How should I ask my PhD advisor to let me work remotely...permanently? My wife plans to graduate in a few months. I have 1-2 years left before I defend and graduate. I'd like to move away with my wife so we can stay together.

My work is entirely on a computer, so working remotely is entirely feasible. I have my own funding, so I do not need to stay in order to TA for pay.

I typically meet once every 1-2 weeks with my primary advisor and "secondary advisor" (a research scientist who also mentors me and who frequently works more closely with me than my advisor). When I first began working with my primary advisor, I mentioned that I may need to work remotely for my final year. He said he didn't like the idea in general, but that he understands that life happens, and that we'd figure it out when the time came.

The time has come, though I wouldn't move away for another two months.

How should I breach the topic with my advisor(s)?

This question is extremely relevant, but differs in that it asks this question for "extensive periods", whereas I'm asking about working remotely permanently. Several answers for that question involve staying away for progressively longer periods of time, but I'd prefer to not pay two rents.

Bring this up directly and immediately.

You mentioned in the comments that your advisor is out of town for a week but your wife must respond to the offer in a week. This doesn't leave you much choice, so email him immediately and ask to have an urgent phone call.

Tell him openly about the situation and get his feedback. It is up to you whether to frame it as asking for permission or informing him of your decision.

However, you have to be prepared that he will not be willing to work with you remotely. You are putting your advisor in a potentially difficult position without much time to discuss it and basically giving him an ultimatum. I would have had an involved discussion about this before my spouse went on the job market (informing him that your spouse will be looking for a job and that you will be moving away if she gets an offer).


Why upload to academic preprint sites like arXiv? The recent question about the legality of uploading to arXiv made me realize that I don't have any understanding of why one would upload to a preprint site.  (I don't work in a field where they seem to be common.)

Why would one be concerned about getting a manuscript on arXiv, if it's already under review with a journal?

Is it because of the long publishing timeline of journals?  (That could explain why computer science — which publishes much more in conferences — doesn't seem to do much with them.)

In mathematics, there are several reasons to post to the arXiv:

It provides free access to papers that might otherwise be hidden behind paywalls.  Of course you could achieve this by posting on your web page, but your web page may move or disappear, while the arXiv is far more stable.  This means it's better for archival purposes and it's better suited for citations.  [Note that this is not just about preprints: it continues to be relevant long after publication.]
It attracts readers.  Many people pay close attention to arXiv postings in their area, in a way that doesn't happen as much with journal tables of contents.  I don't have statistics, but my impression is that a substantial fraction of the people who learn about my papers do so through the arXiv.  If you can get noticeably more attention for your research with almost no additional effort, why wouldn't you?
It establishes priority.  Submitting to a journal does not: if you submit to a journal without circulating your work publicly, then you may still end up sharing credit with anyone who makes the same discovery before your paper is made public.  The way to establish priority is to distribute your work so widely that any competitors cannot credibly claim to have been unaware of it.  Submitting to the arXiv is the easiest way to show that you have done so: it's widely read, and it preserves all versions of the article with time stamps.
It's conventional.  This varies somewhat between subfields, but once arXiv use reaches critical mass in a given area, it becomes the standard way of announcing to the world that you have completed a paper.  At that point, not posting to the arXiv looks strange.

Compared with other fields, mathematics and physics are anomalous in making heavy use of the arXiv, with physics even more so than mathematics.  As I understand it, in high energy particle physics the arXiv replaced an elaborate system of paper preprint distribution that was used in the late 80's (and it rapidly became popular since it was obviously better than the paper infrastructure).  Usage spread to other areas of physics, from physics to adjacent areas of mathematics, and then further into mathematics.

Things are trickier in other fields, because many of the advantages depend on network effects.  If nobody in your field pays attention to a server, it's not conventional, and it counts for little or nothing regarding priority, then there's less reason to post to it (although it still has some value).  I'm not surprised that it catches on only slowly and spreads primarily to adjacent fields, but I expect green open access servers like the arXiv will become more popular over time.


Is it acceptable to use non-English references in a computer science paper? I am currently reviewing an interdisciplinary computer science paper which is heavily based on previous works in logistics and process engineering that have been unfortunately published only in German (18 out of total 30 references). The overall idea is sound, but as the logistics structures are in some sense a basis of the paper, I have a strong inclination to reject the manuscript as the research cannot be followed and reconstructed by a researcher that does not understand German.

On top of that, virtually none of them are available online, or otherwise easily accessible.

I was going to hit the "Reject" button just a few moments ago, but I still have my doubts: I know that in humanities and also in mathematics people often cite publications written in other languages, but I have not yet seen something like that in computer science. Also, if it were one or two references, but 60%? The journal reviewing policy does not help me in this case.

I was thinking about proposing the following workarounds:

Extending the paper - this is probably not an option as the journal imposes quite a strong page limit, or
A supplementary report - the vital parts of the non-English text could be made available as an Technical Report or an on-line publication (I was thinking about arXiv) and this can be referenced in the manuscript.

Is it fair to reject it? Has anyone experienced something similar? What was your decision?

Having many non-English references is absolutely no valid reason to reject a computer science paper.

If a reader wants to follow up on the references, they can learn some German, find a translator, etc. But this is the responsibility of the reader, not the author.


Letter of recommendation from Post-Doc or Professor I was guided by a Post-Doc for my undergraduate thesis, but the one responsible for all and offering the thesis was a Professor, who I only talked to when discussing the thesis, agreeing to it, and the explanation of the grade in the end. Who of both would be the one to ask for a letter of recommendation?
More general, should you always ask the person with who one was mostly in contact during work, or the person responsible for it all, if they are not the same person?

You should ask the professor for the letter.  It is likely the professor will get help from the postdoc in writing the letter.  There is a traditional belief that the professor's opinion is worth more, so whoever is reading the letter will expect to get a letter signed by the professor.


As a Ph.D. student, should I spend time reviewing papers? I am a PhD student halfway through my journey. After I published a few papers, I am getting review requests from some medium rank conference and journal editors. While certainly it is an honour for me, doing good review takes some time since I am not an expert of my broad field with everything at my finger tip. Does review experience add something to my CV particularly if I want an academic career? I am really sorry if the question sounds too shallow or cynical but I want to know whether I can cite the review experience to prove my worth as a researcher to a prospective hiring committee.

An important part of an academic career/CV is service. Reviewing, editing, hosting conferences, ... falls under this category. So yes, it is important.

You seem to consider it to be a potential waste of your precious time. This is false. Depending on your field, reviewers have earlier access to new work than others which is always beneficial.


Why did notable mathematician Walter Rudin have so few citations according to ResearchGate? According to ResearchGate, Rudin had about 30 ish papers and 500 ish citations.

How come so few?  I thought he was this legend of maths.

Here's his profile:

https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/21400404_Walter_Rudin

This answer will be a bit orthogonal to the question. But Rudin's place is due to more than the number of papers written and citations.

According to the Math Genealogy project, Rudin produced 24 successful PhD students and has 125 "descendants". These numbers are pretty big. Some of his students were, themselves very productive.

A professor can be a collaborator, but not an author on a pretty large number of papers, and this is pretty typical in math.

Note also, that in mathematics it was then not normal for a professor to be listed as co-author on their student's work. I think that is still pretty standard, actually.

So, the number of citations isn't necessarily the only measure of influence.

But as to the question itself, mathematicians have moved on to other, newer, areas since his time. In some sense this is, or can be, due to success in solving outstanding problems, leaving only the hardest questions still open. So people work in areas in which it might be a bit easier to be "productive".


Can you do a phd in maths at Cambridge university without an honours degree? I graduated from an australian university last year with a bachelor of mechanical engineering with first class honors and a bachelor of mathematics. If I want to get an honours degree in maths, I need to study for an additional year.

I wish to apply for phd admission in pure maths at Cambridge university. The admission webpage says that the minimum requirement is a first class honours in mathematics or a related area. Am I eligible or I have to study an extra year to get my honours in maths first and then apply to Cambridge? I am interested in analytic number theory if it makes any difference.

Note: I emailed my question to people at Cambridge university but I have not received any replies after a week.

The definition of an honour student, honour course, etc. might differ between universities, some universities don't have this concept at all. So your degree from your home university might be enough for Cambridge or not, maybe even a honours degree from your university might not be enough.

Who did you email at Cambridge? You might want to try to contact something like an international office, they might be able to tell you the exact requirements for an international student applying.


What would be different between two years of graduate admissions? A bit of background to contextualize:

So I'm in a bit of a two-body problem with both me and my wife interested in applying for programs in the near future. Mine would be five-year-plus program and hers on the order of a year and a half.

If we were to apply for programs near to each other (but not near to our current location), and she didn't get into hers and I chose to decline that program, what sort of variables could change between years that might affect my chances to be admitted a second time?

I'm curious mostly about what would change on the department's end. This program would be in a funded, psychology-related program.

In the US, if you get admitted to a funded PhD program, often they will let you defer a year. If for some reason they are unable to let you defer, then the next year your application would be looked at fairly. A lot can change in a year, so it is no guarantee that you would get in again. The quality of the competition can change, the allocation of students to supervisors, and the amount of funding can all influence chances of admission. Sometimes faculty leave and the admission committee changes from year to year. Admissions can come down to a single vocal advocate.

If you get accepted to multiple programs and decline the offers (you can only really defer from one place), your application may not be judged fairly the next year. Admissions involve some politics and trying to judge if a student would accept is part of that game.


Are there any decent online undergrad computer science degrees or courses To keep it short I already have a BS and MS in a physical science from decent schools.  I want to apply next year for a MS or PhD in ECE and thought I should get some formal programming on my transcript first.  I have only one intro class on there now.

I'm not having much luck finding any online courses that don't look like scams or poorly set up at best.  I was pretty excited to see that Oregon state is offering a post-bacc BS degree but the tuition is $600 a credit.

So I guess I'm looking for legitimate courses that aren't crazy expensive.  Is there anything else out there like the Oregon state program?  That's exactly what I'm looking for.

You may want to try Coursera. Their courses are quite good and the instructors are some of the top computer scientists in their fields.

They give you a certificate signed by the instructor if you finish the course well.


About to leave academia? I am about to leave my university in the UK, however I still have access to services for the next few months.
For some background, I initially did my BSc(Hons) at another institution, worked in industry, and then returned to this university to do a master's degree and then the first year of a PhD programme with a full scholarship which I decided not to finish.
Is there a good place to get a list of things that I should do before I leave? I have already spoken to the careers department so I get a list of current jobs in my field, and they have also helped me with both a CV and a Cover Letter for when I apply to new jobs.

Check what's available to you as an alumnus of the university. Things available could include:

Alumni newsletters. This could include invitations to events in your local town.
An alumnus email address.
Subscriptions to certain software programs.

You will need to check to know what's available.


Could I choose a PhD supervisor from a different university? I want to apply for a PhD at a Canadian university, but I currently am in a Masters Program in the US. If I attend this new university, would I be able to choose a PhD supervisor from my current university?

It is very unlikely, probably impossible, that you could have a primary supervisor from another university, especially in a different country.
You also really need someone at your doctoral university to guide you through the rules and such of that university. Someone from the States wouldn't be very good at that.
However, some universities permit co-supervisors, so that might be a possibility. It would be easier if your primary supervisor has a professional relationship, already, with the person you would like from the States. It would be up to the primary (local) supervisor to agree to such a relationship.
And bad things can happen if it turns out that your various supervisors don't agree on things.


What are some side jobs with which a mathematician in a postdoc or non-tenure-track position can make ends meet? Like many others, I did not get a tenure-track position right out of grad school. I have been moving from university to university across the US for the past few years, sometimes in the capacity of a postdoc, and sometimes in a junior (non-tenure-track) faculty position. (Many of these universities have top math departments, at varying levels; some in the top 10.)

Alas, as I move from one university to the next, my spouse is finding it harder and harder to get a full-time position each time we move. I am currently earning well, but not enough to support a spouse and kids. We're seeing our savings not-so-slowly disappear.

My question is -- what sort of "odd jobs" can someone in my position do to earn money on the side, while my spouse finds his or her bearings (yet again!) in the new location? Note that it is important that these be jobs that are sufficiently flexible that I would be able to do them while still functioning in my current university. I have excellent research (though not sufficient to have gotten a tenure-track position by now), and excellent teaching skills. While I do research in abstract Mathematics, I am also reasonably proficient in statistics and programming.

Are there natural answers to this questions that I have not thought about? Ones that are specific to people in our community? How should one go about getting these odd jobs?

Universities (especially if they're large R1 universities, almost certainly if they're in top 10) usually ask its department members whether they are willing to teach a calculus/lower-level math courses in the summer for extra pay. These are often accelerated and they are over in a couple of months. Teaching one class, in my estimate, should earn you an extra 5-10k, depending on your institution. You can easily pick up two of these classes over the summer. If there is more than one university in your area, you could also try teaching at the other universities.

You could also tutor students. This is admittedly a little awkward when you are a faculty member, but as long as you are not teaching them, there shouldn't be any problems. This works especially well in an affluent area; I'm told that some people, given good credentials, can support themselves completely on tutoring students.

Sometimes, websites dedicated to math education, such as Art of Problem Solving, hires online graders. The flexibility of the job means that you can pick it up on top of being a postdoc.

Lastly, remember that you're on a 9-month salary contract. This means that you could be an intern at some large company using your statistics/programming skills during the other three months, and earn a huge paycheck.

These are not really "odd jobs", but probably the easiest to get given your situations. Of course, you should keep in mind that these will take away from your research time, which might make finding a tenure-track job more difficult (I totally sympathize with you; the system that we have is far from perfect, and it puts so many people in your position. But this is the reality and you should be aware of it when you're contemplating taking up another job on top of your postdoc position, which is already more than a full-time job).


whether necessary to continue to work on unfinished academic work When one finishes a degree or a research position, the boss asks to carry on sth unfinished (unpaid), does one need to agree to do so?

No, you don't need to agree to do it at that point, unless you already have agreed or committed previously. However, for your future career it would be good to give it some consideration, at least, and to work in in if possible.

I'm assuming that "the boss" is a professor, actually, who can aid you in the future.

But "unpaid" is a big issue. If you can get something back for your efforts either hard currency or academic currency it would be a good thing also.


What does a university's acceptance rate indicate? If the acceptance rate of a university is 90%, does that mean it accepts 90 out of every 100 students that apply?
Does a university's acceptance rate indicate its quality?  Most top universities have low acceptance rates, however some good universities have high acceptance rates.

If the acceptance rate of a university is 90%, does that mean it accepts 90 students from 100 that applied?

Yes.

  Does the acceptance rate of universities indicate the quality of them?

No, not particularly.  For example, it's possible to get a good education at an institution with open admissions.  It's true that low acceptance rates are correlated with quality, for at least two reasons.  A university that is perceived as being of high quality will often receive more applications than it has space available for students, and being able to choose high-achieving students will help create an academically stimulating atmosphere and enable the university to offer more demanding courses.  However, this correlation is far from perfect.  Acceptance rates are essentially a popularity contest: you are measuring a combination of how many students apply and how many accept an offer of admission.  Like most popularity contests, they only tell you so much.

It's also worth noting that these statistics can be intentionally skewed by universities.  Because college rankings in the U.S. often involve acceptance rates, some schools have adapted by deliberately advertising to try to attract applications from students they have no interest in admitting (increasing the total number of applications decreases the acceptance rate).  This makes the acceptance rate even less meaningful than it used to be.

Added in response to Kimball's question about references:

I don't know of a definitive reference.  It's widely believed to be happening, but it's difficult to prove since who would admit it?  (Instead of saying "we're soliciting mediocre applications just to be able to reject them," any competent admissions director would say "we're casting a wide net to make sure talented students don't get overlooked.")  Certainly schools that are concerned about their rankings are trying hard to get more applications; see, for example, this story about Northeastern, which suggests but doesn't explicitly say that Northeastern is more concerned about the number of additional applications than their quality (the closest it comes is "The more applications NU could drum up, the more students they could turn away, thus making the school appear more selective").  See also this NYT story, which discusses attracting more applications as a form of ranking manipulation (but attributes this information to unnamed admissions directors and doesn't mention any concrete examples).  For comparison, seeking more applications is not so extreme: Clemson has been accused of far more dramatic forms of ranking manipulation.


Transcript of records is full of grammatical/spelling/formatting mistakes and the issuer gets angry when I inform them Institution in a non-English-speaking country.
I do not speak the native language of that country.
I studied entirely in English language and all of my educational documents are originally issued/generated in English, therefore there is no possibility of receiving the document of interest in a language other than English (Patricia Shanahan's answer is thus absolutely irrelevant [this answer]).

Types of errors in the transcript of records

Grammatical
Incorrect course titles
Initial letters of some of the course names are capitalized, some are not
Margins, line spacing, and the overall format/style of the document (pure chaos, ...)
Incorrect usage of the in course titles (e.g. Introduction to the Mathematics)

I have been dealing this issue for more than a year. My BA degree's transcript of records is full of mistakes, not one or two, but dozens of them.
Last year, when I received the transcript for the first six completed semesters, there were so many errors in the document that I simply could not believe some other student might not have noticed it throughout the years. Thus, I went to discuss this with the person issuing the transcript. I delineated all of the mistakes one by one. However, they were absolutely reluctant to modify any part of the transcript at first, and they even went on to tell me that I am wrong. I then decided to provide examples of transcripts issued in the US and use online resources and dictionaries to prove my point, which all in turn made the said person annoyed and yet more reluctant! More surprisingly for me was their reaction when I explained the margins/line-spacing/style/format issues, their simple reply was whether I have ever been diagnosed with OCD.
Nonetheless, I was able to fix quite many of the mistakes. Now, a year later, I have received my final bachelor's degree with the complete transcript of records encompassing eight semesters. And, there are still a lot of mistakes: grammatical, spelling, and incorrect course names. The format of the document looks terribly unprofessional, with different margin sizes on different pages, inconsistent line spacing, and unnecessary white spaces/blank areas. It looks like a cheap document issued by a 'nobody'. If it was not for the huge seal of the university and the Ministry of Education on each page, anyone would have considered this document to be fake.
The person in charge is so selfish they do not want to admit that their English is insufficient. Their lexicon is extremely limited. Once they were so enraged when I mentioned a simple mistake  that they actually had to call the English Language Center of my university. However, the center affirmed that indeed the version I have provided is correct and the one written on the transcript is wrong. However, even after that incident the person in charge of issuing the transcript were still reluctant to follow many of my corrections.
How should I deal with the incompetence and reluctance of this person?
Should I create the document neatly myself in LaTeX/Word, clearly highlighting all the changes I have made, and then ask him to consider issuing the document that way?

I suggest requesting a copy of the transcript in whatever language the issuer writes best.

For some purposes, such as graduate admission to a foreign university, you may need to pay for a certified translation by a professional translator.


Should I start working as a teacher at a different uni while I'm still finishing my PhD? I am currently doing a PhD in maths, in the UK. UK PhD scholarship are typically only 3 years, and mine can't be extended. I do need every day of these three years to finish my thesis. For a small fee, I can hand in my thesis up to 1 year after the money has run out.

I now received an offer from a german university for a half-time teaching position in theoretical computer science. The position would start 3 months before my PhD scholarship ends.

Should I accept this offer? A similar question has been asked before, but there are a few circumstances that make the decision harder:

The university where I could teach is in germany. It typically takes a day to go from one place to the other, and it isn't too cheap. (There might be some financial support from the german uni.) So I would be meeting my supervisor significantly less often, but possibly this is not so much a problem towards the end of the PhD?
I would have to switch fields. While there is enough overlap between the particular topics so that I can learn the teaching material without too much effort, I'm unsure how risky this is for my career. In the worst case, I will not be able to establish myself in computer science because I would "only" have a maths PhD, and could neither return to maths because I left the field for too long a time. But again I'm not sure, how realistic these apprehensions are.

First you have to ask your advisor.  You can't just leave with 3 months left on your scholarship.  Angering your advisor is a terrible idea in a field where it's likely that everyone knows everyone else.

Second, you're going to be extremely overwhelmed at how much work it is to teach a new course.  Even though you're only teaching half time it's going to have a huge impact on slowing your thesis progress down. It's possible that you might not even finish.

However, you do have to take into account your finances.  If this is the only job you think you might get it might be necessary to pursue it so that you have income.


How can I study PhD in business after masters in physics? I got master in Physics and now I am thinking to continue for PhD in marketing, business or Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

Is it possible to switch for Phd? How can I do that and how should I persuade admission committee?

It is very possible to switch majors. If possible, try to talk with a faculty member with whom you are interested in working. If they are willing to work with you then the admissions process is likely to be fairly simple.

With that said, a PhD in business is meant to prepare you for teaching or a career in academia, not in actual business. If you want business skills for work outside of academia, an MBA is the way to go. Considering this, an admissions board / faculty member is probably most interested in your aptitude to publish. Your masters shows strong quantitative skills and so if you have any publications, that will likely go a long way in helping you get started.

All of these are very general statements, if you are really serious about a PhD then you should definitely contact schools you are interested in and see if you can talk with faculty.


Why would a professor assign more grades to a presentation than a report in a software engineering subject? I am doing my master's in Software Engineering at a German university. I had been told that the seminar presentation influences the final grade more than the contents of the seminar paper.

But the irony is I work more for the contents of the paper (about 2 months) than the presentation (about 5 days). Why is it so?

FYI, I constantly discuss with my supervisor (who decides the grade) regarding my progress and incorporate his comments as well.

Presentations generally involve a discussion with the panel, questions from the audience, and even heated debates.  Papers present the research and can absolutely give an impression of the knowledge of the writer, however, it can be easy to hide behind a paper.  You can't hide in a presentation.  It becomes quickly, and sometimes painfully, obvious in a presentation when the researcher has not fully developed their work.

Also, very few people will take the time to read the paper, but there's a good chance that quite a few people will attend the presentation.  How well you present your work will reflect the quality of the work in the eyes of the audience.  It might be outstanding research, but if you can't present it well and your message is lost, the work will be shrugged off.


PhD Thesis: citation for common knowledge and high level summary Background: Neuroscience, India
My thesis is based on the use of machine learning for some neuroscience data. Since I do not expect the readers to be aware of machine learning details, I have written a high level summary (a few pages) before the literature review which summarizes the basic principles of machine learning (like introducing what is cross-validation, how to measure accuracy, false positives, etc.). The idea was to let the reader gain some high level understanding before diving into the actual literature review so that the reader would be able to better appreciate the work previously done and the knowledge gap.
This part of the thesis is based on my understanding, clubbed with courses on machine learning and generally reading around on the internet. As far as I can see, the ideas are simplified 101 which can be easily found from Wikipedia (such as the page describing confusion matrix) and from online blogs. To summarize, as far as I can see this is borderline common knowledge.
My thesis reviewer has raised a concern with this part saying that I have not cited any sources and I should cite academic sources for these concepts. I don't quite see how that is possible as the concepts I have described are very elementary. Most textbooks that describe these ideas do not cite any papers and I don't even know how I am supposed to find citations for concepts like precision and recall!
Question: is my understanding of "common knowledge" incorrect? How could I reply to this concern/find sources for these introductory concepts?

You are being a bit inconsistent here. The reason for the introduction is that readers may not know the background. It would be good for them to see some sources that will fill them in beyond what you say. Mentioning a standard text or similar might be enough.
You also have risk with the reviewer if you don't yield to them. They may have a lot of control over what they accept. Again, pointing to some standard material, would probably suffice. If not, they will hopefully tell you to say more.
While I think  you are probably correct about your interpretation common knowledge and the lack of requirements to cite it, the other factors suggest you should do so in any case.


Is it possible to submit a paper to a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal without PhD and get it accepted? Is it possible to submit a paper to a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal without PhD? More specifically, what would be the bare minimum qualifications that would grant one the possibility of the paper being published in a peer-reviewed academic medium?

Submitting an academic paper for publication (and potentially getting it accepted) does not require any qualifications whatsoever.  You don't need a PhD; you don't even need to have gone to college.  There are no educational, employment, or membership requirements at all.

That's not to say it's easy to get a paper accepted with no formal training in the field.  Learning how to write a compelling paper is much easier if you have a mentor to offer guidance.  However, if you can figure out how to do it without a PhD, then your lack of a PhD will not be held against you.


Literature survey in multiple languages The following question has been induced by a comment to the question What to do if chosen topic has been done in a foreign language.

I know four languages (+-1) sufficiently well to be able to read and comprehend literature specific to my field (math/phys). When doing a literature survey before starting the research phase for my thesis (masters now, phd later) should I look for literature in all the languages I comprehend or would only two (i.e., EN/DE or EN/RU) suffice?

Specifically for masters a check in all the languages seems like an overkill to me, given the limited amount of time available.

I would not do a multi-language literature search for Master's degree (due to limited time, as you mentioned, plus simply because expectations for a Master's level of research are significantly lower than the one of Ph.D. level. Having said that, I've seen some pretty solid research-focused Master's theses, but they are relatively rare.

On the other hand, performing a multi-language literature review for a Ph.D. research seems like a good idea, as it would allow you to cover the topic as well as related fields of study and research streams much more comprehensively (in both width and depth), which is an expectation for a doctoral-level research. However, you should always be focused on your main goals and assess your literature search with overall Ph.D. program's and dissertation's time frames in mind. It is so very easy to get addicted to exploring vast volumes of existing research, even restricting yourself to a particular subject domain. That introduces the risk of spending way too much time on that, jeopardizing other essential parts of your research study. You have been warned! And good luck!


What is the performance expectation for promotion to full professor (from tenured associate) in the US versus in the UK and Australia? For roughly equivalent-tier universities (e.g., similar according to world rankings), what is required to be promoted to full professor in the US, versus in the UK and Australia?

Getting promoted to full professor seems to be a much bigger deal in the UK and Australia than in the US. Historically at least, many academics in the UK and Australia went their entire career without being promoted to full, whereas my impression is that's not the case in the US. The full professor promotion decision is fraught in the UK and Australia, and in that way is more like the tenure decision in the US.

There seems to be a stronger expectation of leadership at the university and in one's field and possibly a stronger expectation of high-quality research productivity in the UK and Australia, but I'm not sure of this.

Hoping for better answers..


Project guide asks for authorship without any contributions – how to proceed? Our computer-science curriculum mandates that we produce a paper about a research project:

We set the topic.
We get a professor assigned as a project guide.
The paper has to be published at a peer-reviewed venue.
The paper is also reviewed and marked by some professors.

For us the project guide was assigned at random and not according to our wishes. Her domain is completely different from what our paper is about.

Our project guide never reviewed our project, helped write the paper, or contributed anything else to the project.
She did not show any interest in our project and kept putting us down.
She was only interested in the publication scope of the project.
We sent our paper to the project guide multiple times for review and she didn’t notice her name was not among the authors then.
The paper has already been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Now, our project guide asked me why her name wasn’t included, and the college is saying they wouldn’t award marks because of her name not being included.
I don't believe my college has specific rules for authorship.

What would my next action be?

Let’s start with what is going wrong here:

Requiring you to publish something peer-reviewed on the level of coursework is at least dubious. For more details, see Is it ethical for departments to have publication requirements for students
Putting somebody as an author of a paper who made no contribution at all goes against all standards of academic authorship. However, violating this is so common in some countries and fields that many professors may not even be aware of it.
The project guide is abusing her power when she pushes you into giving somebody authorship (who doesn’t deserve it).
If your institution via rules or coercion makes you give somebody authorship (who doesn’t deserve it), this is also an abuse of power.

Now, you have to evaluate the situation to pick your enemies and allies, if any:

If the curriculum has any written rules that you should make somebody a co-author, you can fight those rules – if any professors or a higher power cares about this. In my country, I don’t see much of a problem of turning this into a public scandal, but yours is probably different.
If there are no written rules about authorship, and one of the other professors evaluating your project or a dean of students or similar are trustworthy, you can present the situation to them and try getting them onto your side. At the very least, you may score some points if you can provide evidence that your project guide did not tell you about any authorship aspirations or rules earlier and also did not do her job properly.
The journal (if reputable) will not be very happy if not completely refusing to change authorship retroactively. You could find an ally here (just tell them what happened), but whether the journal has sufficient power over your department is hard to say.
It could sadly be that your institution is full of power-abusing professors and in a position that allows them do this. In this case, the only thing you can do about it is to leave.


Who can see a student's grades? I have a question.

  Can all the professors in a department see a particular student's grades?

Can the chair of a department see a student's grades?

Officially and in general, no.

The teacher of a class should in general not share grades with his colleagues. Informally, however, there might be some communication of individual students' performance in ways that don't violate confidentiality: "she did very well on my class"; "he struggled on the exams, but did a very good job on the final project." Typically, this would be in the context of a colleague inquiring about hiring a student as a student worker or as a graduate student. Aggregate information could also be shared without harm to enable better matching of teaching to student needs and abilities.

That said, there are exceptions to this rule. For instance, your academic or research advisor will typically have access to all of your grades. Similarly, an evaluation panel—such as one that convenes for a graduate student's qualifying exams—will probably have access to all of the student's academic record.

But a random professor generally will not see a student's grades in all courses. This is by design and a logical move.


Has a "portfolio" of orthogonal projects ever been acceptable for a PhD thesis, instead of a single large project? My interests are very broad. Before grad school I did a lot of things, but now it's expected that I only do one thing. Provided that I can demonstrate research competence in more than one field, by publishing for example, is it possible to write a thesis that consists of several smaller, orthogonal projects instead of a single great push? I understand why this isn't encouraged - diluting yourself is not an efficient way to get things done and it's unlikely that one would be able to become a PhD-level "expert" in more than one deep subject. But provided that one is very industrious and willing to give up the prospect of having any kind of normal life, which I am, has this ever been done?

Also: I realize this is funding-dependent - assume that I have external funding from a fellowship.

It will depend on the advisor, the university (i.e., will they allow you to work in different fields. I mean, technically they can't forbid you to work on something, but your advisor might not be pleased with it) and the details of the topics (will it be really possible to work on a variety of them).

In general, a thesis should provide an answer to a research problem, either in the form of a self-contained book, or a sandwich thesis.

I'm also interested in many fields (which can be divided roughly into 3 main ones at the moment) that are not really connected to each other that much. My advisor told me to compose a thesis only about one of the topics (which I published 3 papers on), and not to make a mix of unrelated works (sounds reasonable to me). And that's how it was done (in the form of a sandwich thesis).

I added the papers on other topics to my CV, and they were useful when applying for a grant, scholarship etc. And of course for conference presentations.


My advisor delays a lot of time in checking my paper before communicating. What should I do? I am in my 3rd year of PhD. After I have written the paper, there is a minimum of 10 times check and correction cycle going on between me and my advisor. He checks grammar and english errors, but never have I seen him give any technical input for improvement of the paper. Instead, after I have completed my part and given it to him for checking, he would say things like, "yes will check it", "very busy now", and by doing this 2 months passes by. Now he does this everytime the checking phase comes. So nearly 5 6 months minimum is wasted in just the checking process. Again he wants me to give 7 journal paper for PhD and I will be paid for a maximum of 3 more years. Right now, 1 paper has been communicated and 1 I am about to communicate. Its just too much of pressure. Please tell me what to do. Please help...

I had a similar issue.  I found that the major problem was that I was a "drafter" and my advisor was a "planner" in terms of writing style - my style was to write a draft, get the technical points correct, and then wordsmith the exact meaning and clarify my points.  My advisor, on the other hand, wanted me to carefully plan each of my arguments before even starting to write so that it was absolutely clear what my contribution was, why it was important, why it was novel, and why my work was sufficient to support it.

It was quite frustrating, to be honest.  I strongly recommend meeting with your advisor to clarify how exactly he wants you to work on each paper.  One of the purposes of a PhD education is to turn you into a researcher who is independent, so eventually you'll have to learn to edit your own papers anyway.  If the issues are typically minor, like English and grammar, don't wait on your advisor.  Send it off to an editor and get that part out of the way.  If there are common issues on things like clarity and whether your arguments are sufficient, spend more time planning out how you are arguing each point, how you are backing up each claim, and why it's valid, before even writing the paper.  This will give you a much stronger paper anyway.

Now, I don't know your field, but 7 journal papers out of 1 PhD seems excessive to me.  I've heard from top researchers that they expect 3 from a PhD, and I myself graduated with only 1 in a great journal, plus two more in a smaller journal.  I think that expectation is also something to discuss with your advisor.  What do other grad students in your group say?  Are they having the same problem, or is it just you?  if it's just you, what are they doing differently?


Best platform to publicaly share data I'm in the final stage of my PhD, and want to make my datasets publicly available. This is so that my examiners can re-run my regressions, if they wish; but moreover, I want other scholars to be able to use the datasets I compiled for their own purposes. I spent years putting these together, and see no purpose in keeping it to myself "just because". The information is not sensitive, and is already in the public domain (e.g, government statistical sites), albeit mostly in unprocessed form.

Is there a best practice in this regard - a "GitHub" equivalent for datasets?

I'm biased, as a long-time IEEE member, but I recommend IEEE Dataport as a good place to store large data sets that are likely to be of interest to others.
As their About page says:

IEEE DataPort™ is a universally accessible web-based portal that serves four primary purposes:

Enable individuals and institutions to indefinitely store and make datasets easily accessible to a broad set of researchers, engineers and industry;
Enable researchers, engineers and industry to gain access to datasets that can be analyzed to advance technology;
Facilitate data analysis by enabling access to data in the AWS Cloud and by enabling the downloading of datasets
Supports reproducible research.


Presenting a new work in different seminars in the same department I work in mathematics and sometimes my work is on the border of two different subjects: analysis (my main specialization) and geometry. In my department there are both analysis seminar and geometry seminar.

Is it common to present the same new work in both seminars if I believe that the work might represent some interest to both groups?

If it matters, I am working in an American university and I am relatively new in this country.

You present your work to colleagues, not a formal group under a certain name. If you think there are people on both seminar groups who are genuinely interested in what you do and with whom you would like to collaborate in future - there is nothing wrong in presenting your results in both seminars.

However, there is no point (and no joy) in presenting to a wrong audience, or, in other words, in presenting a wrong talk to a given audience. If you decide to present in two different seminar groups, focused on different topics, make sure you rework your presentation accordingly. In fact, you have to present two different lectures,  each adapted to interests of a particular group.


Can a advance stage PhD student (without thesis subission) apply for post docs, or have to wait until the completion of final defence? I am interested to know, whether an advance stage PhD student (without thesis submission) can apply for post doc positions or not?

For postdocs that are publicly advertised, read the advertisement.  Typically it will say something like "Candidate must have completed PhD before starting date MM-DD-YYYY."  That means you can apply before you are finished, but your application will have to convince them that you will be done before MM-DD-YYYY. If you're offered the job but then don't finish your degree on time, you may lose the job.  (It is possible, but not guaranteed, that you could be given the option to delay your start until after you defend; or to be hired under a different title, usually with lower pay, until you defend.)

For postdocs that are not publicly advertised, where you have to contact the PI to express interest, your initial contact message can say something like "I am finishing my PhD at (name of school), working with (name of advisor), and I expect to defend in MM-YYYY."  If they respond positively, you'll know that's acceptable, and can go on with a full application if needed.


Writing Statement of Purpose after answering prompts in the application that already cover the material I apologize in advance if my question wasn't very clear. It only allowed for 150 characters.

I was wondering how to approach writing a statement of purpose after answering prompts or short answer questions that pretty much cover the material I have mentioned in my essay.

The application asks for in separate spaces to write about my research interest, reason for applying to the school, and steps I have taken to prepare for graduate studies.

What would be the best material to include after covering the above material? (150-250 words ,as instructed in the application)? Should I elaborate more by providing details to the answers to the above questions or should I write about my character and work ethic?

Thanks.

I'm assuming that you're applying to enter a PhD or Masters program. I'm a STEM PhD candidate at a research-intensive US university, and I'm basing my advice off of what professors here have told me, as well as successful applications I've seen of admitted students:

Keep in mind that often a committee will read your statement of purpose before any other statement. Thus, you want the statement of purpose to present yourself in a way that makes them excited about reading the rest of your application. In some places, if they're not hooked there, they might not even keep reading your longer sections. In this vein, it's okay to (briefly!!) mention things you explain at more length elsewhere in the application.

Of course, how to craft a statement that does that depends on the particular individuals reading your application, so disclaimer that this is only one set of advice and you likely want to recruit multiple viewpoints. Common themes in similar writing that has been successful in the work I have seen:

Your motivation. Briefly: Why do you want to be in [program]? (In STEM at least, most graduate programs will care nearly-exclusively about your passion for research.)
Why this program? Why is [program] the best fit for you?
Why you? Why should [program] want you? What do you bring to the table that they want?

Those second and third points can be very hard to get a handle of if you've not been affiliated with or visited the school before. Scouring the website is helpful, but you can also email current graduate students in the program. At least in my program, we'd all be happy to answer questions in an email or talk on the phone with a potentially-applying student.

PS: I apologize for not being able to comment first to clarify some of my assumptions, I don't yet meet the 50 reputation requirement.


How to prevent papers from being published in advance by others? I have a new idea, and the experimental results are also good. But my mentor does not allow me to publish it yet. But I am worried that the idea will be robbed by others. So is there any way to not publish it now, but I will take advantage of this idea first？
I am a computer major, and I mainly publish conference papers. If I upload the paper to arxiv, will others not be able to use the same idea as me?
If I upload it to arxiv, many people will have seen this paper. When I submit this paper again after a year, will it be because it is a previous one, and everyone has seen it, so it won’t be accepted.

If I upload the paper to arxiv, will others not be able to use the same idea as me?

They absolutely can, but because you have uploaded your paper, you have established precedence: you can claim you had the idea and did the work first. Others can still use your idea (and you should feel flattered they do!) but they would have to cite you.
There are many papers on the arXiv that have accumulated lots of citations but have never been published in journals, e.g. this one. If the authors of that paper ever submit it to a journal, there's a high chance it will be published quickly, simply because it is so impactful.


verifiable research statement UPDATE:
So, am I to understand there is no such thing as a "verified research statement" besides an actual "recommendation" ? I already have a sense of the department(s) and professor's in the target phd proram know me from some elementary classes (but not that familiar with my academic background/research etc...)

ORIGINAL QUESTION:
I am planning on applying to graduate school (phd). However, before that I plan on talking with relevant professors at these schools, I would like to take a portfolio if research work I have done already. So, can I goto my current/previous professor to write/sign my research statement to PROVE/VALIDATE the contents of the research  which I did under them. Although course description/syllabus will have general statements about research, specifics can only come from the professor. I do not want to wait till recommendations for application to mention my research experience.  Questions are:

Is this the norm ?
If not, what is the alternative way?

If you're just going to talk to professors ahead of the application, you don't need to bring a portfolio and certainly don't need to bring letters. That's just overkill.

Just come prepared to talk about your work. If you have any publications that came out of it, you could bring those. Or even a brief summary sheet.

Verification will come later when the letters of reference come in with your entire application package.

Use your early visits to get a sense of the departments and the faculty who might be enthusiastic about your project and possibly serve as a PI. You'll impress them most by being enthusiastic about your work, being able to articulate its importance without having to fumble through your briefcase for external validation, and being able to express great interest in working in that particular discipline with that particular department and PI.


Are Honorary Degrees Awarded to Those Lacking PhDs? Have honorary degrees ever been conferred on someone lacking a PhD?

all the time. Honorary degrees have been awarded to popstars, athletes, etc.
See for example wikipedia


Conflict of interest as a referee? I am currently collaborating with three researchers on three non-overlapping and independent research projects/papers (i.e. one with each). I have been asked to review a paper for a journal, for which the same three researchers are the authors.

I am tempted to take it and try to do an objective review, but I wonder if this would represent a conflict of interest. Of course, as they are constant collaborators, I am not sure if there would be any unconscious bias.

Disclose your possible conflict to the editor and let them decide. "I had no direct role in the submitted work but am currently collaborating with Drs. Moe, Curly, and Larry on separate projects on plumbing, eye protection, and suit integrity."

It may be that your field is narrow enough that the editor will prefer your mostly impartial review, or they may prefer to find another referee.

This suggestion of course assumes that you think you can offer a fair review whether or not you find the work suitable for publishing. If you think for any reason you would be unwilling to reject the work if it is poor because of your collaborations, you should not agree to review at all.


Should I be applying for positions if my applications were rejected last year and not much have changed since then? Please advise I am 31 years old, materials engineering PhD graduate in Canada. I completed my PhD last year and failed to secure a postdoc or industry position mainly because of my poor publication record. After graduation, I published 2 papers. So now, I have 3 first author and 1 co-authored publications from my PhD in decent journals.
Since May this year, I joined my PhD advisor for my postdoc and I have been working on different projects than my PhD's. I have been collaborating with groups in my department and other universities in Canada. My PhD advisor is great and offered me the position out of pity.
I have submitted two first author papers this year till now. Planning to submit 3 more (1 first and 2 co-authored) by the end of this year.
However, I don't feel good about what I am doing. I feel so incompetent since I did not get a good position last year and now am working with my PhD advisor which is considered a career suicide.
My advisor has ensured that the contract will be extended till the end of the next year. And I am hesitating to apply for postdoc or industry positions elsewhere as mostly I am afraid of getting rejected again and partly from covid situation.
I know I should be applying for positions aggressively. But I am not feeling the motivation to do so. I always wanted to be an academic. But now I feel that I am not cut out for it. I just don't have what it needs to be in research field. I am also not a good teacher.
There's so much I don't know and so much skillset to acquire that many researchers of my age and in my field of study are proficient in. I just feel that I am going to fail again in securing a position.
I just don't know what to do. Should I be applying for positions if not much has changed since then?
Please advise what you think about my situation. Thanks.

You should probably be applying but with a broadened scope. Times are tough, both generally in academia and due to the pandemic. What was true this year may not be true next.
The ease of getting a position in a given academic field varies fairly wildly over time. There are downturns and also good times. But, unless you want to give up and become an Uber driver, you need to keep looking.
But you would be wise to expand your search to other sorts of institutions that rejected you last time. Cast a wide net. In fact, you may need to keep trying for more than a year, given current conditions. And bring other resources to bear to help you. Make sure that you have a strong application, matched to requirements with good letters of support. Get, and take, advice from advisors and others who might be able to help.
Times will change, but it will take time for it to happen. Stay connected to your field as best you can and keep producing as is possible.


Accused of Cheating during an online exam Today, I got accused of cheating on an exam I took yesterday. It was a lockdown browser exam, my exam as well as several other students exams were also flagged because of the following reasons.

This was a 20 multiple choice question exam, and here is the response I was given,

the answers were identical
the time the answers were submitted is identical

The vice chair for my university emailed me stating “there is absolutely no way this can happen by chance  The odds are 1 in 10^1000 or something to that order”

The vice chair also explained this will go through due process so I will have a chance to explain my side.

I don’t know how to feel about this, I feel as if there is nothing I can do and all my hard work put into this class is going to waste.

What action should I take? How can I respond to this claim?

Note from comments: I did not cheat.

If you truly did not cheat then there will be a way to prove your innocence because false claims eventually lead to contradictions. The statistics aren't very threatening because it sounds like your accuser is probably assuming that each multiple choice question is a random event to get a ridiculous probability,  but that's nonsense. Exams are written to be answered correctly by those that are prepared. Thus in reality we expect many of those questions to be answered correctly and identically. You can offer to justify your answers to show you answered them on your own.

The identical submission time is concerning, but there is no reason to assume Blackboard is a perfectly coded software. Even programs like Microsoft Excel that are written by experts and probably used by millions have silly bugs in them. If I coordinated with my friends to the best of our abilities we could never click the submit button with identical submission times because we have different response times. If anything the identical submission time better supports there being a bug with blackboard than anything else. You should ask the accuser to explain how the identical times is evidence that you cheated and not that there was a bug with blackboard or any other aspect of online examination. You should also ask your accuser for how long have they been doing examination like this because likely it's new to them and they should be reminded of that.

Good luck.


Two of my potential PhD referees are married to each other – is that a problem? Note: By Referees, I mean individuals who can support and validate my application for a PhD; for example, former lecturers or supervisors who have worked with me in the past and would be able to say whether I am suited for a research role.

I have been taught by a former associate professor of my university in one module for my undergrad degree, and his spouse taught two of my master's degree modules and co-supervised my master's degree dissertation. I am thinking of naming the both of them in their separate capacities as academic referees for my PhD application.

They are were not involved in teaching me at a joint capacity at any point in time and neither of them had to review the other's work with me.

However, I'm worried that an external reviewer of my application might think that they would influence each other outside of work, and that if one of them thinks favorably of me, so will the other. I don't think that is the case, as they are people of integrity with a strong moral code, but someone whose job is to review my application with trained skepticism might not see it that way.

I could adopt an 'if they don't ask, don't tell' policy, but that wouldn't be very honest, and even if it did work initially, having it resurface at some point in the future might land me in a lot of trouble if this behavior is considered questionable at best.

Can I ask them to be my referees, and will an external reviewer treat them as a single referee? Obviously the best outcome for me would be if:

They are treat as separate referees, as I think they should be.
I am not obliged to disclose their relationship anyways.

I don't expect this to be an issue.

I have been at departments where two spouses were faculty members. I have also received and evaluated applications where there were references for the same candidate from academics who I know are close collaborators and friends. In each case, the natural assumption was that they have their own careers, working style, students, collaborators, and -- of course -- opinions.

In this case, it is clear your exposure to them is in different contexts, and presumably their letters will make that clear. It is perhaps more likely than average that they will talk with each other about their letters as well (given they have more opportunity to do so!), but that happens all the time anyway.


Is it acceptable that I plot a time-series figure with years increasing from right to left? I have a plot like this in my paper, but one of the co-authors says The x-axis is backward. I think as long as keeping all figures in the same style, it is ok. But I am not sure if there is really such a rule that years should increase from left to right? My field is environmental science.

I think readers will be strongly expecting that time increases from left to right in a graph.  It's probably not a "rule" that you'll find written down anywhere, but it's certainly the overwhelmingly common practice. Having time go from right to left will very likely confuse your readers, and I don't think it should be done unless there is a very strong reason for it.


Is it pragmatically beneficial to pursue a master degree before applying for a math PhD in the U.S.? Question

One is supposed to be devoted to pure mathematics. Is it beneficial for one to pursue a master degree before applying a math PhD in the United States?

Backgrounds

The question is due to the harsh situation of undergrad students who are outside the U.S. and want to apply for a pure math PhD in the U.S. After an application process, one received no offer or no satisfactory offers. I wonder whether it's beneficial to apply for a master degree first, as a springboard towards a PhD position?

I googled online and found some similar posts. However, I found nothing exactly matches what I want to ask, such as:

One can determine whether he/she really wants to do math via a master life. while I suppose that one is devoted to pure mathematics.
To attend some required courses (for PhD applicants) which aren't available in his/her university. They don't require a lot, and in the situation I'm interested in, there is not shortcoming from this kind of restriction.

I want to know the pure pragmatic effect of a master degree. Does the fame or honor of the graduate school increase the chance of admission for students? Do (good) scores in the graduate school de facto prove the strength and ability of students? Are these more convincing than scores/works in the undergraduate school?

Thanks for information.

The short answer to the title is yes, it can help for less competitive (foreign or domestic) students, as has been mentioned on this site several times (e.g. https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/42268/19607; see also How does the admissions process work for Ph.D. programs in the US, particularly for weak or borderline students?) but I can't find all the relevant issues in a single post.

For foreign students, there are a few different reasons why one might have trouble getting into a decent PhD program in the US:

you are coming from a very competitive location (e.g., east Asia) so by comparison you look weaker to many similar applicants; also, schools don't usually want to admit too many people from a single region
you have a horrible TOEFL score; unless your application is absolutely stellar, this will hurt you, as most PhD programs will need you to teach/TA undergrads
you come from a school that is not so well known in the US, so grad programs have difficulty assessing the value of your grades, coursework and letters of recommendation.  letters of recommendation are very important in this case, but unfortunately many faculty at these schools don't know how to write appropriate letters of recommendation--I've often found all the letters for a candidate to be completely useless.

On the other hand, master's programs are easier to get into, so if you're having trouble getting into PhD programs, yes, it's a good idea to apply to Master's programs.  Of course, before you apply, you probably won't know your chances, so my suggestion is if you are unsure, apply to some of both.

As for the benefit, assuming you go to a Master's program that is more reputable/well known, then coursework and letters there will count for more than at your undergrad for various reasons:

First, your study of more advanced material counts more.
(if you're comparing the value of work after you've done a master's program) How you have done most recently generally counts more than the more distant past.
The people reviewing your application are more likely to be familiar with the quality of education and the standards at this school.  (At the least, you are coming from within the US system.)
Last and not least, your letters of recommendation are likely to be more meaningful, because the faculty at the Master's program know how to write letters for US PhD programs, and the faculty evaluating your letters are more likely to know the letter writers and how to interpret what they say.  (Also, they'll be evaluating you on more advanced material, which is more meaningful.)


Can I re-apply for a new PhD position of a better university if I am currently full funded international student of another university(both in US)? Can I apply for a new PhD position of a better university(Stanford, Berkeley) in coming fall semester if I am currently international full funded PhD student of another university (both in US)? After acceptance I will leave the previous university.

Yes: You can drop-out, give-up funding, and start-over with a new supervisor.
Albeit, that's probably ill-advised given the current climate.


Studying for a master's in Computer Science after a bachelor's in Physics I am currently in my penultimate (third) year of a master's degree in Physics (in the UK). The degree is set up such that you have four years of a taught degree and graduate with a master's without ever actually receiving a bachelor's. However, it is still possible for me to switch to a bachelor's degree in Physics.

I have been considering whether it would be advantageous to switch to a one year master's degree in Computer Science instead of Physics since I have developed a substantial interest in programming and software development over the last two and a half years of my Physics degree. I have taken programming modules as part of the degree and I completed a software development internship last year that was related to geographical information services in the space industry. I also try to get involved in software projects in my free time when I can but I don't have particularly extensive experience.

After getting involved with some student space organisations and undertaking research into careers, my goal is to work in a software related position within the information sector of the space industry - something I have developed a strong interest in. Jobs like these require software skills but do also specify that a bachelor's or master's degree in Physics would be valid for entry.

So, I have the choice of continuing with a master's degree in Physics or switching to a master's degree in Computer Science. I find the latter more interesting and along with the broader principles of Computer Science I would learn from it (i.e. not just programming), it may give me an advantage when it comes to applying for the jobs I am interested in. However, the primary drawbacks to switching would be adapting to a new university and course structure when I may be able to self-teach the key skills that I would learn from a Computer Science master's.

It is possible to undertake a year-long software development project as part of a Physics master's, although this would of course be accompanied by Physics-centred taught modules.

Any advice about the benefits of such a switch to Computer Science would be greatly appreciated.

Given you can get a first in your BSc in Physics I think it is OK to move. You have a strong written indicator that you know your Maths for an industry person. In addition, you can legitimately claim you left because you liked something else more rather than you leave suspicions you left because you could not handle it.

Having said that, I would personally stick for an MSci in Physics because: 1. It is significantly less common than CS and 2. a Mathematics/Physics education is much harder to acquire later in life (To put it bluntly: People don't catch-up on their PDEs). You say you have the opportunity for a year-long software development project. This is very good and gives you a great foot-hold for future SW development work.

Finally it is important to note that "a software related position within the information sector of the space industry" is a rather broad thing. If you want to do information security, image recognition or something equally specialized you should definitely focus on a specialized MSc. If you want to do simulations, reliability, controls, etc. actually sticking to your MSci might be a better thing (given you know how to code :) ).


What is the average salary of a life sciences post doc in Singapore and what is the average living cost there? I am from India and I am about to submit my PhD thesis (Biotechnology) and considering for a post-doc in Singapore. Can you help me know what is the average post-doc salary in Singapore in an institute like NUS or TLL? From my contacts I have come to know that the cost of living in Singapore is quite high. Please guide me what would be the average monthly cost of  living for a family of 3 (me, my wife and an infant)?? or Should I look for a post-doc position in any other country like USA, UK, or anywhere in Europe?

I have found that a good general source for salary information in Glassdoor.com: everything on it should be taken with a grain of salt, but it's a good starting point for getting a general sense.  Searching there at the moment, postdocs in Singapore seem to be reporting around $5K/month.

Combining that with the cost of living estimator recommended by Fabio Dias, it seems to be survivable, though you'll likely not be saving much.


What precisely does "ISI-indexed publications" mean? I'm currently looking at the requirements of a (Comp. Sci.) job that seems to only take into account "ISI-indexed publications". I'm vaguely aware of what ISI is and so forth, but I'm struggling to find a definitive list of ISI-indexed venues, or what "ISI-indexed publications" means.

Or at least I hope it doesn't mean what I think it does ...

I found the following list on the Thomson Reuters' page as a journal list for science. However, the list doesn't contain any conferences (even the "big ones" like WWW, (P)VLDB, SIGMOD, etc.) and a few journals I would expect to be on there aren't.

Would I be correct to say that any Comp. Sci. venue not on that list is not "ISI-indexed"?

Is this "ISI-indexed-only" restriction common?

(If so, seems quite antiquated really. Not being able to mention good, highly-cited, highly-selective conference papers sucks.)

Right, the IP & Science business of Thomson Reuters (the business formerly known as ISI) curates the indexes Web of Science and Current Contents Connect. The journal coverage in those two is almost identical. Thomson Reuters then creates some data products from the Web of Science and Current Contents Connect data, such as the Journal Impact Factors.

Other indexes that are important in computer science include IEEE Xplore and ACM Digital Library. There are also more open indexes such as DBLP and CiteSeerX.

Thomson Reuters mentions "Bradford's Law" as a principle it uses to include or exclude journals. The general idea is to include some 12,000 journals that are well woven into the network of scholarly citations, viewed broadly.

I have read more than once that computer science is unusual in the value it places on conference papers. That fact may help to explain limitations in the collection of conferences in the Web of Science collection. I am not certain whether or not the collection strategy for Web of Science specifically takes into account that computer science is unusual in that way.

The Web of Knowledge product that provides access to the Web of Science collection happens to have a more subject-specific collection called Inspec available for subscription. That is a bibliographic collection curated by the Institution of Electronics and Technology that historically was the UK's counterpart to IEEE. Not every institution that subscribes to Web of Knowledge elects to include Inspec in its subscription. Conversely, Web of Knowledge is not the only way to access the Inspec collection - although I believe it is the only way that is cross-referenced with Web of Science.


Are problems in PhD science labs not present in math phd research? I must say that I am shocked at the number of questions on this site that reads like the following,

"my advisor has stopped funding me"

"my advisor has been completely ignoring my emails"

"my advisor is stealing my ideas!"

"my advisor wants to be 1st author, when I did the majority of the work!"

"my advisor wants to add another student to the paper and this is unfair!"

I was wondering whether these pervasive problems go away, when one is doing mathematics research?  I imagine that in math research, one has more control / ownership of their work, there's no lab to be a part of and contribute to, one's funding is typically in the form of teaching stipends, and the meetings are typically one-on-one, with no group meetings to attend.

Is a math PhD a better experience than a science PhD, in the sense that there is significantly less risk of working for a problematic, unethical, malicious scientist / professor who only cares about himself / herself?

Keep in mind that the number of questions on this site doesn't give any indication of how common such issues are, since people usually only post when something is wrong.  We don't hear about all the cases where everything is fine.

I don't know any reason why math advisors should inherently be better people than in any other field, and I don't know of any empirical data that attempts to measure this.  However, a few of the specific issues you mention are perhaps less likely to arise in mathematics, due to cultural and structural reasons.

  "my advisor has stopped funding me"

In the US, at least, the main avenue of funding for math graduate students is through teaching assistantships, since math departments teach a large number of service courses.  Faculty who have grants can sometimes offer their students a research assistantship instead, so that the student doesn't have to teach.  But a student really isn't completely reliant on their advisor for funding.  Moreover, there typically aren't major expenses for the research itself (no expensive equipment, etc), so as long as the student is getting paid, research can continue.

(This is not necessarily the case in other countries.)

  "my advisor wants to be 1st author, when I did the majority of the work!"

The general practice in mathematics is that all authors are listed alphabetically, and the concept of "first authorship" does not exist.  As such, people don't bother to keep track of who did the "majority" of the work.  So this particular issue doesn't arise in mathematics.

  "my advisor is stealing my ideas!"

While individual departments may vary, I think there's a general sense in mathematics that a joint paper "counts" about the same as a solo paper.  As such, if a student has contributed to a project, the advisor has no particular incentive not to include them as an author on the paper.

  "my advisor wants to add another student to the paper and this is unfair!"

As above, it isn't any particular disadvantage to a student if another student is added.


Very odd interview/hiring timeline for physical science field Due to the circumstances surrounding my graduation and other factors, I didn't apply in the Fall of 2013 for any jobs. I did happen to see an opening that was still posted in February and applied on a whim. In a short period of time I was asked to do a phone interview followed by campus interview followed by request for more info from my references. At this point it was summer and quite a bit of time went by before I was asked for some start up costs (nothing substantial for my field) at which point the dean said it shouldn't be a problem.

Fast forward 2 months and all I've heard is "you'll hear from us soon" and that the process is moving slowly. Every time I think they must have filled the position they tell me just enough to make me think I am still in the running. At this point we are way off of the normal hiring schedule so I do not know what to think.

Does anyone have any thoughts--is it likely that they have offered the position to someone else and are in negotiations? Why bother getting all of my startup details? Has anyone else had any experiences with a super long, off-schedule hiring timetable?

All I can say is that different universities can take different amounts of time to process things. The process can take even longer when the process drags out over the summer, as many of the key people who need to approve such a hire (and usually there are several) are often out on vacation, which can drag the process out even further.

I know, for instance, that there was nearly a five-month gap between the time I had my interview and was told I'd be getting an offer and actually receiving it. So delays are possible.

However, it may also be possible that you were not the top-ranked candidate after the search, and they are currently waiting to hear back from that candidate before deciding whether or not to make you an offer.


Should I describe failed iterations in methodology? I'm currently writing my Master's thesis in machine learning.

My understanding of academic papers are that you describe what you did in methodology section and what the outcome was in the results section.

But my problem is that the research was very iterative, meaning that the results from early experiments made med tweak the parameters and the algorithm until the results finally could tell me something about my original research question.

Should I describe this process in the methodology and show the results of the earlier experiments, or would it be better to only describe what was done in the final experiment? And if the first alternative is better, should I describe the results of the early experiments in the methodology since they shaped the parameters of the later experiments?

I wouldn't outright reject the utility of discussing failed iterations in your thesis. If handled deftly, a discussion of failures could be just as informative as a discussion of your final approach. Far too often, such discussions are omitted from papers owing to lack of space.

Think of it from your reader's point of view. What does s/he stand to gain from reading about failed approaches? If you could provide an analysis of the "nature of problem" and the "ill fitting approach", and put it in a larger perspective, it might help readers avoid repeating your (very tempting) mistakes in their works.


How to cite ISO standards? I am currently writing my PhD thesis and several times I cite various ISO standards. I am unsure what the correct way to format the bibliography entry for such documents is.

Currently I am doing something like:

  ISO (1997). ISO 4287 Geometrical Product Specifications (GPS) – Surface texture: Profile
  method – Terms, definitions and surface texture parameters.

I'm using an author-year style so the entries normally look like

  Author (year) Title, Journal/publisher

Is there a better way to format this?

check out this blog entry on Citing ISO Standards or this site on Bibliographic Citation Standards and Schemes
As you can see there is no definitive answer to you question.

Maybe you ask your thesis advisor.


If someone provided you with data does he become a co-author? Say I'm doing some work which is closely related to someone's else's work. I want to study the same data that he studied. I know him well, and producing the data is no big deal but is time consuming, so I ask him to provide me with the data he had produced. If he agreed. Should I include him as a co-author?

The issue of whether or not merely providing data for a project constitutes "authorship" is a thorny one. Many medical journals, for example, are asserting that merely having generated data is not grounds for authorship all on its own.

So if he's just providing you with a data file, and that's the last you'll hear from him? In my mind, that lands you in the acknowledgements section of a paper.

On the other hand, if he's going back and forth retrieving data as you refine your question, providing advice on how it came about, what it means, etc. and may end up reviewing the draft of the paper, etc.? I'd make him an author. Essentially, I would extend him the chance to take up the slightly more burdensome mantle of authorship, and let him turn it down.


Is it acceptable to e-mail a professor at another university to ask for a meeting to discuss common research interests? I'm a PhD student, from Europe, nearing the end of my thesis.
I'm going to the USA for a conference in a few months. A couple of professors (assistant professor level, both fairly young, recruited in the past 2 or 3 years) whose work I'm very interested in teach in the vicinity of the conference venue.

Would it be acceptable for me to e-mail them out of the blue and ask them if they'd like to meet/have coffee to discuss common research interests?

They both do literature like me and care about similar methodological issues. However we work on (and in) very different geographical areas, so the chance of us ever meeting at a regular conference are low.

Is this ever acceptable? Does rank/school factor into it?

The answer is simple: yes, it is acceptable and common. Don't worry about your rank or about the status of your school. If your email is polite, friendly, is not too long but still includes enough relevant information about you to make it clear to the professors that you and they have shared interests, I estimate that the chances of success (meaning they will agree to meet) are very high — basically the only reasons why this may not work are if the professor is out of town on the day you are proposing to visit, is overwhelmingly busy with other commitments, or is an unpleasant and unfriendly person you probably wouldn't want to meet anyway. Good luck!


Applied vs academic future goals The universities and programmes I am going to apply emphasizes their research, hands-on experience, startup environment, etc as well as strong academia.

Is it fine to state in the Statement of Purpose that after graduating I would like to apply the knowledge to non-academical area?

If that's your plan, I don't see why you can't say that. I think that you institutions know that not everyone who does a thesis has to work in Academia!

If you are worried that mentioning that would hurt your chances of being accepted/getting funded, then I can see that some schools/faculty might shy away from your application (although in theory, they shouldn't! [depending on the institution]).

Remember, people change their opinions with time! Maybe after a while you want to work in Academia! Maybe someone who stated that they wanna work in academia in their SOP, decides to not do that few years in their program. This is why I'm saying it shouldn't matter that much ch.

Once you get your degree, you can anything you want!


How to write a brief author biography for a journal article? One of my papers has recently been accepted!
We received an e-mail informing us that
we have a short time frame in which we need to do a bunch of work
to get the paper ready for publication.
In particular, one of the components which we need to submit is
a brief author biography for each co-author.

I have had a few papers published before,
but none of these papers has required me
to provide a brief author biography.
What information should I include in this biography?
Can someone provide a sample of his/her biography
for me to use as a reference or template?

Can't you look at author biographies from other papers in that journal?


Contacting A Professor for Master of Science (Thesis) I want to know whether or not the professors are generally interested to supervise students in their M.Sc. (Thesis) program.

How many students they may supervise?

Do professors insist that we know everything about their research work?
Do they provide us some time in case we don't satisfy the knowledge of their research work completely or do they deny to supervise us right away?

If a professor is ready to supervise, then does that guarantee the admission (assuming we meet all admission requirements)?

Professors get credit with their departments for supervising graduate students and getting them through to their degrees. Depending on the department, university, type of program (is the master's degree terminal? etc.), and country, the importance of supervising a master's student for a professor relative to a PhD student can vary a lot. In some places the PhD students may be all that really counts towards the professor's direct incentives, or they may be more or less equivalent. In a terminal master's program, the master's students are everything (if that isn't obvious). I don't know of anywhere where a master's student would count more than a PhD student towards a professor's supervision requirements, but it might be common in some professional programs that also grant PhDs.

Now, that being said, there are other incentives for professors that master's students can affect. Professors generally need to publish peer-reviewed works, and master's students can definitely contribute to that. Perhaps less so than PhD students, but most master's students are working towards at least one significant publication. Professors also must staff the grant-funded projects that they win and produce whatever deliverables they promised (or at least try to), and master's students are hired for this purpose as well.

Typically, professors may have as many students as they can support with funding. That may be grant funding or departmental funding, but I know of no hard caps. Obviously, departments will want students to get good supervision, so if a professor has an inordinate number of students, say 100, then a department chair might try to slow them down or otherwise act to insure that the students are adequately supervised. On the other hand, departments tend to stay out of the way of extremely well-funded professors.

Professors may decide how to select their students in almost any way they choose as long as they do not discriminate based on legally protected statuses in their country (e.g. race, sex, religion, etc.) and as long as they comply with their university's local regulations. My PhD supervisor took me on knowing, since I was applying to the same university as my undergrad, that I knew virtually nothing of his research. I didn't have the mathematics, fluid mechanics, or really even the programming skills to contribute strongly on day one. That being said, other professors may do things differently, especially for master's students who are expected to be there for only a few years. This is a personal choice, and so it will vary a lot. However, university degrees are at least partly about educating the student, so they can't expect you to know everything already.

Finally, admissions processes vary wildly across departments, universities, etc., so it really depends. In my limited experience based on watching others at one US university, master's admissions tend to be looser than PhD admissions in the sense that master's students who can pay are frequently admitted without a supervisor lined up under the assumption that they will find someone to supervise their thesis while doing the required coursework during the first year. PhD students usually aren't admitted directly to a PhD program unless some professor puts up their hand and volunteers to take them on. In other countries, I understand that students apply directly to a potential advisor and as long as they meet minimal criteria, they will be admitted to the university. Many US programs may be de facto like this but separate the university/departmental requirements from the professors' requirements on officially.

Finally, it's my understanding that many students are admitted to master's programs with the implicit expectation that they will transition to the PhD program over time after they find an advisor.


What to do if my paper is incorrectly cited in a journal? Recently I got a cite in a research paper where the author cited my work as [first name] et al, where it should have been [last name] et al. Is there any problem for indexing purpose? should I contact the journal editor about this incident and ask for correction?

Yes, that's a problem, and you will absolutely want to fix it. The problem is that it's actually a two-stage problem to correct:

First, you will need to contact the journal to fix the citation.
Then, after the citation has been corrected in the article, you'll need to submit a correction request to the various citation trackers (such as ISI and Scopus). They will need to fix your citation in their database, if the article has already been entered.

Note: It may or may not be possible to correct the journal—the editors may or may not be willing to issue a correction to fix a reference. However, it may be possible to correct the reference with the citation indices, even if it's not correct in the journal. However, the road will be tougher; you'll need to show that the paper that should be cited is indisputably yours.


What tool or process can I use to see revisions on papers I am grading? Like many professors, I ask for drafts of papers of more than a few pages (1500+ words). I provide comments focused on content. (I might make occasional corrections to grammar or word choice--particularly if a term of art is misused--but since I am not teaching writing-focused courses, would be more likely to refer a paper with consistently poor grammar, misspellings, etc., to the campus writing center.)

The problem comes when I am grading revisions. Occasionally a student will overlook some of the recommended changes. Maybe they ran out of time, maybe they disagree with the suggestion, maybe they're just surly. I don't know. But sometimes when looking at revisions, I will want to know what has changed in the text, and will end up having to look and awkwardly compare their draft submission.

My question is what tool or process can I use to see revisions as I am grading the final submission?

I will briefly share some experiences and biases:

Microsoft Word with Track Changes: I'll entertain arguments that this is the way to go, but I have two issues which I'll make clear up front. I have tried this, and when students get my revisions, they will accept my in-line revisions, but it doesn't make them think about what they are writing. Of course, they could still make changes based on margin comments. Another issue is that I am using Linux. Doing track changes in LibreOffice does seem to work, but I am not confident that this won't lead to errors.
Crocdoc (tool built into LMSes like Canvas and Blackboard): I love Crocdoc. The student can upload in MSWord or PDF and you can view and edit in the browser. You can do copyediting marks on the page, but unlike MSWord Track Changes, the students have to make the proposed change themselves, rather than just accepting your edits. Margin comments and global (assignment) comments are also supported. The problem is that you can't simultaneously view versions without actually downloading the files.
Version control system (e.g. GitHub): Might be able to get away with this in a technical program. Would be happy to hear people's experiences if anyone has used this for grading papers as opposed to coding projects.
Plain text/markdown: Even without using a version control system, I could use diff tools to view revisions on my local machine.
Use strikethrough and bold in the document: Would be similar to my experience of journal article revisions. Main problem is sometimes drafts are very preliminary, in which case the final "revisions" will be almost an entirely different paper. Maybe don't use in that case?
Google Docs: I've tried this. It wasn't bad, but without typical LMS tools I had a huge problem keeping submissions organized (in terms of what I've already reviewed, when student edits constitute a submitted revision). This would work better for supervising a thesis or independent study, but was tough with a class of 20. Also, I was annoyed by constant emails as student marked my comments as "Resolved".

These are just ideas. Feel free to expand or ignore, and please suggest things I haven't thought of.

At my university, our agreement with Google is designed to make sure the content is hosted in the US so that FERPA-covered materials can be posted to it (I think. I know it's true for Gmail). This includes shared Google Docs which would have the full change history. If that works for you, then you could easily go with that. I'd check with your university-wide, central IT department (if you have one) to see if this option is available to you, too.


Will I destroy my career if I published a paper with a serious mistake? I'm an undergrad and kind of new to this whole research thing. I've been doing research for the past ~9 months as a requirement to graduate with my bachelor's (there's the research track and software development track, I chose research).

I was told to try and submit my paper to conferences/journals (depends on their deadlines) to see if it gets accepted. But, one thing my professor said really stressed me out. If my paper gets accepted, and people find a serious mistake in it (ones that could cause your conclusion to be wrong, etc), it would destroy my whole career before it even began.

Can anyone with more experience go into detail about what could really happen? Assume, that the paper really gets accepted. On one hand, I'm not entirely confident of myself, and on the other, I have found a passion in research and would love to continue on for a PhD in future and this might help boost my resume a little given it is my only research experience.

Congrats on your paper. No, it wouldn't destroy your career but it would be awkward and embarrassing. It could potentially hurt your career if the mistake was the result of obvious sloppiness, gross incompetence, and worst of all, outright dishonesty. But for the first two of those, the damage would very likely be containable and if you keep doing research, after publishing another paper or two that had no mistakes, no one would remember this minor incident.

With that said, your advisor is correct that it's best to avoid publishing papers with mistakes in them if at all possible, so do make a sincere effort to check everything to the best of your abilities before submitting the paper.