis in such a program. It may actually be easier to find an advisor in such a topic at a CS department? I don't know for sure, but it sounds like such a plan would entail less risk.

Our resident experts on numerical analysis/scientific computing can give you more useful advice. Below I will say my bit.

Before you burn your boats I would recommend, as an extra-curricular activity, that you take a look at what the obligatory 1st year courses of math programs have in store for you.
The core math at a typical US grad school (for 1st year grad students) contains at lest topology, abstract algebra, real analysis (sorry the link is only to measure theory, couldn't find a more fitting Wikipedia article at this time) and complex analysis. Some places would offer/recommend/require also mathematical logic. After the first year, you are expected to display a working understanding of the theories and results that those articles link to, and be able to reproduce their proofs on demand (ok, the committees will likely give you some slack on the more esoteric proofs, but don't count on it). The depth of those course probably depends on how much ivy the school has. I cannot give details on that for the simple reason that my experience is from a reputable but not top notch grad school, and I have only heard rumors about the others :-).

Only after having covered those basics can you start specializing on a topic that interests you the most.

I don't want to dampen your enthusiasm. I just had a few fellow grad students who were surprised by the graduate curriculum, and either dropped out or had a hard time making through the 1st year. My concern is that you may not fully appreciate how limited your exposure to math actually is (given your background). GRE is a joke, but it does test that you can speedily pick the correct calculus concept/theorem off the shelf in your brains and apply it.

So if going through those links just makes you hungry to learn more, then 'full steam ahead!', but otherwise you may want to reconsider.


How to cite a work in a manuscript that is under review? I have two manuscripts that I am ready to submit in two different journals.

In the first manuscript, I have developed two models to be used for my research. Both of them are new and are an upgrade to the currently used models.

In the second manuscript, I have used one of the models developed in the first manuscript and have carried out an elaborate study. However, I am unsure on how to cite the first manuscript in the second.

Can I cite a submitted manuscript as "under review" in another manuscript? What's the correct procedure for citing under review works?

Yes.  Under review or "in review" are normal and I have used them myself when publishing several papers near simultaneously.  (They were separate enough, different chemistries, that I thought made sense to cut into separate articles.  But, for someone interested in the general area, they likely would want the citation.)  It is to be understood that "under review" does not mean it will EVER get published (but likely will).  You are doing the best you can, at the time.  If the paper never makes it out or shifts to another journal, so be it.

You may also see citations that say "in press" (meaning accepted, but you are lacking the issue and page numbers).  I have even used "in preparation for" and listed the journal I planned to, and did submit to.  And I've even used "unpublished" for work that never saw the light of day (e.g. another worker's parallel chemistry study that was pretty finished, yet shelved as uninteresting...but was relevant to a chemistry to chemistry discussion.)*

The key thing is that you are not trying to get away with anything nefarious.  You are simply doing your best to give citations to other work.  And that will include some not-yet archived research.  You just do the best you can, at the time you submit.

[Obviously if you are claiming some super insight and your current paper is fundamentally dependent on the other work, the editor/reviewer may cavitate and reject.  But if you are just doing good stuff and other work is comparative, not dependent, people will appreciate the citation, not resent it.]

*Even this still has a use.  For one, a simple (non-controversial) insight may be shared, that is scientifically relevant.  In addition, if anyone ever really cares, they might still track down the author.  I. R. Lazyguy; structure of unimportant chemical; 1989; Random Federal Agency; unpublished.


Dealing with add/drop class numbers I'm teaching a new course at a top 50 university where they have an add/drop class policy during the first weeks. This course was previously taught by a different professor whom I don't know, but he generally received favorable reviews.

To my surprise, out of the initial batch (<50), 25% never showed up and another 12.5% ended up dropping the class. I pour my heart and soul into making the class as well as I can (even if it's the first time I teach it), but am very worried about this number.

Does such a dropout rate generally mean that I am indeed failing the students in some way or is this something that happens quite frequently? How do you deal with this?

Let's start with the bottom line.

  How do you deal with this?

This is your first semester teaching the course. Forget analyzing attendance statistics - you should spend your time differently:

Put effort into preparing your classes (actually that's kind of a must)
If you haven't already, do some reading and/or watch videos on presentation skills
Get feedback from other teachers / teaching assistants - even asking one or two of them to sit in on a class, take notes and give you pointers
A bit tricky, but - think of a way to get feedback from students - without turning your class into a discussion panel about the class itself. For example, if there is a web forum or Facebook page where students discuss the class, read some of it (and absolutely do not post anything).

  To my surprise, out of the initial batch (<50), 25% never showed up and another 12.5% ended up dropping the class.

Why are you surprised? If people can relatively freely drop registered classes, they might over-register to begin with and only make the decision what to go to on the first day, or later. They don't know / don't care that "over-subscription" to classes bothers anybody.

  I pour my heart and soul into making the class as well as I can (even if it's the first time I teach it), but am very worried about this number.

Those two things are actually quite orthogonal. Certainly the people who never showed up in the first place have not made any judgment regarding the quality of your classes. And as for the 12.5% - you can't know whether they disliked you as a teacher, or decided the course is not right for them, or any other reason.

  Does such a dropout rate generally mean that I am indeed failing the students in some way or is this something that happens quite frequently?

Given only the information you've provided - you're not failing the students in any way.


PhD from university where I did my bachelor's degree or master's degree? I currently live in New Zealand an I'm studying animal science. I got my bachelor of science in New Zealand (from Massey) and my masters from Melbourne University.

Do you think it is strange if I go back to New Zealand to the same University to do my PhD? I've heard that it is good to go to different Universities for all your degrees to show that you are "open-minded", but if I have already gone to two different universities for my bachelors and masters, am I already showing that I am "open-minded"?

Thanks,

Chris

Well if the topic or material is “local” to that university then it seems logical.

If you are going to study, for example, the effects of tourism on the breeding habits of koala bears then enrolling in the University of Wisconsin or Oxford or Cambridge may not be too helpful.

You should enrol at a Uni that has the course that you want, with the facilities you need and the environment you like - both for work and relaxation. It does not help, if you are happy in the stcks to be in a high-rise neither does moving to the sticks suit a city-dweller...

I am in an establishment where 1 metre of snow is common in winter and some new colleagues find winter just too much and leave...


How do I find a collaborator for a social science research project if I'm not in school? For context: I know exactly the topic and have an idea for the methods. I have done background research and seen what similar research has been done (and how). I have an associate’s degree. I live in Boston where I feel confident there must be some professor or postdoc or grad student who understands the details of the scientific method and academic publishing around here, but I am not in their social circle.

For now, I am mostly looking for someone to at least look over my methods and critique how scientifically sound they are (or perhaps propose better methods). Ideally they would also help me to publish this in an academic journal and offer some guidance as I conduct the project.

I will be doing this research either way as it is about an important social issue. I will be sharing the results with (hopefully) in news media, with (small grassroots) advocacy organizations I work with, and with local legislators. I figure, if I’m doing it either way, it would be best to have the institutional backing of academia. But I don’t really know anyone, so how?

There are a lot of universities in and near Boston. They all have websites and the websites usually include lists of faculty and their specialties. Find someone that way and write to them with a proposal and offer to meet with them personally at their convenience. Introduce yourself and give a bit about your ideas, but don't make it too long.

Even if they don't want to work directly with you, many would be willing to give you advice about how to proceed once they know what your interests are. The larger institutions, with grad students, may even have a way for you to work with one of them. But academics are good at giving advice if nothing else.

But, your proposal will need to be pretty compelling, since such people are pretty busy with their normal tasks. Some people will just ignore you for that reason. Keep trying.


(Soft question?) Sharing knowledge to students, what are the limits? I am an undergraduate lecturer. I have been bothered by this question lately.

I never and never want to claim that what I know, or even what I discover, is mine. Also, things that I discover, small or huge, more likely have been discovered before by someone, but of course I never claim that I am the first one to discover them, and I hope I will not in the future too, no matter how huge it is.

I really want to share what I know/discover to as many people as possible, especially my students, and I won't make them pay me for that, since I've been paid enough and they have paid more than how much I can imagine to the university.

What I know or discover usually is based on the books that I bought and read. The books are protected by the law of course, but then I know students can't afford them, a situation which may (usually) lead them to pirate stuffs. I make and share notes of the books, but what's the difference? Sure I put them in my own words, but still the notes are based on the books. This is just an example with books. Papers, products, etc are different, but the "sharing limit" works similar, perhaps?

The problem is, then, I am a bit afraid of this law about filesharing, copyright, IP, or something like that, which makes me think that we do have limits in order to freely educate students. I just feel that does not sound right.

What are your opinions about this situation of a teacher/lecturer? Will there always be people who "buy" knowledge/products and share them freely and in medium or slowly reaching larger scale, without claiming anything or making money of it? I feel like the limit of sharing exists and exists strongly and hard to break. :/

For actual legal advice, you should consult with your institution's legal department.

Having said that, in most countries, the legal concept of Fair Use protects you from getting in any copyright trouble for normal educational activities. There are limits to fair use (you're not allowed to photocopy a textbook and pass out copies to all your students), but making lecture notes that are based on a copyrighted textbook should be fine, as long as they are tailored to the lectures you are actually giving, and not presented as "here's my summary of the textbook so you don't have to buy it." The exact line where fair use ends is hard to define, and would be up to a judge's discretion if it got that far, but in practice, as long as you don't do anything blatant, you should be fine.


Include publication done outside PhD study While preparing the thesis, there is a section on list of published journal/papers.

Should I include also some published papers before I started doing the PhD study ?

The topics of the previously published papers are not strictly related to the PhD study and not contributing to the content of the thesis.

It sounds like these previous papers were not within the scope of your PhD project, so on that basis should not be mentioned in the thesis.


What can I do to maximize my chances of getting into a CS PhD program if I switched to a CS major during my junior year? I was a business student for my first two years of undergrad but then switched to computer science. I took classes over the summer before my junior year at another school. During my junior year (which I am in now) I am/have taken 7 CS/upper level math courses. During the summer I am doing research and taking non-cs/(core classes for my undergrad curriculum) so that I can take only CS classes senior year. Fall semester of senior year I plan on doing an undergraduate thesis class and take two grad classes, along with another course.

How bad is it for my application if I only have my junior year and first semester of senior year for the admissions committee to review.

I have pretty good grades in my cs/math classes post sophomore year (A's/A-). I plan on having two good recs at least. My main concern is the lack of semesters for the admissions committee to judge me on.

The first two years of undergrad in the US are mostly general education classes anyway, so I wouldn't worry about it. It is common to switch majors.

You seem like you are in great standings. You've taken a fair number of CS classes, received good grades, and will have two good letters. On top of that you'll have research experience and plan to take a few graduate courses.

From the little info you've provided, you seem like you are well on track!


Is it possible to get a Ph.D. position in Europe after a one-year diploma? I had interviewed by a professor for a Ph.D. position in Australia and the application has been unsuccessful. However, the professor wrote I did well in the interview and encouraged me to apply for a one-year diploma or two years master's (As I only have a 4 years bachelor's degree). I want to know what is the main difference? I mean if I do a diploma, will I be eligible for doing a Ph.D. after that? Especially in Europe (as Europe needs a master's for getting a Ph.D.)?

You are eligible for a PhD in some European countries with just a bachelor's degree. There may exist countries - e.g., I believe Germany -* where a master's degree is universally required before a PhD. In other countries, requirements vary between institutes (and supervisors may even insist upon their own requirements). So a list of countries probably isn't useful and exceptions would no doubt exist.

* A comment clarifies that a master's degree is not a universal requirement in Germany. Another comments notes, "it might not be possible to employ the PhD student as a scientific employee (Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter), which is the default for PhD students in many fields," so, for practical purposes I presume a master's is a widespread norm in Germany.


Supervisor asking me to fabricate papers (and other problems) I'm seeking guidance here for a situation which is becoming unsustainable. As you can get from the title, I don't get along with my PhD (STEM) supervisor.

He never cared of my thesis, he doesn't even read my papers at all. All he does is charging me with his ideas that every time turn out to be unsuccessful. Even worse, when an idea of his turns out to be unfeasible, he asks me to fabricate the results (and by fabrication I mean totally invented works). This has become systematic.

For a good part of my PhD I cut him of from my activity, I almost finished my thesis and I published 6 first-author papers, 5 non-first-author papers and about 10 conference papers (I'm not including bogus works in the count).

The problem is that I'm starting an abroad period at another university and I need his recommendation. It goes without saying that he started again with his unethical and time-wasting requests.

After my abroad period, I'll come back some months (six) and finish my PhD. After that I'd like to apply for a postoc in that university.

My question is, if I prove myself during the abroad period, would I still need his recommendation for a postdoc application? Mind that I also have a second advisor for that, in case.

In the six months between my abroad period and the thesis defense I'll be again at his will, so this mean again losing times at crazy ideas and faking papers. I need to dump him as soon as I can. Will I need him for a postdoc, if they already know me at the place where I want to apply?

Never ever fabricate. I repeat: never ever fabricate.

If you do not manage to get a suitable reference from your superviser, your career may or may not take a nosedive, depending how lucky you are to find someone else to write you  recommendations.

But if you fabricate, you will be found out if your research is of any relevance whatsoever (and if it is not, why do this research in the first place?) and then your career, sooner or later, will be destroyed with no hope of recovery.

Addendum: in my personal opinion, the two capital crimes in science are plagiarism and fabrication. But, in my very personal opinion, fabrication is the worse of the two, because it wastes many people's time and effort in trying to reproduce the results.


How to begin proper research at undergraduate level? I am currently an undergraduate medical student studying in South Africa. In future I would like to do academic research but I'm not sure in what field. But I would like to get a head start now as an undergraduate. My exposure to research is very limited in the current curriculum. The most we do are research reports but that just entails compiling information from existing literature, we do not come up with our own ideas. As an undergraduate, I don't have a lot of technical or in-depth clinical knowledge so that limits me at this stage in what I can pursue. My university does not have any active undergraduate research programs. How can I start to pursue research and what fields are within my scope? I have heard of research assistants but am unsure of who to approach and what skills they need from me.

Although I am not versed in how undergraduate research is viewed in South Africa, I will answer from a U.S. perspective.

Your best bet as an undergraduate is to approach professors who are doing work that interests you. It is okay to not have specific research experience in a field: you have to start someplace, and professors will know this. There may be jobs posted for undergraduate students, or you could ask professors you have taken courses with if they have room in their lab or if they know another professor who is looking for undergraduate help. Tell them what you are able to offer: you want research experience, you are interested in topic X, you can commit Y hours per week, you took a lab course in Z. Be prepared for and not discouraged by rejection, not everyone will have time or space for new undergraduate.

If you are most interested in clinical research, your opportunities may be more limited but the basic approach is the same: approach physician-scientists who do work that interests you.

Sometimes (again, this is in the U.S.) there are credit-based positions available for undergraduates where you will do some work and get credit rather than pay for the time you put in.

In general, as an undergraduate, my opinion is that your experience in a lab should be a hybrid between the work you do for the lab and the knowledge you gain. The work you do might be menial at first: washing dishes, preparing solutions, caring for research animals or cell lines - these tasks take minimal training, so you can be useful immediately. However, you should also be involved in technical conversations, you should be reading new literature in your field (and discussing papers with your colleagues), and over time you should be learning more advanced or specialized techniques.

If you are able to spend more than a year or so in a lab, you should expect to be involved in a real project that could potentially lead to a publication, though it will probably not be your own project - that's okay, you will still be learning skills that apply to your future research endeavors (or, alternatively get you enough experience to learn that you don't enjoy a particular approach).


Can applicants answer faculty campus interview questions while checking their notes? During faculty campus interview, is it possible for applicants to check their notes from papers or laptops, or should everything be memorized? In other words, are faculty interviews open book or closed book? Does it make a difference for the search committee if applicants want to check their notes? Having the ability to check personal notes would be useful to list all relevant points in order, unless this is not allowed or can affect applicants. In addition, I found that some suggests to prepare notes for phone interviews, however, can such notes be used in on-campus interview?

Examples of using notes while interview:

List future research plans - 10-15 points
List names of collaborators - 10-15 names
Style of teaching - 10-15 points
Names and research area of the department faculty members - 15-20

Given the tags, I assuming you are talking about interviewing for a faculty position. (Not that it really matters; my answer would be the same for a graduate interview).

In general:

Having some notes that you look at between interviews -- e.g. on the research of each faculty member who you will meet -- is just fine and probably a good idea. I'd just try to look at them unobtrusively, e.g. in the bathroom rather than while walking across campus with the chair.
I would consider it extremely strange if a faculty candidate turned to notes or to the web to answer a question that I had just asked. Even thinking about the interview as an exam indicates a substantial misunderstanding about the process. You certainly should know things like your own research plans, the names of your collaborators, how you like to teach, etc.
There is an exception, though. If a candidate wants to show me something about her research, a laptop, tablet, or even printed paper can be quite useful. I've had applicants use a tablet to very good effect in answering questions about their work. Not because they don't remember -- that would be the kiss of death -- but because the tablet allows them to call up figures and illustrations that allow them to better explain the findings to me and/or go beyond what was printed in their papers.


How should I format code words in my personal statement? I'm applying to Master's programs for Statistics. In my personal statement, I mention the names of some R packages like car, ggvis, and effects when I talk about professors that I would be interested in working with and some of my own research. Typically when people write about these, they are just all lowercase letters, not italicized or anything.

It looks really weird in a regular Word document, especially since "car" and "effects" are regular words. I'm afraid that it may look out of place. Is it okay if I change the font to the code font so it looks like ggvis and effects? I wouldn't use the grey background, but the serif typewriter font is pretty standard for bits of code, right? I'm afraid it will look unprofessional for academic/business writing.

Probably you are thinking about this too hard: as long as it's clear what you're saying and choosing a reasonable form of presentation, it's probably fine.  Monospace font is one way to do this, another way is to put the names in quotes, just like you did in your question.

If you want to be really cautious, you can look at scientific papers from the field and see what conventions people tend to use.  That way, you will be certain that your readers will find your presentation familiar.


How to cite something when you cannot remember where you've read it? Let's say you're writing a paper about a novel problem in Mathematics. While writing the paper you remember an interesting result concerning a different related problem. You can derive that result from memory, but you cannot remember where exactly you've read it - it could've been a paper, a pre-print on Arxiv.org, a post on Math.SE, a book from the library, a lecture that you've attended, etc. No matter how hard you try you cannot find the exact source.

What is one supposed to do in this situation?

Since you're already here, an obvious step would be to post a question on a relevant Stack Exchange site. (Other websites are available.) Such questions are routinely asked and answered on MathOverflow, for example.

Similarly, asking colleagues can also work. They don't necessarily need to be people you know personally either. There's often someone in a field with a reputation for a "near-encyclopedic knowledge of the literature" you could send an email to.

However, if nothing works, honesty is the best approach. Just present it as a known result of unknown origin, or something to that effect. Here's an example where that kind of formulation is used for a problem, not a result, but the same idea applies.


Reasons for long peer review times I am in math, and it occurred to me that in average, I receive answers to submission of my papers after about 8 months. In the journals I submit to, there is almost always only one referee report.

In recent years I served as a reviewer for many of these journals. The editors of these journals almost always ask me for a report within 2-3 months.

Where do the extra 5-6 months of wait come from?

As an editor, I can say that although we ask for reviews within a certain time-frame, we almost always get some reviews back late. But what often takes more time is finding willing reviewers in the first place. My journal aims to get four reviews for each manuscript, but usually settles for three. I start by sending out requests to five potential reviewers. Two weeks later, I might have accepts from two potential reviewers, declines from two, and no reply from number five. I'll send a reminder to potential reviewer number five. A week later, still not having heard back, I cancel that request and invite another two potential reviewers. Two weeks later, if I haven't heard back, or if they both decline, I'll look for more possibilities. Sometimes I get three reviewers on the first try, but sometimes, the process takes many weeks. We give our reviewers 21 days to return the review. In maths, I understand that reviewers are given longer, because they are expected to check the proofs in detail. Regardless of how long they are given, it is normal for some reviews to be late. Editors send out a reminder. Then a second reminder. Some reviewers, despite having agreed, never reply. In that case, we need to start the whole process again. This is why some manuscripts take so long to review.


Questions about contacting a professor for getting PhD I have contacted a professor about the availability of a PhD position.
And I got the following responses:

  I would be interested to explore the opportunities for you to come and complete a PhD in the Precision Livestock Management group that I lead. I have attached a formal application form for you to complete. One of the issues that we will need to address is funding. I do not have any current direct funding, however, it is possible that depending on the project area I could seek some indirect support from the University to waive the overseas fees. We would still need to find funds to cover your living expenses. Do you have any opportunities for funding to support your PhD?

  I would also be interested to hear what areas of research you would more specifically like to focus on that might relate to precision livestock management?

My Response:

  Thanks for your message and consideration.

  Actually, as you may know finding the financial support is not simple, usually. Honestly, I am not so optimistic to find one. However, I will keep eyes to find any financial support.

  Herewith are the topics that I would prefer to do the research on them:
      .
      .
      .

  Besides, in the case you have any suggestion about a topic please let me know.

  To complete the application form I have to attach the research proposal. Thus, I would be grateful if I could have your confirmation for the topic.

Then, I sent him a required information and got the following answer:

  I will give some thought to possible project areas. In your initial application you will need to say that you are applying for a full fee-paying place. We can then explore options for securing funds for a project.

Actually, it is my first serious contact with a professor.
Does his response include any sign that I may get the position?
How serious is the position?
Should I count on this position?
He asked me to fill in the application form. Am I supposed to send the application form to him or the admission office?
He told me, he will give some thought to possible project areas. One of the required documents for application form is the research proposal. Should I wait for his thoughts and write a research proposal based on that? Should I follow up his thoughts?
Within which timeframe should this procedure usually be completed?

This doesn't look very good. The guy is happy to take you on, but requires that you pay full tuition fees for your studies and is only willing to “explore options for securing funds” after you do so. This would be expected at undergrad level, but for a PhD it means either he is not very interested in you, or he doesn't have funding but is not willing to decline a potential student. In any case, it doesn't look good.


Should a full manuscript be available for a book proposal? I've been given some conflicting advice about preparing book proposals and manuscripts for academic presses. I'm aware that writing books is a lengthy process etc; however, I've also been told by a friend in the research office who handles applications that to be competitive at all for DECRA and other fellowships, I need at least 9 publications and one book behind me to be considered a strong applicant.

So I've been thinking about this book idea (cross-disciplinary social sciences/cultural studies) for awhile, some of which would come from my PhD, other bits as new material. It is something I would like to write, not for money, mostly for myself, somewhat for career. I submitted a brief enquiry to a potential publisher who said they'd be interested in seeing a book proposal on the topic I offered which I have the template for.

My question concerns whether the book should already be written, or if a proposal and sample material can suffice in early stage? Some colleagues have told me that the latter is preferred, I don't need to have a complete manuscript prepared. Advice online is conflicting, some telling me I should have a whole manuscript prepared as an ECR to be ready to submit, others telling me only a partial is fine.

Any guidance would be appreciated!

Below responses were not helpful:

Is it bad practice to submit the entire manuscript for an initial book proposal to a publisher?
What are the most important points to emphasize while pitching for a dissertation to be published as a book?
Publishing thesis as a book
When to publish a book?
Publication Strategy for book manuscript
How do I convert my PhD dissertation so that it can be published as a book?

The reason there is so much conflicting advice going around about book publishing and book proposals is that in this area there are no clear rules, only different approaches, each with their own pros and cons, risks and rewards. Some authors do it one way, others do it another way; some publishers will only consider a largely complete manuscript, others are fine with a short proposal and a chapter or other sample. How you would want to go about it would depend on virtually everything about you, your goals and career situation, your book idea, and the publisher you are thinking of publishing with.

Here are some of the pros of submitting a book proposal at an early stage in your project:

You will be able to get feedback on your writing and on your idea at an early stage. Especially if you are uncertain about whether your writing is good enough or whether your idea is attractive enough, such feedback can be crucial and enable you to either back out of the idea at an early stage without a high sunk cost if it turns out to be a really bad one, or recalibrate and redefine the scope of the project if the idea is good but can be improved even more using the feedback you get. The end result can be a much better book than you would write by yourself without any feedback.
If your proposal is accepted, you will then sign a contract, which is a psychological reward that can motivate you to keep working.
The contract will come with a deadline for delivery of the completed manuscript. Again, psychologically this is very helpful for many authors who may find it hard to make consistent progress with a project that spans several years without concrete goals, someone they are officially accountable to, and a timeline they can reference to measure their progress.
Although (as far as I know) a book contract for a book in progress usually does not count officially towards tenure and promotion decisions, in many places it can count unofficially, in the sense that you can tell your colleagues about it, they will be impressed, and will be inclined to weigh your case a bit more favorably and to cut you a bit more slack for the reduced number of ordinary papers you will likely be publishing during the book writing period.

Here are some of the cons of submitting a book proposal at an early stage, or equivalently, the pros of waiting until your project is more mature:

If your writing and the book idea are good already without any feedback (or if you have some other very knowledgeable person who can give you feedback so you don't need the publisher's input for that), then your proposal will have a higher chance of being accepted if you submit a more mature proposal later on when you already have several chapters completed, since the publisher will see that you are serious, committed to your project, and will have more completed material by which to judge the proposal. (In an extreme case, when you have a finished manuscript, obviously that can be quite reassuring to a publisher and eliminate a large source of risk to them, again assuming the book is actually good.)
This one is a bit speculative, but I believe that for similar reasons, submitting a proposal in a more mature stage of the project puts you in a better negotiating position. As a result, you might for example aim to publish with a more prestigious publisher than you would otherwise. Or, depending on how much you care about the terms of your contract and what precisely you are hoping to achieve, you may be able to negotiate higher royalties, or other things about the book that may be important to you (e.g.: color figures; keeping ownership of the copyright, translation rights, rights to use another publisher for a future edition; permission to make the book available to download on your personal web page; etc.). Money-wise you almost certainly won't be making much money anyway so it's probably a non-issue, but the other things could be important and are worth putting some thought into.

To summarize, this decision is a delicate balancing act. Much depends on factors like where you are in your career; your personality; how many years you can afford to wait before you get the satisfaction and professional prestige of a signed book contract; how much you trust yourself to deliver on a very substantial commitment made early on in the life of the project when you are still full of passion and energy (trust me, by the time it's over you'll want to never look at the damn thing again...); how confident you are in the quality of your work; how much you value and need feedback from others; and many other things. Good luck!

[Source: personal opinion, informed by my own experience publishing a book.]


"Storytelling" in the introduction: Math papers This question is about best practices of writing manuscripts in mathematics.

Q. How much "storytelling" in the introduction section of a math paper is "appropriate"?

To clarify what I mean by "storytelling" let me give an example but of course one can find numerous of such cases:
In the introduction of a math paper(which I'd rather to keep the names anonymous) almost half of the first page is dedicated to saying what happened in friends gathering and that the author bet on bottle of wines that certain problem has solutions and what not. It was really annoying to me. I wondered why readers need to know all that and how are these stories are even relevant?

Side note: It seems to me sometimes journal editors demonstrate double standards and approve/disapprove this "story telling" matter depending who you are and where you stand in the field.

I propose the following guideline as a basis for answering your question: what is "appropriate" is for the author(s) of the article to try to write the best paper they can write, and for the journal editor and reviewer to make helpful suggestions about small changes the authors can make to improve the paper even more. In my humble opinion, the editor should generally not require changes to the paper unless they feel that they are seriously necessary to keep the quality of the paper at the standards of the journal. Thus, there should be a bit of room for authors to impose their creative vision on the work, which also includes the freedom to make wrong judgment calls that annoy some readers.

If you accept the premise above, it follows that if the authors of the paper thought the story with the wine bottles makes the paper better, the editor should let them include it, even if he/she personally disagrees with the decision.

TL;DR: within reasonable limits (and half a page sounds reasonable to me), it is the authors who should decide what is appropriate. Some readers may be displeased, but that is true about almost anything that one writes.


Are professors' salaries a function of the amount of grant funding they obtain? Some professors direct large research programs. What is the typical practice for compensating them?

For example, it is not unusual for a top professor to be directing $30 million in research grants every year. If the professor got only 1% of this, it would be a salary of $300,000 per year. I would assume they are paid more than that.

Please do not answer vaguely (impossible to know, it differs from place to place). Obviously, it differs from place to place. I want to know the general and typical practices. What is a common method of compensation.

I am just interested here in compensation for grant-making ability. So, if that is a factor in salary, I would like to know the effect on salary.

In the United States, the amount of money that a professor makes is not generally a percentage of the amount of funding that they have under management.  Instead, professors are typically guaranteed a 9-month salary and can supplement with 3 additional grant-funded months (generally at the same rate) for summer.  That salary is set by a combination of regulation, negotiation, and academic rank, in a manner vaguely similar to salaries at a large corporation.

Thus, high funding correlates with high salary because a well-funded professor is also likely to be progressing in their compensation package, but there is typically an effective "cap" on the amount that a professor can receive through their university (consulting, startups, and patent licensing fees may be an entirely different matter, but again are not actually determined by research funding, just correlated as being another common product of a successful research).

As for the actual compensation of specific faculty: for most US state-funded institutions, you can find complete salary databases published as public records.  For example, here is one for Berkeley.  Private institutions have relatively similar compensation rates (or a bit higher), since top private institutions are competing with top public institutions for the same talent.


What to do if a co-author is delaying announcement of results? I am finishing writing a joint paper with a collaborator and we are both extremely excited about the results. However, we cannot agree on when to announce the results.

In my opinion the paper is essentially ready and we should announce the results very soon. The field in which we are working in is booming right now, there are several brilliant, quick people we are competing with. We have a breakthrough result and in my field it is not unusual to see people arrive at the same results simultaneously and independently. Seeing a lot of activity and knowing more or less what people are working on I feel that we need to secure priority essentially immediately. This would mean e.g. circulating the current version of the preprint among colleagues or, ideally, posting it on a preprint server.

My co-author on the other hand would like to explore other potential applications of our results. The main result of the paper is complete, and the only question is how many applications we can have. We currently have 5 very nice applications but my co-author would like to look for more. If they are found they would be certainly good, but at this point it is more of a fishing expedition. However, because of this my co-author demands that we announce our results three months from now and is insisting on a gag order until then. (In our field it is not uncommon to lose results to dishonest researchers who learn about your result early and can try to publish/attach their name to it before you).

Basically, I feel like we are sitting at a roulette table with a million dollars but instead of cashing in we are waiting to see if we can win another 100k.
I would really appreciate some advice on how to reasonably resolve this situation.

I think you should push harder to get the paper onto arXiv. The important thing is to have a rational discussion with your co-author where you discuss your worries and try to address them. Here are some additional arguments you can try to use to convince your co-author:

If someone discovered your main results and puts it on arXiv right now, you lose potentially a lot. (Though not everything; if the result is reasonably deep posting your paper one or two days after the other group will result in recognition as "simultaneous discovery" at least.)
If you posted your paper and someone else derived good applications from it, you still gain some increases in your h-index (probably).
Posting things on arXiv does not mean the paper is immutable. You can continue to think about further applications and revise the paper as necessary. It is only after you submitted the paper at a journal for review that you really have to start worrying about making big changes to the manuscript.

But absent you finding out exactly why it is that your co-author is reluctant to post the manuscript on arXiv, the brainstorming sessions with strangers on the internet can only go so far.

I probably am not familiar with your subfield of mathematics, but this mentality of "In mathematics being able to apply your result is what makes it more sellable, papers are sometimes turned down if the result itself is too technical but there are no applications in sight" is foreign to me. In PDEs frequently a technique is developed to solve one or two problems initially. And the originators then work very hard the next few years to extend the technique to apply to many different problems. It is surprising that you are still worrying about the number of applications when you already have five!


On working as a freelance copy-editor in graduate school Is it advisable for a graduate student to work as a freelance
  copy-editor (for few hours a month, for papers in his/her area of interest)?

This topic emerged a few days ago during a conversation among a few colleagues of mine; we came up with the following upsides and downsides:

Upsides:

(1) increased financial independence;

(2) valuable training.

Downsides:

(1) possibly time consuming and stressful.

  Is there any other upside or downside we may have overlooked? (For
  example, could this kind of experience turn out to be a positive
  addition to an academic CV?)

Who says you're any good at it? Why would a colleague pay you for such a service when many lab-mates or other colleagues would do so for free or a promise to return the favor later? Who says anyone local to your area would pay you for such a service? Freelance implies not working for an existing service, so are you prepared to deal with the necessary tax implications of being self-employed (in the US or your country)?

I wouldn't expect this to appear on a CV, and I would find it strange if I read a CV with it this experience listed unless the candidate worked for a professional editing service (where it might be a plus for them).


Should you mention your ranking in specific courses in statement of purpose? I would like to know if it is good to talk about your outstanding ranking in important courses in your statement of purpose.

For example, is it good to say I took "Quantum physics" in the second year and my rank was 1st out of 100 students? Or to mention a list of courses where my rank was 1st or 2nd among many students in the university?

The reason I am asking is because your transcript does not give the complete story of how well you were doing in your courses. You might get an A, but so did 20 other people.

I'm assuming that you're talking about Ph.D. admissions, rather than masters' admissions, which often play by very different rules from department to department and institution to institution.

Comparing classes across institutions is virtually impossible, to the point where some graduate schools require you to state the textbooks associated with your undergraduate courses in order to evaluate you.  A better way to think about how grades relate to Ph.D. admissions is as a negative filter: if you have iffy grades, then you will not be considered.  If you have excellent grades, then you will be placed into a large pile of other excellent students, which is then sifted to see who also has interesting potential to do something besides problem sets.

As such, rather than putting down a rank, ask yourself this: are any of the classes you performed excellently in ones where the professor might be willing to write a letter recommending you for insight or creativity or something else beyond mere mechanical brilliance?  That will go much farther toward getting you admitted.


Professor agreed for a Skype meeting and then didn't follow up. Also hasn't responded to a reminder I sent a week after. Should I move on? A week ago, I contacted a professor regarding a PhD position in his group. He replied by saying that he is in search for a PhD student and after examining my CV, he said that he would like to organize a meeting over Skype and also asked for my transcripts. Therefore, I suggested him a date and time for the meeting and also sent him the official academic transcripts but he hasn't responded since then. I had also sent him a gentle reminder a week after my last correspondence. Still no reply from his side. How should I interpret this? Should I move on?

These things could happen due to a million reasons.

My advice,

Don't wait for other people, until you get a signed contract keep looking for other opportunities. This doesn't mean give this up, but it means that you shouldn't stop searching for other things.

There are too many reasons why this might be happening to list them all (ie he's ill, family commitments, travelling, etc.).

If he didn't agree on the Skype call, then technically, he hasn't left you standing.

I suggest trying to get a contact number and calling. Professors get bombard with e-mails daily and it's easy for some to get through the net. If you call and he answers, an easy way to start talking is saying something along the lines of "Hey, I'm just checking everything is OK" or "Hey, could we set a type for that Skype call".

Good luck.


Is it a minor or major revision, if only one of the reviewers asks for major? I got a review from a reputed Elsevier journal. There're three reviewers, one decided recommend acceptation, other recommended a minor revision and the last one recommended a major revision.
Overall, is it a major or minor revision then?

It's up to the editor to make the decision. Their job is to read the reviews and decide if the criticism is substantial enough to justify a major revision.
If the editor is lazy, they might resort to shortcuts, such as: follow the least favorable recommendation, or take the average of all recommendations. But that is a poor practice.


Is it ethical to withdraw paper that received poor reviews in first phase of reviewing and resubmit it without significant revisions? Many conferences in my field use two-phase reviewing: in the first phase, 2-3 reviewers review the paper; their reviews are made available to the authors; the authors are given a chance to respond; and then in the second phase, the reviewers read the authors' response and the program chairs might optionally solicit additional reviews.

If a paper receives poor reviews after the first phase, so that it looks like the paper is likely to be rejected, is it ethical to withdraw the paper and submit it elsewhere, without making significant changes?

I read Ethical implications of withdrawing a paper during the rebuttal phase and submitting it somewhere else, which asks about a similar question, but I am interested in the specific case where the authors were well-intended (they submitted to the first conference with the legitimate hope it would be accepted) but do not plan to make significant revisions before re-submitting -- a case that is not covered by the answers there.  For instance, it is not uncommon to submit to a selective conference in hopes that it will be accepted, discover that the reviewers don't consider it strong enough for publication there, and then consider submitting to a less selective conference.  (So it's not that the paper is flawed, but it isn't strong enough in its current form.)

There is absolutely no ethical concern or constraint at all here. The reviews you get in academia for such works are a gift to the community and to you. You have complete control over the paper until you give up your rights to it. The reviewers aren't paid by the conferences (or journals). If I as a reviewer help you improve a paper you have submitted to conference A and it later appears at conference B instead, everyone has gained. And you aren't bound to take my advice. There is no contract to that effect. If I review your paper, I get no rights to take over its content or ideas.

Moreover, it may be that the paper without change is actually appropriate elsewhere and the reviews were colored to some extent by the nature of the conference.

Most academic conferences aren't held as profit making concerns and nearly everyone involved is a volunteer (some support staff may be paid). It is a service we do th the idea of scholarship itself, nothing more.

If I give you a gift, it is yours to use as you like or not and welcome. You have taken nothing that wasn't given freely.

Over the course of your life you have gotten a lot of advice. Some of it you even solicited. But much of it you probably ignored. It was advice, nothing more. Use it if it is valuable.

While there are no ethical concerns, there are some practical ones. The sets of reviewers in the various CS conferences overlap somewhat. And if you got particular reviewer for one, there is a non-zero chance the same person will come up again, especially for topics with few available reviewers.


Can I and how to offer to translate papers (on COVID-19)? In light of the recent pandemic of COVID-19 spreading in the world, there have been many Chinese papers with only English abstracts published in Chinese journals. Some western papers have cited the Chinese papers, but only based on the abstract as the author would say they do not understand the Chinese full text.

I am a graduate student in the medical field with a good grasp of Chinese and English. Can I translate without permission, or offer to translate, these papers and publish in an indexed English journal/source? If I make the offer, what is the appropriate etiquette and considerations?

At the scale of one person, you could do the following. If you find a paper that you think merits translation, contact the authors and offer your services directly to them. They might not be able to help much if their research is ongoing, but would, I think, respond positively. You could also suggest appropriate English language journals to them that might publish the translations. I can't predict how that would work, but archives might be appropriate.

I think that a lot of researchers in China (as everywhere) have a working knowledge of English and so could probably vet any translations you do for accuracy.

As for the etiquette, just ask, introducing yourself. Or even send along a sample translation of a part of a paper as a calling card.

I don't think that copyright can be ignored unless governments intervene to change the rules. It might happen due to the seriousness of the issue.

But being in contact with researchers who have been with this since the beginning might actually be an advantage to your career also.


Supervisor demanding impossible workload at the very end of my PhD. Considering change of supervisor I am a PhD student in computer vision and I managed to publish 2 conference papers (one as first author and other as co-author) as a side project, since I had low quality data during my PhD.

Currently my supervisor is demanding a huge amount of work to be completed in 6 months - he is telling me to write 2 journal papers and a thesis!

My PhD always had problems with lack of data, but my supervisor never acknowledged that. After my papers had been rejected because of the low quality data, he acknowledged we needed to develop a better dataset.
So, I have been working for one year developing a novel high quality dataset for my PhD. But the problem is, I just have 6 months left and he is demanding at least 2 journal papers before the submission of my thesis.

I suggested to him to extend my PhD. He replied that I am allowed to take more time to complete my PhD, but he won't give funding to me after the original time passes. My supervisor actually has money for funding, since a post-doc left the project. But he said he will use this money to extend the contract of the other post-doc (the latter post-doc already has a 2 year contract).

It took 2 years to convince my supervisor that we needed a better dataset. I could be developing it from the first day of my PhD. Therefore, I consider it not my fault that I am in this situation where I am experiencing a major setback and now I am being rushed to complete my PhD.

To add to this, after I had developed the dataset, my supervisor is now giving it to new PhD students...

To give a bit of context, we had access to some prototypical sensor from the physics department, which I can use to collect lab data (the low quality data  that I had to work with in the beginning), but the sensor is really bad for the type of computer vision research that I am conducting. I always wanted a commercial sensor so I could collect more realistic data that would represent my PhD topic. I used the lab data for my research as I had no other choice at the time, but my paper was rejected because the reviewers claimed my dataset was not realistic, so they could not evaluate if my method would work for more realistic scenarios. After I developed the new dataset (after I managed to get my supervisor to buy a new sensor from my funds allocated for PhD travel), my supervisor is requesting to me to still work with the lab data and publish it before I move to the new realistic dataset.

Furthermore, my supervisor doesn't have knowledge about my research topic - all the meetings that I had with him were me explaining very basic concepts to him. I have been working completely alone, and I do not benefit from real academic discussions with him.

I suggested that I could work just with the lab data and write my thesis about it, and he could hire me as research assistant afterwards and I could publish more papers on the new dataset. But he wants me write 2 journal papers (one with the lab data and other with the new dataset) before the end of my PhD!

I never had a good relationship with my supervisor, he constantly criticises my work and never shows an alternative solution. And changing supervisor in my case is a bit more challenging since my PhD is industry funded and we have to sign a NDA.

I really think I don't have time to write both journals. I don't know what to do... I won't work without funding. I am really considering going until the end and asking for change of supervisor at any cost (but afraid of the consequences).

I agree with user Maarten Buis that this is probably too personal to really give good advice. But let me suggest a few things.

You should probably optimize everything now for quick completion of your degree under a situation over which you have little control.

While you can ask your supervisor for more funding, he has already said no. What has changed to make him say yes?

While you can complain to the institute that would most likely result in animosity from your advisor, not helping your path to completion.

While you can ask for a different supervisor, that would set you back, possibly for years and not necessarily leaving you in a better situation, depending on the local culture generally.

You have been given a steep hill to climb - two papers, etc. Start climbing. Do what you can. That is, in fact, all you can do anyway, but give it a good effort. Everything you do for that will get you closer to completion and will help build a good record of accomplishment for a future position.

I would, myself, try to work on the two papers in tandem. Getting a rough outline of both as quickly as possible and then filling in the details as it becomes possible. I assume that the work behind the dissertation contributes to the papers and is done or nearly so. That might make it possible to work on all three items simultaneously. Then, as the deadlines approach you will have made progress and if you need additional time for completion you have an argument for it and additional funding.

No, it isn't right or fair. But a short term push toward a better future might be better than just fighting it when you have not much chance of winning the fight.


Is "Advances in Engineering" a predatory platform? I have received an e-mail from "Advances in Engineering". Is it a predatory-platform? Is it reputable?

...

Dear Dr. XYZ,

We are pleased to inform you that Advances in Engineering selection committee identified your paper “Another XYZ” as a key scientific article contributing to research excellence. We would like to write a feature about your paper and highlight it in our next edition of Advances in engineering news series.

AIE highlight papers of exceptional scientific importance to a broad science and engineering audience (for the latest edition https://advancesENG.com). The feature is intended to globally disseminate research excellence across academia and in the wider community, and to inspire new research directions.

AIE reaches a global audience of 850,000 professors and scientists per month who seek the key research news and accomplishments in engineering. Papers featured at AIE gain extensive visibility and increased citations.

If you accept our special invitation, our professional writers will write a high quality feature draft about your research paper (significance of the work done) and then share it with you for final approval.

AIE is not-for-profit focused on serving research excellence. However, there is a small nominal fee for featuring key scientific articles at AIE ($75 USD total fee) to cover AIE writers’ time in preparing the feature. We can send you an official invoice and we will feature your research within 14 days.

At AIE, we highlight the researchers work at the cutting edge of science, those who are developing the innovations that will lead to a brighter tomorrow. I look forward to hearing from you.

Respectfully,

ZYX

ZYX, PhD MBA
VP Scientific affairs, Advances in Engineering

38 Auriga Drive, Suite 200. Ottawa, ON K2E 8A5, Canada

A human writing to you about your research would say something about your research and say how it contributes to research excellence. Spam bots tend to use a general template and refer to your research in a way that is easy to automate, for example, copy your title in verbatim.

  We are pleased to inform you that Advances in Engineering selection committee identified your paper “Another XYZ” as a key scientific article contributing to research excellence. We would like to write a feature about your paper and highlight it in our next edition of Advances in engineering news series.

This clearly falls to the spam category.


What advice would you give students applying for graduate school in mathematics? I work in the mathematics department of a university that has a new, small, mathematics bachelor's degree program, and no graduate mathematics programs.  Some of our students are looking for advice on how to successfully apply for graduate school.  I don't know what to tell them.  Everyone in my department (myself included) applied to graduate school so long ago that I think our advice may not be relevant.  I don't think anyone else who works for my university knows more than my department colleagues do.

What are good things for students at a small school to do to get into graduate school in mathematics?  In particular, what are some things that might not be obvious to mathematics professors who've been out of graduate school for a few decades?

EDIT: In response to this question being put on hold for being "too broad", here is my modified question: What advice would you give students applying for graduate school in mathematics in 2014 that you would not have given them a decade or two ago? In other words, how would the advice differ?  I am thinking both about what students have to do as undergrads and about the application process itself (which I assume is done online nowadays).

I personally had the experience of applying to graduate school from a very small college that has not produced many math Ph.D.s (though oddly enough, I'm not the only 2002 BA graduate working at an R1 university in North America) not so far in the misty depths of time.  Of course, I only have a couple of data points, but let me try to give my thoughts.

I think one thing is you've really got to get the basic stuff right: take the hardest classes available to you from the selections you have (and you should note in your letters that the student did this!) and ace them.  Do well on the general and subject GREs.  I assume you could have told them those.

I think the biggest non-obvious thing is that it's essential to seek out experiences outside your small program.  If you're at a large school with its own graduate program, probably you have all the resources you'll need at your fingertips, but in a smaller program, I don't think you really have the ability to fully prepare someone for graduate school.   Study abroad is good for this (I went to BSM in Budapest, but there are other programs).  So are REU's (I did the one at LSU).  On a smaller scale, you might be able to take more advanced courses at a nearby college (for example, students at Smith and Amherst can take graduate courses at UMass), or do a guest semester somewhere in the US (like at the Penn State MASS program).

These will, of course, be generally enriching experiences, but they also help by giving some real points of comparison.  Graduate schools know what an A at BSM means (where they might not know it for your school); a professor who supervised you at an REU can speak with authority about having supervised many talented young people, and having some experience with which of them succeed in grad school.

Another possibility is working at summer mathematics program like PROMYS  or Canada/USA Mathcamp (there are many other) though I think you should give some weight to activities like REU which are more likely to result in letters.

EDIT: I'll just note that what I've written about is still advice from the Web 1.0 world, but it's not so clear to me what Web 2.0 has changed about the admission process.  I think it has made communicating with other people going through the process easier (for example, you can see in essentially real time which schools are sending out acceptances and rejections.  This seems more likely to drive you insane than help though).  I think for students at a smaller school this can be a boon (for example, the applicant profiles in this thread could be helpful for understanding where they might get in, though it's worth a reminder to take things with a grain of salt).

I think one thing I didn't know was that it's very reasonable to contact the Director of Graduate Studies at programs that interest you if you have questions.  Don't be a pest about it (only email if you have a real question), but communicating with applicants is part of the job, though my DGS may not appreciate me telling the internet that (sorry, Tom).

The Web, of course, has also changed research about grad schools a lot.  In theory, you can know a lot more about individual professors now than it would have been easy to figure out even 10, but especially 20 years ago.  It's not super clear to me that this will help very much though.  I generally feel like researching individual professors before starting grad school is a mug's game, since you're so likely to shift interests.  I think it's much wiser to choose based on the program, and then worry about getting an advisor after a year or so of grad school when you know a bit more.


Style for first introduction sentence - citation required for lurid statement? I'm trying to write my first introduction sentence, which should be catchy. I came up with a sentence along the lines of "imagine the world without this super thing, all these things wouldn't be possible". Obviously, this case will not occur in the next million years and I guess I won't be able to find any paper supporting my claims. However, the described consequences still seem realistic.

As the rest of the introduction is very technical and dry, I think a fresh start is quite nice, but I'm worried someone might say that this first sentence is not scientific as nobody can back up my statement.

Is having a bit more colloquial or lurid kick-off sentence considered to be a "good" or "bad" scientific writing style?

I think there is a non negligible chance that this will make a bad first impression on the readers.

Don't get me wrong: I love it when people depart from the dry and oft boring “academic style” of writing and try to invigorate their papers: more concise writing, less use of conditional, more direct statements, use of active voice, stating one's opinion when need be, etc. But this should be done with the goal of making your paper easier to read, and not hyping it. If you start with a broad claim that has little to do with your actual conclusions, you may alienate some readers (“hey, I read the paper because the first line said that a world without gluons would be beneficial in the long term, but then it's only a boring particle physics paper!”).

To give a specific example, when I read papers dealing with physical and chemical properties of water, oftentimes the authors think it wise to start their introduction with a broad statements like:

  Water is the most abundant molecule of the human body, and the second most common molecule in the Universe. Its presence or absence has dramatic consequences for human life and civilization: droughts cause famines and floods cause death and disease. Though it has a special relationship with our everyday lives, there is still much we need to learn about it.

and then end with:

  In conclusion, we reported the most accurate measurement yet of the bending vibration frequency of heavy water, with an uncertainty of 10–9.

It annoys me.


Interview for a faculty position after accepting a postdoc offer I recently talked with a professor about his offer to me a postdoc position. Later on I was notified about an interview for a tenure-track faculty position. So, I am wondering, if I have accepted the Postdoc offers, can I still proceed with the faculty position interview? I don't want to lose the postdoc offer, and also the opportunity of the faculty position. How should I deal with the situation without causing any ethic issues?

My understanding of the norms in academia is that tenure-track and tenured positions are generally accepted to be rare opportunities, and that taking those if offered is the right thing to do. As such, it is perfectly acceptable to attend an interview for a tenure-track position, and to accept it if offered, even if one has already accepted a conflicting postdoc. In such case one should, however, be apologetic to the snubbed postdoc mentor, and do ones best to minimize the inconvenience to them.


How to find case studies for your dissertation I just wanted to know possible methods of finding some good case studies for a dissertation. I was asked to keep my question generic. I am doing a 1 year MA in Development Studies, specifically I want to look at Social Entrepreneurship. However, if one can tell how to find case studies on any topic, that would be helpful, Thanks.

The Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship(CASE), research and education center based at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, has a number of case studies here

This article also was the first result in google scholar when searched.

Finally this book Case Studies in Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainability might be an option.


Comparing the scientific outputs of researchers We want to compare the scientific outputs of researchers across various fields (such as theoretical physics versus organic chemistry) quantitatively. Is the following formula appropriate?

Let us consider researcher A in theoretical physics and researcher B in organic chemistry.  First we obtain MIF (mean impact factor) for each researcher’s  field.
Then, let us denote sum totals of the impact factors of each researcher’s papers published during a year to be S(A) and S(B).  Now, we can divide S(A) and S(B) by MIFs of each field. The ratio of the values obtained for each researcher can provide us with a relatively appropriate ground for comparing the outputs of these two researchers, who belong to essentially different fields of research.

Normalising across fields is hard, but it's worth attempting. I would recommend reading this PLOS Biology paper as a good introduction.

This proposed measure is not appropriate because papers do not have an impact factor. Journals do, but there is a very wide distribution of papers within a journal - an impact factor can, in some cases, jump an order of magnitude because of a single paper.

"Mean impact factors" also take no account of publication volume. If you have a journal with an IF of 2 and one with an IF of 3, it's tempting to say that the mean is 2.5. But what if the first journal publishes ten times as many papers? It gets complicated quite fast.

The approach of normalising against the field/year makes sense, but ideally what you want to do is compare the actual citations for the researcher's papers in year X against the actual citations for the field as a whole in year X. The hard part here is defining the "field"; most approaches do what you planned to do here, treat all journals in a field as equivalent to the field as a whole. This is the basis of the source-normalized impact per paper (SNIP) and mean [log-]normalized citation score (M[L]NCS) measures; a more complex approach involving defining the field by citation networks is the basis for the relative citation ratio (RCR). All the usual caveats about counting citations apply, and numbers should be assumed to have fairly wide error bars for single-person data, but the results will make a lot more sense than one purely based on journal-level averages.

These approaches are a bit more labour intensive, but should be practical if you have access to a tool like Web of Science or Scopus.

This will effectively normalise for age of the paper and for the different citation practices in different fields. What it won't normalise for is fractional authorship - these measures can give somewhat confusing results if you're comparing someone who's routinely fifteenth author on large collaborative papers with someone who works in fields where single-authored papers are normal - or with someone who's usually the lead author on the large collaborations. Likewise, it will give misleading results if either person works in a field with substantial non-journal activity (eg the humanities).


Travel grant for undergraduate researcher for attending conference I am an undergraduate student doing independent research. My research work is selected for presentation at a very reputed conference in the US. I am from India. I cannot afford to attend the conference at all. How should I fund my trip? The travel grant for students available from the conference is very low. It can hardly buy me a one way ticket. What are my options?

There are several strategies for this in addition to the usual ones outlined previously. I assume you are in CS/IS/IT from your profile. Your primary costs are conference registration fees, air fare and living expenses.

If its a top conference, it will have student volunteer positions. For instance, this and this. This defrays cost of registration (free) and some of your living expenses (food and some cost of living). Apply for it immediately.
You mention that you are getting some travel grant from the conference. Thats a good thing. Keep it for airfare.
If its a ACM/IEEE conference, it will be sponsored by a SIG. SIGs have their own funding. For instance, see this and this. If you are an ACM/IEEE member then you can apply for these funds which are independent of conferences.
Sometimes, in limited ways, industrial research labs and other government labs have funding. Search for and apply for these. For instance, see this , this and especially this.

I was once a poor student and had to make use of multiple sources of funding to go to conferences. You can also do it ! Basically, apply for everything that you find and see. Of course, the best way is to simply ask another co-author or someone actually visiting the conference to present the paper.

Another way is to just pay the registration fee (which is comparatively less). That way your paper is still indexed in the ACM DL or IEEE Xplore etc.


Letter of recommendation before Skype interview I recently applied for a tenure-track faculty position. The recommendation letters were not requested when I applied. After 2-3 weeks, I got an email that my referees should send them the letters and it seems they have done some screening based on the email I got.

My question: how large is this initial long list? Will they interview (Skype) all candidates (i.e. those asked for recommendation letters) at this stage? What is the main purpose of letters at this stage?

If the 2-3 weeks are after the deadline, it looks like they are shortlisting. If the 2-3 weeks are immediately after the deadline or before the deadline, one can't rule out the possibility that they haven't shortlisted and that they just remind of incomplete applications.

On another note, I wouldn't take reference letters too seriously, nor would being asked for reference letters make me excited. Letters from prestigious persons don't help too much unless several candidates are tied, in my opinion.


Citing a Youtube video in New Hart's Rules style? I'm preparing a paper for publication with Taylor & Francis Group. The journal follows the TF no. 1 style but there is no mention on how to cite a source such an online video. Rather, at the end of the style guide they say to refer to New Hart's Rules for usage that is not specified in the guide or uncertain. However, New Hart's Rules seems to refer to Butcher’s Copy - editing 10.6. So, I'm rather confused on how to cite such a source.

The citation in APA Style would be as follows:

  Sesame Workshop. (Producer) (2010). Sesame Street. Journey to Ernie: Beach [Web]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnRnxkX2U2U&feature=plcp

Does anyone know how should be adjusted to meet Taylor & Francis no. 1 / New Hart's Rules / Butcher’s Copy - editing 10.6 style?

I would take your best shot at getting the citation style correct and then let the copy editor deal with it. I cannot imagine a manuscript being rejected because someone used the wrong citation style for an "esoteric" entry type. Part of taking your best shot would be to scan the reference lists of the past few issues or a through electronic search for someone else who has cited a youtube video.


Are there good ways to approach a professor for a postdoc? How do I approach an unknown professor before a PhD interview? My defense (viva) will be held next March and I will be seeking a postdoctoral fellowship after that.

I want to contact a Professor relevant to my research interests to discuss potential future research topics and get short-listed for an interview.

My field is Mathematics (pure maths).

What are the best ways to approach a professor in this field?

The best way to do so is simply to email them. If your research interests align with theirs and your publication record is sufficiently impressive it'll start a conversation at the very least. Don't forget to attach an updated CV. If you're uncomfortable with this (or your publication record is not sufficiently impressive), some avenues to get their attention could be

Have a mutual professional acquaintance facilitate an introduction.
Look through their publications, find one that you're interested in and begin a discussion through it: how would you improve it? If you have amazing ideas that'll get their attention.

Be advised that funding is a major issue when taking on a postdoc. Some pure math fields do not attract research funding, so make sure that the professor has funding to take you (e.g. their website says they're looking, or they are advertising in mathematics mailing lists).

Good luck!


How much time Google Scholar take (generally) to index an arXiv document? recently I have arXived a manuscript of mine but it is not indexed by google scholar and around 64 hrs have passed. Is there anything else I have to do in order to get indexed by google scholar or will google scholar index the manuscript automatically?
P.S. arXived was done successfully.

It usually takes a few days according to this answer, which is in-line with my experience (I don't really monitor it though). In some cases, I think it can take a couple of weeks for Crossref which may give an idea of how long it could take for Google Scholar.
If you want to, you can manually add the article to your Google Scholar profile. However, I'm not sure how quickly that affects indexing.


What can I do if my collaborator is enthusiastic, but their PhD student is not? I am collaborating with a professor (and thus one of his PhD students). The professor likes me and my idea, but the same cannot be said about the PhD student.

The PhD student takes much longer than he normally would to do simple tasks which are essential for the project, and regularly points out flaws in the research design. Every research has its limitations, and I agree those are limitations, but I don't agree that they are nearly as severe as they are made out to be.

If interpreted generously, the PhD student is less enthusiastic about the project. If interpreted harshly, the PhD student is actually trying to sabotage the project.

Obviously I only want to complain to the professor as a last resort. What can I do to make the PhD student more enthusiastic?

Instead of "making" the student do or be anything--which is impossible anyway--you could try treating the student as a junior collaborator rather than a gopher. Or maybe the student simply doesn't want to do this project at all.

Some people are passive-aggressive because of personality issues, but in the case where there is an enormous power disparity, many people are passive-aggressive because they don't have any other way of expressing their unhappiness about something. So it's up to you (or the advisor) to broach the subject.

You could take the point of view that the student should do whatever we want and shut up about it, but pragmatically, this approach hasn't been working out so well, so maybe it's time to try something else.


MLA in-text citation of documents written by an organization, like UNESCO? Please, how should I write an MLA in-text citation of a UNESCO document?

The document in question is the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. I am using the PDF version.
The Document has no author.
The MLA recommends using a shortened version of the title of references with no authors but I don't know if this applies also to UNESCO documents.

Thanks

The document you refer to is written by an organization or a corporate author (UNESCO).  The general rule in such cases is, you treat this as an ordinary source written by an author named UNESCO.
From the Purdue Online Writing Lab, on listing work written by an organization in your works cited list:

A corporate author may include a commission, a committee, or a group that does not identify individual members on the title page. List the names of corporate authors in the place where an author’s name typically appears at the beginning of the entry.

The same general idea applies to in-text citations of sources written by an organization or corporate author:

When a source has a corporate author, it is acceptable to use the name of the corporation followed by the page number for the in-text citation. You should also use abbreviations (e.g., nat'l for national) where appropriate, so as to avoid interrupting the flow of reading with overly long parenthetical citations.

Here's an example, courtesy of Red Deer College Library:

Parenthetical Citation
(Natl. Research Council 55)
Works Cited
National Research Council. Beyond Six Billion: Forecasting the World's             Population. Washington: Natl. Acad., 2000. Print.


design student assignments In a recent interview, I have been asked how to design assignments for an undergraduate course on computer science. Based on my previous TA experience, I did help my supervisor to design students assignments. My method is very simple --- because all the archived versions of this course in the past semesters are all on the server, I just need to use some of the past assignments as a mirror with some modifications.

However, when I told my above method to the interviewer, he looked very surprised and disappointed. Maybe my method is not right? If so, could someone give me any ideas on the correct way to design assignments? Thanks.

An instructor has a responsibility to develop their own forms of assessment. What others have done before can serve as an inspiration but what they did is never adequate for several reasons.

Your students are not the same
You are not the same

Since you and the students are different. Prior assessment would probably not be appropriate as you will teach and they will learn slightly differently. You may stress aspects of the course that the other teacher did not and the students might ask about information that was not covered in the last class.

There is a common three step process to developing a curriculum called backward design.

What do the students need to know (as defined by the goals and objectives of the course)
What evidence will the students produce to demonstrate mastery of the content (i.e. the assessment, activities and assignments they will do)
How will you teach (lecture, discussion, etc)

This simple format can be used in any field to provide learning experiences that are consistent with the assessment and goals of the course.


How to reply this mail from potential PhD professor? I have mailed to a professor and got the following reply in half an hour:

  Thank you very much for your interest in the position and your application. We will start evaluating applications today and will let you know the result of the first step of the evaluation process in due course.

Do I need to reply to this mail, if yes then what could be decent reply?

I doubt that any reply is expected. It seems to be a general response and may not have actually come from the professor, but from his/her office, instead.

I wouldn't expect much of any response until the deadline for application has passed. I suspect that viable candidates will then get further information about what else might be needed.

But if you haven't completed your application by submitting required materials, it would probably be good to do that soon.


How do I get published in Nature or Science? I'm a fairly new chemical engineering graduate student.  I've been doing research for one semester so far (in molecular dynamics) and in the process have learned about journals and "impact factor" (a concept I didn't even know existed in my undergrad).

My advisor has told me that getting in Nature or Science is very difficult to do.  I don't think anyone in the department has a paper in that journal.  In fact, looking at the professors' research in my undergrad school (a top 5 engineering school), I don't see Nature papers either.

So after reading the journals themselves, I have to say that I'm kind of confused on what makes the articles published in them different than those published in something like JACS or ACS Nano.  They seem more general in scope, and maybe some of them are "groundbreaking" in a sense, but the other articles, I just can't really tell...

What kind of research would I need to do in order to successfully submit a paper to one of these journals?  I've got 4 years left and have some sway in what I would like to research, so I think this would be a good goal for grad school (even if I don't reach it).

First, don't obsess about it. In chemical engineering, Science and Nature papers are rather rare, and probably even more so if you're doing theory. So, while a paper in those very high profile journals can give your career a great boost, not having one is not a career-breaker.

Now, if you want to know how to orient your research to things that get you a greater chance of being published in such venues, my first advice would be: do something you're excited about, something you think challenging and you want to address. If you enjoy solving the problems you work on, you'll do much better work and get a better chance of getting that shiny paper. Also, you might just be happier doing stuff you like, obviously, even if you don't publish it in Science.

However, it is true that some fields and subfields are over-represented in journals. This depends on journals, but very high profile journals tend to prefer:

Hot topics. In your field, it used to be carbon nanotubes. Nowadays, I'd say “nano” is a good keyword, metal-organic frameworks are a widely published system. But… that's not entirely foolproof, because this will change and it's not certain that the choice you make right now will still be a hot topic in 4/5 years.
Theoretical work that addresses very basic questions that are not yet fully answered: dynamics of water, the nature of the hydrophobic interaction, the Hofmeister series, that sort of stuff.
Controversies, work that challenges common assumptions.

Oh, and if you make it, I claim co-authorship based on the above contribution!


Is there a way I can find out why I didn't get a certain academic position? I'm applying for postdoctoral positions and when I get rejection letters there is no reason given. Is there any way I can tell if there are "red flags" in my application that are getting it shot down? My adviser has reassured me that there is nothing wrong with my application but after so many rejections I am not so sure...If there really is a simple reason, I would like to know so that I can remedy my application.

You haven't said how many applications you've submitted or whether you've had any interviews.  It's possible that you're just being unrealistic about how many applications it will take to obtain a position.

In the US, employers are reluctant to say anything about why an applicant was rejected because of the possibility that this information will be used against the employer in a lawsuit.  It's likely that the faculty involved in the hiring decision will be under instructions to not say anything about why applicants weren't chosen.

Furthermore, even if you could get one of them to talk off the record, the likely reason would be something like "other applicants were slightly stronger or were better fits for our needs."  The reason for this is that the academic job market in most fields is extremely competitive for job seekers, and thus most positions attract many (dozens or even hundreds) of very well qualified applicants.  You should not expect that your application will have better than a 1 in 20 chance of being selected for an interview.

If you're making to the interview stage but haven't gotten any offers, then it's possible that your performance in the in-person interviews has hurt your chances of getting the job.  However, you shouldn't conclude that until you've had several interviews with no offers.


What should we do when an abstract gets accepted for a conference, but the material is not ready? Recently, my team's abstract was accepted for a poster presentation at a conference. The abstract submitted is not a complete work. Over time, we still don't have the desired results that are worth publishing / presenting.
... what should we do in this situation?
I worry that our contribution is not good enough - or bad.

I suppose that standards differ, but in my experience (CS) posters don't need to be all that refined. Unless your standards are different, I suspect that you could put enough together to inform people about your project, its current state, and its direction, if not the conclusions that aren't yet ready.
Many posters are "work in progress", rather than completed.
Alternatively you can withdraw if it is impossible to do enough to meet your own standards.


When was the Bachelor degree of Occupational Therapy introduced in Australia? Sounds like a simple question, but despite a few hours of searching, I couldn't find the answer.

I would also like to know what qualification was required beforehand in order to work in that profession?

The government board wasn't really helpful, but I found the answer:

  For a few years there had been a combined Physiotherapy/ Occupational
  Therapy Degree course at The University of Queensland. In 1955 the
  Occupational Therapy three year Diploma course was introduced.

Source: http://www.occupationaltherapyboard.gov.au/documents/default.aspx?record=WD12%2f8399&dbid=AP&chksum=SfMd1xjsN%2f1k47blbbm7MA%3d%3d


Should I withdraw my paper if I find another paper published with the same idea? I submitted a paper and it is currently under review (submitted on 10th March and conference is on 15th October, I'll be notified on 15th July). However, now, in May, I see a paper has just published dealing with the same problem as mine. They indicate that their solution is better than mine. If my paper is accepted, do I have to withdraw it, as it seems to be out of date?

It's a slightly grey area but assuming the journal paper in question was not publicly available before the submission date of your conference, I think you are fully entitled to publish the paper if accepted. It's a parallel result, which means there was (verifiably) no wrong-doing on your part. If accepted, in the "camera-ready" submission, you can add reference to the journal paper with a note that their results were developed in parallel (with mentions of the dates involved in a footnote, for example). You get your publication, the authors of the work get their citation, and the conference themselves know that there was no wrong-doing involved.

So again, you don't have to withdraw, but you can if you want (e.g., if you don't want to be associated with a weaker form of the result, or if you are a really nice person and feel that the slot at the conference might be better used elsewhere).


What is the most effective way to negotiate for more time while waiting for other offers? Suppose you've interviewed for two post-doc positions.  The first position has just been offered, but you really want to see if the second one offers a position as well.  Clearly, it would be best to press the second one to make a decision sooner.  But it may also be a good idea to press the first one to give as much time as possible to make a decision.

What are the most effective strategies to negotiate for more time to make a decision on the first offer?  How should one phrase it in the most positive and constructive way so as to maximize the possibility of gaining more time to make a decision?

You should consider how "in-demand" you are, both in general and for the positions in question. For the second position, if you have reason to believe that they will indeed make you an offer, you can approach them along the lines of "I would like to be able to consider your opportunity alongside my other current offers; could you give me some guidance as to when you expect to make a decision on my application?"

For the first position, they've made you an offer, so you need to judge whether they want you there enough to give you some extra time. You'll get differing advice on this point, but I would not mention that you're waiting for another offer (unless you are confident that they will wait). Again, this depends on whether you're in a buyer's or seller's market, so to speak. No harm in asking for extra time straight out, though.

If you need more time to decide once you have both offers in hand, I think it's best to be upfront that you're choosing between offers at that point.

In general though I think you have to be much more careful about pressing the first institution unless you really think you have leverage.