Is there such a thing like "18-months/half-time syndrome"? I am about 1, 5-2 years in my Ph.D. studies in the no-man's-land between bioinformatics, systems biology and proteomics. (If you are not sure what those terms are, read: "biomedical research")

Coming from a more mathematical/technical background I was thrilled to work in this field, and my M.Sc thesis was pretty successful. Now diving deeper and deeper into the field I feel much less motivated to go on. What frustrates me most, is how little we really understand of complex biological systems, and all our efforts in the field are essentially just waddling in the darkness, trying to find the "holy grail" that may or may not exist. I personally feel that there is an undeniable lack of rigor even amongst the most respectable of scientists out there:

most biologist really have no clue beyond pipetting liquids left and right, as soon as it comes to data analysis they expect something along the lines of: "computer says yes/no" (see: little Britain's famous sketch)
computer scientists/mathematicians can't really cope with the uncertainties in the data
statisticians are essentially the con-artists of the field, rambling on undecipherable monologues. Sorry if I offend someone but it feels like one can prove/disprove anything with some creative use/interpretation of statistics.

Putting my rants aside, I went up and talked to one of the younger group leaders in our dept. I feel close enough to the person to give my honest opinion and respect his thoughts on the matter. The first thing he asked me after I was done rambling on, however, was how long it has been since I started. When I told him it's been about a year and a half, he smiled and said: "well, it was about time". According to him, it's common for a Ph.D. candidate to become jaded with his/her work somewhere between 18-months to 2 years in. He claimed that one simply gets deep enough into the field to see all the potential problems/pitfalls in research, and feel negative about it all.

Which brings me to my question(s); is there such a thing as 18-months syndrome, in your experience? Could it be a discipline-dependent phenomenon or applicable to other disciplines? How can one avoid getting stuck in a tailspin (negative spiral)?

PS: I wanted to tag this question as "research-psychology" but don't have the rep to create a new tag. If someone with more rep agrees with me on the tag, I would appreciate the help :)

Everything is possible: I'm pretty sure, from a large enough population of former PhD students, most will tell you that they felt demotivated at some point, but the timing will depend on the individual and the particular circumstances.

It is true, however, that mid-PhD corresponds to a particularly large number of negative factors, and it is common to feel bad about your thesis around that time. Heck, it's common even that there is a PHD Comics that highlights it:

(Don't mind the exaggerated x-axis scale. The area highlighted corresponds to mid-PhD.)

Now, why is that? Well, among your rants, most of the factors are actually listed in your question: Now, you know the field well enough to see not only the good, but also the bad in it. The initial elation has left, and you are left with the doubts. This is sometimes accompanied by deep questioning about your progress: Have I done enough? Have I taken the right course of action? etc.

But the most important point is: how to get out of it? Well, part of the problem is a natural “oscillation”, which means this is probably actually just a low point, a bad moment, and it will actually get better. Don't have too much fear of “spiraling down”: you've made it thus far, and you're aware of the issue!

As for more actionable advice, I would say:

Now that you are more knowledgeable of the field, you can actually start to make better choices: if you don't like a given approach, just steer away from it. You still have some time to do so, and it is part of your PhD to learn making strategic decisions (if you haven't already).
You may not see it, but you will be much more efficient during the second half of your PhD than the first, mostly because you have learnt a lot already and can make better decisions.
Pick a few challenges (one or two) that you would like to meet, and focus on those: you'll feel much better if, instead of chasing some holy grail, you can help solve these specific issues that you care about.
And remember: completing a PhD means becoming an expert in your field, and that actually means being able to critique its practices, recognize the good and the bad. It sounds like you have actually achieved this goal!

I hope this helps…


High impact PhD thesis? Or just incremental improvement? As a PhD candidate, I finally got my first conference paper published in a good reputation conference. My professor said that, even though the paper contained good theory and analysis, the results were only of incremental improvement over the state of the art techniques. He told me that I need to come up with another idea that is big (i.e., has substantial improvement over competing techniques) to be able to graduate. Even though I felt disappointed, I tried to accepted his comment as a challenge to make myself feel better.

Do you think my professor is right? Don't you think that a PhD should be centered around well defining/formulating your problem and proposing/evaluating feasible solution(s), regardless wether incremental or not, as long as originality is preserved. I tend to -respectfully- disagree with my supervisor, and hope that someone else can convince me otherwise. Any thoughts?

AFAIK, to have a PhD you must make a significant original contribution to the field. Therefore, I'm inclined to agree with your advisor. Incidentally, your advisor has considerably more experience at this, trust him.

And yes, @jakebeal is right, likely duplicate of What makes someone deserving of a Ph D?


How to ask a former advisor to resume 'contact'? A few years ago, I completed by bachelor's by creating a 'bachelor's thesis'. My advisor for this thesis. The thesis went very well, I've got a high grade and my advisor was very much impressed by my work (for an undergrad, at least) during and after the project.

However, he left almost immediately after that. I do think he left amicably, he even showed up briefly during his former course and I believe that some other university simply gave him more opportunity to do what he wants.

That was the last time I spoke with him. A lot has happened since and I'm thinking of perhaps contacting him to do a PhD in his expertise, although I'm not certain.

I do wonder how I should re-initiate contact. I have much to tell and ask, but long mails may be unread for long. I think meeting 'in the flesh' is unlikely to be possible (he isn't exactly far away, but still in a different country)

If this is useful, I am Dutch, the university is in the Netherlands, the advisor has a Germanic mother-tongue and is now in Germany. (I think)

Send him a short email reminding him who you are amd ask if he is planning on taking a PhD student soon. Let the conversation develop from there.


How to manage/avoid stress during manuscript writing? I have written few manuscripts so far and those have been published already (some ordinary peer-reviewed journals). However, I feel stressed so much when I write my new manuscript. How to manage/overcome this stress. I feel that other researchers also feel similar to me.

Your problem is common to many researchers, I think. However, the solutions are very different for each and everyone. My key concepts to avoid stress while writing, especially articles at the moment, consists of the following steps and ideas:

Strict time management. I set deadlines for every step I have to take. Like 1 week literature search, 1 week literature examination and reading, 1 week to construct a thesis and a research question etc. (or how long you need)
I try to create a structure of the article beforehand and extend it during the process of writing the paper. In the structure (I make a table of contents) I add bullet points to remember what important things I have to go through.
I continuously read and revise the mansucript I have already written.
When writing with co-authors I try to work together with them in one space, rather than skyping now and then. However, your time management is only as good as theirs, when you have to cooperate. So: direct communication with opennenss and honesty is important.
Never ever I plan to use extensions of deadlines. I only make use of extensions if things really are in trouble. Inform the persons who are awaiting your manuscript in time that you won't make the deadline.

All in all, the strategies against stress can also include recreational sports after an afternoon of writing. Or explicitly doing other things so that no other tasks are left behind. The perfect strategy is quite individual I think.


Considerations when negotiating a promotion from postdoc to researcher? I am currently a postdoc at an American university, and have been offered a promotion to something between postdoc and faculty (there is not a specific title, yet, but something like "soft-money academic staff researcher").

Are there any job-related benefits (other than standard health and retirement) that I could request when negotiating this position? Are there any requests that I should not make?

For example, the following come to mind - are all of these appropriate requests, and what should I consider when making such requests?

authorship on project-related publications
research support

undergraduate assistants
misc research

private office
professional development

opportunities to teach courses
money to attend conferences
adjunct faculty status (so that I can advise students, apply for grants)
other opportunities to support later advancement?

some projected timeline of raises and advancement
my role (and degree of autonomy, or lack thereof) when managing students and postdocs. Although part of my position, these folks are are working for multiple PI's.

This varies enormously between universities (see Suresh and JeffE's comments, for example).  At some schools, having a soft-money position means very little.  They are basically just saying you are allowed to use their name to apply for grants, and to pay for things like office space using grant funding (including overhead).  In such a case, there may not be much to negotiate over, since they intend to make a profit from you, not spend money on you.  You could ask for adjunct status, and the salary requested in grant applications might be determined by the university, but most of your other issues (space, travel, equipment, assistants, etc.) would be handled in the course of dealing with individual grant applications, rather than specified in advance.  The key would be getting large enough grants to pay for them.

At other schools, particularly in medical fields but sometimes elsewhere too, being a research professor can be very serious: you may be a full faculty member, attending and voting in faculty meetings, with the possibility of tenure.  Of course, tenure on a soft-money position doesn't mean much, since the university never gives you a salary.  If you don't get grants, you don't get paid.  But it does mean that as long as you get grants, the university cannot get rid of you.  (This can be a genuine issue in some soft-money positions.  If the regular faculty don't think you meet their usual standards, then the department chair may eventually be tempted to push you to leave, so you do not seem like a permanent fixture and start to affect the department's reputation too much, or to make your lower status clear in other ways.  A tenured soft-money position is a real indication that the department values you, even if they aren't paying for you.)

How you should negotiate really depends on the sort of position.  It can't hurt to ask how anything you care about works, and the worst case scenario is being told it's not negotiable.

One thing I'd avoid bringing up is authorship issues.  This is something that should be discussed at the level of individual projects, and bringing it up here may make people worry that you are asking for something inappropriate (like guaranteed authorship just for providing funding), even if you have nothing like that in mind.  If you do discuss it, you should make it very clear that you are just making sure everyone is on the same page, rather than trying to negotiate special rules that would be guaranteed to apply to your job.

One thing I'd add is grace periods between grants.  If all goes well, you'll arrange overlapping funding, so you will not have a period with no active funding.  However, it might well happen if you aren't lucky, so you should discuss how that would work.  For example, if you had a gap between grants, would they immediately take away your office when the first grant expired?  If you reached a state in which all your grant proposals had been rejected, with no pending applications, then would that be the end of your job?  Or would they allow you some period of time to continue making applications?


Can I legally omit the fact I hold a Ph.D. degree? I am about to complete a Ph.D. in Hong Kong and would like to study in the United States. I hold a first class B.Eng. degree in Electrical Engineering. I have a CGPA of 3.67 out of 4 in my current PhD studies, two journal publications (IEEE Transactions) with two more to be submitted soon. I would consider this a fairly good academic record.

For career purposes, I would like to obtain a Ph.D. degree (in a different but related field) from a top American university. There aren't post-doc openings in my current research area, which is why I am considering another PhD in a related area.

Question: Is it considered illegal to not mention that I hold a Ph.D. (hopefully) during application? I noticed some schools frown at what some would call a "professional" or "serial" student.

NB: I have read responses on this question and I am satisfied with them. But I feel there's need to make my question clearer for those who did not understand. Some universities clearly state on their websites that they will not consider applicants who already hold a Ph.D. while some others do not specify this. My question was more for the latter. But now I know that other than dealing with the university, it will require lying on visa application, as some people wrote below.

Thank you all for your contributions.

No. You cannot hide such a fact in US admissions processes. Lying about your previous academic record—whether by omission or by claiming false credentials—is sufficient reason to revoke an offer of admission if it is caught before the applicant matriculates, or grounds to expel a student if caught after enrollment. Depending on the magnitude of the fraud, you may even be asked to pay restitution for the funds spent.

As far as if it’s illegal, that’s a trickier issue. It basically comes down to money: if you received funding based on a misrepresentation or fraudulent application, then it’s far more likely that you’ll face civil or criminal penalties.


Professor Job Prospects for PhD in Computer Science vs Computational Neuroscience? If one wants to do research in computational neuroscience, which PhD program would increase the chances of getting a professor job at a research university immediately upon graduation from that PhD program the most? Assuming, all else being equal.

A) PhD in Computer Science

B) PhD in Computational Neuroscience

In other words, for which of the two PhD degrees is there more demand and less supply in academic job markets, if research interests are in neuroscience?

I will share my own results from my research as I am on the same boat (Torn between Bioinformatics/CS). From looking at profiles of recently appointed faculty across institutions, it certainly seems easier to get a position if you are a CS graduate.
Due to higher volumes of CS PhD's, most end up going in industry or doing post-docs for 1-2 yrs before getting a faculty position. Whereas grads from other disciplines (Computational neuroscience/bioinformatics) usually end up doing post-docs for a bit longer and I have rarely seen a recent faculty appointment in these areas without a post-doc.
All reasons aside, It will greatly depend on your research/publications and to some degree the institution and your supervisor.


Do I approach the journal editor before submitting my manuscript? So, of course I do my homework trying to figure out which journal is appropriate for which kind of manuscript I've completed. And of course I read sample articles from that journal. After that, though, do I just submit the manuscript? Or do I check with the editor at the email address the journal site provides for questions? And if so, how do I approach the editor? What is a good/appropriate way of "checking in"?

If you have a concrete and simple question then it could be reasonable to ask the editor in advance, for example "Would a mathematical model of the popularity of film sequels be appropriate for your journal", assuming that the answer wasn't obvious. There is no reason to "check in", and it's an imposition on the editor to pester him/her with merely "checking in". Write the paper, make sure it matches the requirements of the journal, and submit it.


Short publication as a letter and then more extensive as an article I have written some paper, that is quite extensive, that I would like to submit.
However, the journal that I would like to submit to (with the highest impact factor) accepts only short letters that can be up to 4 pages.
With such a low limit I am not able to describe everything precisely and I am not sure what to do.

Is it good idea to try to publish some short letter in the journal with good impact factor and then try to submit extensive version to different journal, or maybe it would be better to submit the whole article to the journal with lower impact factor but without such low limit on the number of pages?

I also wonder how the journals are going to consider my idea to publish the same thing twice, but the second time in much more extensive way.

This is the first time I try to do such thing and I do not know if it is a common practice, and how much ,,knowledge'' should be included in the short letter.

This is common in my field, physics, to the extent that at least one publisher has an explicit policy encouraging it:

  The submission of an expanded version of a PRL to a topical Physical Review journal is an established practice that provides readers with easier access to important additional information. If authors simultaneously submit a Letter to PRL and a regular paper to one of the Physical Review journals, the two manuscripts are then reviewed coherently, typically by the same reviewers. If both papers receive favorable reviews, we aim to publish them at the same time, unless this leads to undue delay for one of them. We also ensure that the paper and the Letter cite each other.

  Submitting a joint publication couldn’t be easier. Simply alert the editors by mentioning the companion papers in your cover letter.

For example, consider the case when you have come up with a great new method to calculate something. Then the letter would tend to introduce the method, and show results from an example application or two. (Naturally, these examples are usually the ones  with the most impressive or surprising results.) The full-length article wouldn't so much repeat what was stated in the letter as it would extend it. It might provide more details and justification, applying the method to a wider set of systems, and showing some less central conclusions. The idea is that it should still be a different paper, but there is less need for the letter to be fully self-contained.

That said, it's even more common to first write up the more "exciting" results, submit that as a self-contained letter, and then submit a more extensive follow-up as a regular article later. I don't know how universal either practice is, so you might want to check with an advisor, or mentor, or colleague to figure out if this is an accepted practice in your field, and what the expectations would be.


How to deal with premature student questions during a lecture which will be covered in a subsequent slide? I teach a group of bright students who will interrupt the material presentation with questions that will be answered in the next slide or sentence.  I appreciate that they are thinking ahead but I have times when I just need to get the information out there and then discuss it when everyone has had time to process.

What advice can you give me? What are best practices for this?

Another option that I saw once and I thought was, frankly, pretty great:

In my Introduction to Logic class my professor taught from Powerpoint slides, and the slide was divided into two sections, the main section on the left, and a small column on the right. The column on the right was titled "Questions You Probably Have" and was exactly that. Underneath each question in bold it either said "Next slide!" or "Ask me!"  And so, inevitably, people would ask the "Ask Me!" questions and he would click the "Ask me!" link and it would jump to a tangential slide and he would go into the details.

And if someone asked him something not on the slide, he would always say, "Great question!", give the questioner a bonus point on the next exam (even though he did this no one abused it, I'm sure he had a plan if they had, but it was another amazing thing he did), And as he answered it he would scribble a few notes. Before the next class, he would show us the new slide he'd created (or the new text in the next slide) for that question and ask us if it made sense now.

Basically, as a shortcut method it covered all three of the core issues this sort of thing entails:

"Here's what's coming up next."
"Yes, yes, you are very clever for thinking of that."
Getting a coherent lesson together that encourages feedback.

Also, it was kind of meta and spooky when the slides really would predict questions I'd have, when really it was just the material presented itself the same to hundreds of other people before me.


What is the difference between keynote, invited, and oral conference presentations? I'm a PhD student, and I'll soon be presenting some of my work at a conference. In the program, my presentation is labeled "invited" while others have "oral" and others "Keynote". I am a bit confused, as I was never invited (maybe one of my professors was) and would like to know the difference between these kind of presentations.

Having an invited talk and not having been invited is unusual, indeed. Maybe your professor was invited and passed the ball to you; the best thing to do is asking him/her.

"Oral" also is unusual for me (but maybe not in other fields). As noted in the other answer, typically the hierarchy is, from most to least prestigious:

keynote/plenary: people who were invited to participate by the organizers, who may also be paying their expenses. Unlike the rest of the talks, they are not in parallel sessions or have a reduced level of parallelism. Sometimes, when there are no parallel sections, "keynote talks"  are simply longer.
invited: talks given by speakers that were explicitly invited by the organizers. Typically (but not always), the travel and registration expenses of these speakers are paid by the organizers.
contributed: people who applied themselves for participation (and were accepted) and are going to give a talk, usually in parallel.
poster: people who are going to present a poster instead of giving an oral talk. Sometimes people are given the option to present either a contributed talk or a poster.

I assume that "oral" means "contributed" here.


Indicating co-PI status on a paper Authorship order in life sciences is intricate and has many problems. By convention, order is by the amount of contribution (decreasing). Also by convention, the PI/supervisor/"senior author" appears last. Things start getting complicated when you have many contributors.

I would like to focus on the end of the author list. When there are several PIs, they all appear at the end. However, if you consider the before-last author, a reader would not be able to know whether this is the author with the least contribution or alternatively a co-PI. I have seen different "solutions" to this problem (e.g. marking all senior authors as corresponding authors).

I would like to know what kind of solutions you have seen for this problem, and whether these solutions are recognized by institutions and funding agencies.

For those of you wondering why these intricacies matter - authorship order can play an important role in getting a faculty position, awards, grants and tenure. For example, for some fellowships you may only list publications for which you are the first author.

Actually, I've never seen a paper where co-principal investigators (with respect to a grant) have been distinguished—and I was co-advised as a graduate student in exactly such a circumstance.

However, I don't think this is as big a problem as you think. If you were a co-PI, you would indicate the corresponding grant as part of your CV, as well as the resulting publications. So it shouldn't be too hard to figure out who contributed what.

Also, in my own circumstance, I am actively co-advising several students at the moment. In these collaborations, we assign the "senior author" position to the most "relevant" author for the publication. For instance, I'm in engineering and one of my collaborators is in CS. When we publish in a CS venue, he's the senior author; when we publish in an engineering venue, I'm the senior author.

If it's really important, though, to indicate the co-PI issue, you could mention this in the acknowledgments section, since that's where you'd list the grant support in any case. You could write something like

  F.O.O. and B.A.R. were co-principal investigators on grant XYZ from funding agency ABC.

or whatever comparable wording satisfies your needs as well as those of the funding agencies.


I submitted a conference paper that was too long...what now? I'm a MA student, and I think I've made a big mistake submitting to my first conference...

I submitted an abstract to a regional academic conference over the summer, and it was accepted. I had to submit the full version of the paper for the student competition a few weeks ago. I was having trouble cutting my material down to meet the limit-- all the conference said was that papers should be "no longer than 20 minutes." The due date crept up on me, and I did my best to cut it down as much as possible, not having enough time to read through my drafts out loud to see how "long" they were.

The conference is two weeks away, and I have started practicing out loud...and it's taking me around 27 minutes to read my paper. What do I do? Is it a big faux-pas to shorten my submitted paper for the presentation so it doesn't go over the time limit? I've had trouble getting in touch with the conference organizers about other things, so I'm doubtful that I'll be able to talk to them about this.

Keeping in time is mandatory

In general, you can expect to be cut off if you are over the time limit, so you definitely should shorten your presentation - it's very likely that important parts of your talk are at the end so it's very important not to lose the ending!

In most fields, presentations are very, very different from the actual content of the paper - if someone wants to read the paper, they can do so at any time; but the presentation should cover why they'd want to read your paper afterwards and also explain things that might be easier to show or demonstrate rather than read about.

Even if in your field tradition is to read the paper as-is, that is optional but keeping the schedule is mandatory. I would suggest to reduce some parts that describe the background/foundation/earlier results which would be known by the conference attendees but might be less known for a general reader of your paper. You should mention earlier work, but you don't need to go into detail about that even if you do so in your paper.

Keep the focus of your talk on the novel parts of your paper, and also make sure cover in detail the motivation of this research and it's wider context in your field.


Is it normal to CC my professor when they introduced me to someone? Research student in Japan here.

Recently, my professor (Japanese but studied in the U.S. for  long) introduced me to his friend who was a guest lecturer. I got the guest’s contact information and communicated with him through e-mail. When I reported that at the next weekly meeting, my professor gently advised me that it is generally considered “rude” if I didn't CC my professor when I contacted someone he introduced me to.

But that confused me, because back in another university in the U.S,  when I CC’d my professor to contact another researcher, my American professor told me nicely,
“Let me give you a general advice. Professors don’t want the inbox clogged up. You generally always want to save your professor’s time. Simply report to me in our weekly meeting when there is a meaningful progress”

In both scenarios, I met the guest lecturer in person, and I was given their contact info directly from them, not through my professors.

While I will follow my current professor’s direction (to be safe), I was genuinely confused by what is the norm or standard in these situations.

Can anyone tell me what is the norm?
I assume it is safe to CC professors from now on?

Most faculty are curious and would like to know what their students are doing, therefore you should CC them. If you CC them, they don't have to ask you if you sent the email.  If you CC them, they have the opportunity to clarify what you have written.

Some faculty consider deleting an email to be an unpleasant chore.  If your supervisor is one of those people, do not CC them.

Otherwise it is a matter of individual preference.  Few people consider it rude to CC or rude to not CC.


Getting career advice from different people If looking for career advice and short recommendations for paths to end up in a specific institute, is it ok to ask for some answers from different people in the same institute, like one who is likely involved in the admission process and another who has an interesting career path him/herself?

Or might it be weird if the two found out they received an inquiry for career advice from the same person? After all, I don't want to spam.

It's perfectly fine (and indeed sensible) to ask for career advice from more than one person. Different people can contribute different perspectives. It's also entirely ok to approach people for advice and tell them that you are approaching others too - rather than being weird it shows that you are curious and trying to get as much information and feedback as possible.


Whats the average salary (inclusively) in china? How expensive it is for a single postdoctoral life? I'm going to join one of the top university in China. I have been offered 130000 to 180000 RMB per year (including the basic performance and housing subsidy) on invitation letter although it's less than what was committed with me in the mail. How expensive is Bejeing? This is my third postdoc. I am afraid if it will be lower than the average postdoc. How is the working condition in Tsinghua and Peking University in Engineering Science?

I was a postdoc in China for the latest two years. Mainly at the south of China but have also spent several month in Beijing with CAS. I was hired with a salary promise of annual 180000 rmb which wasn't paid correctly. So actually my first piece of advice is, take salary promises with two grains of salt, and perhaps consider just going elsewhere.

Now, answering your questions directly. I have been told that a Chinese postdoc gets around 9-10k rmb per month in Beijing, and I was offered another postdoc for annual 240k rmb (some special offer for foreigners I refused). This is probably the range you will find. Housing costs in Beijing are extremely expensive (at least 2.5k per month, above 4k if you want to be comfortable) however ordinary life costs are not bad. If you're not provided a place to live, don't accept anything below annual 150k rmb. Make sure you're provided decent healthcare coverage, because that'd also very expensive and unfriendly to foreigners.

Finally, you say this is your 3rd postdoc. Meaning you're probably hoping to get a permanent job soon, and possibly heard promises of a fixed position "in case things go well". Don't fall for that, this is usually bait. From asking several colleagues, they were all promised "something else" when in reality it's all about them distributing around authorships and impact factors until they get fed up.

A tip: Chinese academia generally likes US citizenships and top-prestigious journal authorships. If you don't have any of such to show, don't expect the best treatment.

My main advice remains, consider going elsewhere. Hong Kong is already better if you're into Asia, perhaps Taiwan.

Best of luck.


Research assistant, associate, fellow? I completed my PhD and post-PhD. Since last year I am working as a researcher in my country, at the lowest level of hierarchy (first out of five) It usually takes no less than 4 years of steady research to advance to the next level. These levels are named (translated to English)

Assistant researcher
Associate/Adjunct researcher
Independent researcher
Principal researcher
Superior/Top researcher

My employer is the government (Argentina), and I work at a government-funded institute.

Although I understand that this likely varies for different countries, what designation do you believe describes my position more accurately?

In the US, a "research assistant" is typically a graduate student, or occasionally an undergraduate. A "fellow" is somebody funded by a scholarship - it indicates you aren't being funded because of the merits of your research project but primarily because of your personal merits as a scholar. Sometimes "fellows" are also more senior positions (senior non-professor PhD roles in academic laboratories, or some PhD researchers outside academia) and there the title implies some additional autonomy beyond other employees.

Research Associate is the title typically given to post docs, but can be more broad than "post doc" which implies a training position. Including the information from your previous post I think it is the title that would be used in a US context that is most equivalent to the position you describe. Note that all of these designations apply mostly to academia: titles in industry can be completely different and vary a lot by field.

My suggestion if you were wanting your CV to be most understandable to someone in the US or familiar with the US system would be to write your title from your contract, untranslated, and in parentheses you could translate it as "Research Associate."


How to reduce negative consequence for the person I plagiarized my assignment from? Due to some personal reasons, I didn't get to complete my semester end project. So I copied my friend's project and submitted it without major changes (I know I was a fool to do that). Now we are caught and my TA told us that both of our scores will be zero. I have begged the TA to give my friend his score, at least. I don't know what is going to happen. I am obviously going to fail this class, but I don't want my friend to fail it because of me. What should I do?

Whether your friend deserves a grade or not depends whether he was a willing accomplice or an innocent victim.  If he was a willing accomplice, then probably both of you failing the class is the best thing you can hope for (at least for most US universities, where there are consequences besides failing if the professor or TA chooses to report it).  If he was a victim (he did not share his project with you with the intent that you could just copy it), then he certainly merits a grade.

In any case, the proper thing to do is for you to arrange to meet the professor in person, explain the situation, and apologize.  If your friend was a knowing accomplice, both you and your friend should go together.  Then it is up to the professor.


How to get a PC member's attention to comment on or review my submission? I have submitted a thesis abstract to PhD consortium and my submission was accepted.
I just noticed that one of the program committee is well known professor on my thesis area. Actually, many of the paper citations contain his name. Now, I believe he was not a reviewer for my submission (I know because I didn't get critical -deep- questions about my work) but I don't have hard evidence for this.

what is the right way to get his attention to comment on my work?
is it adequate to email him my submission?

The PC member may be a professor, but I promise, they are human just like you and me. In your place, I'd find out the email address of professor and write a polite email making your case that

you are both researchers in the same field
you noticed the professor is actively participating in that special PhD consortium
your submission to that consortium was accepted
you have been following/citing that professor's work, but be very brief and direct about it! you're a researcher, but neither fan nor worshipper!
you care for a meeting at the conference to which that consortium is associated
you appreciate that professor's opinion

Or, if you really just care for feedback on that submission, you can flat out ask for an opinion on your submission.

These worked quite well for me. Also, direct approaches during coffee breaks are opportunities as well, but (T)PC members often have closed meetings during those so you would have to take your chances ...

But seriously, experts in their research areas care for the work of other researchers ... or you needn't care for their opinion.


Someone cited citations I used without citing my work and effort in finding the references Recently I came across a conference paper that tried to solve the same problem I solved couple of years ago and published a workshop publication about, but using a different algorithm. In their introduction they mention and cite 6 applications that can benefit from the solution to this specific problem. Out of the 6 examples 4 are exactly the same in my publication word for word with 3 of them using the same exact citations I used. Which made me believe with zero doubt that the one of the conference paper authors read my workshop paper and found those applications and citations useful and decided to reuse them in their publication without giving my work proper citation for finding those references.

I have read through academia stack previous questions and all questions I found were researchers trying to figure out if citing the source without citing the middle resource was okay:

Attributing Second-order Citations
I have found theses on a similar subject to my own, and want to use
their references with my own text and a similar flow. Is this
plagiarism?
Citing a citation from a paper?
Is it okay to incorporate a block of citations from a review paper
into my own paper?
Is there a problem with citing the original source instead of the
source where the information was first found?
If I use most of the references from a thesis but not the exact
same sentences, is it plagiarism?

The consensus form the answers of these questions is that the middle resource should be also cited.

Since in my case my work was not cited at all, I contacted the conference committee chair about this issue and showed that the citations I have used have been reused in the paper that was accept in his conference without citing my work. His response was "this related work discussion does not amount to plagiarism." and continued to say that if I am not satisfied with his conclusion that I can contact the journal and ask them for a full investigation of this issue.

So currently I am a little bit conflicted, is this a case of plagiarism? If so how can I proof that it is a clear case plagiarism to avoid a similar response from the journal editors.

No, this is not plagiarism, unless the authors specifically used the same wording as you. Citing the same sources as another paper is not plagiarism, otherwise anyone who cites an influential paper would be guilty of plagiarism unless they also cited the hundreds of other papers who also cited that influential paper.

In your specific case, you say

  Out of the 6 examples 4 are exactly the same in my publication with 3
  of them using the same exact citations I used. Which made me believe
  with zero doubt that the one of the conference paper authors read my
  workshop paper and found those applications and citations useful and
  decided to reuse them in their publication without giving my work
  proper citation for finding those references.

This is speculation, and you can not know that this is indeed what happened. It is also quite likely that the authors did a literature review or simply knew parts of the literature, and found examples of applications that were relevant for their paper. Using the "exact same citations" is what is supposed to happen when you cite the same work.

Unless your paper is relevant and related to the work done in their paper, there is no reason for them to cite your paper, and citing work that is related to both your papers can not be considered plagiarism. At worst, you could argue that the authors should have included your paper in their related work.

Remember, people cite your papers for the work that you describe in that paper, not for the citations you give.


What's the point in a "list of figures"? What is the point in a "list of figures" in the following cases?

Masters thesis
Ph.D. thesis
Academic (text)books

A list of figures allows one to find the figures contained in a book. This could be useful, for example, when you want to quickly find one of the figures you recall seeing in the book, but you can't remember which page it is on. You could also use the list of figures when buying the book to see whether it has lots of figures or only a few.


Are US PhD admission offers binding? So I have just accepted (via some online function on the website) an offer of PhD admission into a prestigious US university. I have also been in telephonic and email contact with staff at this university. I still feel like it is rather informal. The department told me more information would arrive in April.

What I want to know is, is the offer I have accepted binding on the part of university? I have (and am about to decline) concrete offers from some UK groups and I am worried that I will be burning bridges. Can a US university rescind their offer? Does this ever happen? Am I just being paranoid?

For example, as I am still in master's program, my other offers usually said that I was admitted on the condition that I obtained a sufficiently good grade in my degree etc. My US offer does not make mention of anything like this - not that I plan on doing badly but it is good to know. Would the department think it odd if I asked along these lines?

As far as I know (at least here at Georgia Tech) all the conditions (if there are any) are included in your offer. I have never heard of us rescinding an offer after it has been accepted.  If there is a deadline, though, you must accept by then or the offer may no longer be valid.

That said, I think nobody would be offended if your asked, if it puts your mind at ease.  I would not mention the "getting good grades in your MS" or similar things.

Just send a note to whomever you have been in contact with and say something like "I'm very happy to have been accepted into the program, and am looking forward to coming.  I am pretty sure I've completed everything I need to do to accept admission, but I just wanted to check one last time. I have a number of other acceptances I'm about to decline and I just wanted to check that everything is in order with my admission before I decline the other offers.  Thanks for your help and understanding!"


Can I successfully adapt to an advisor who will not push me to work? I am currently a first-year graduate student, now in the process of figuring out who I'd like to have as my thesis advisor. Of course, compatibility of research interests is quite important, but personality and work style are too.

The issue I'm currently facing (though it sounds odd to cast it in a negative light) is that the professor with whom I'm most compatible research-wise, is the most polite, nice, and soft-spoken person I've ever met. In lecture and  in conversation, he is self-effacing, will go out of his way to make things comfortable for you, never says a bad thing about anyone, etc.

Now, even though I love my field, I've been a procrastinator for as long as I can remember, and my concern is that I'm eventually going to lose my focus / energy if my advisor is constitutionally unable to say things like "You ought to have read more this week", "You should do a better job of this write-up", etc

My question is, should I opt for Professor Tough Love whose research I like slightly less, but who will do a good job of keeping me working, or should I go with Professor Nice Guy? If I do go with Professor Nice Guy, what strategies could I employ to make sure the effect of his coddling is minimal?

I've discussed this with peers, and I received the following advice:

You're going to have to become self-driven eventually - might as well start getting practice now.
Meet with Professor Tough Love regularly, sort of as an unofficial second advisor, who (besides discussing technical material, which is of course beneficial) will give me the impetus I need.
Directly ask Professor Nice Guy to give me more structure, and to be more demanding of me.

Thoughts about these? Any other suggestions?

I realize there's some overlap with  How to avoid procrastination during the research phase of my PhD?, but I suppose I'm asking specifically about what to do when my advisor is not automatically going to be a resource for helping me avoid procrastination.

Thanks for all of your help in advance!

To be sure, chooosing your advisor is one of the most important decisions in your academic career.  That is not to say that people don't switch advisors for one or more reasons (they do), but it's probably best to take the time to figure it out now (which it sounds like you are doing by asking the question in the first place!) so you aren't faced with that decision later.

It seems to me that you may be asking the wrong question, to some extent.  Relying on your advisor to push you is more or less the opposite of a good way of growing into being an independent researcher -- who is going to push you when you become that assistant professor and you're on your own?  Furthermore, the last thing you want your advisor writing in his/her recommendation letter is, "Great researcher when pushed to complete the work!"  You also don't want your advisor to think that he/she has to push you -- this may just lead to a poor working relationship between the two of you.

My advice is to ask Professor Nice Guy to be your advisor, but also start working now towards limiting the procrastination on your own.  That advice is predicated on your comment that your research matches his the best; that should be the driving factor and not some grand idea that you'll get pushed harder by one prospective advisor or another.  Tips for how to get a good plan together are outside the scope of this topic, but at the very least you could start by fixing a date you'd like to graduate and working back from there.

As for meeting with the other professor regularly, by all means do that if he is amenable to the idea.  I met regularly with my advisor and another professor and all parties were happy with the arrangement.


Writing theory section of thesis - feels like I am just copying I am doing a PhD in physics / applied math and have just started writing the theory section. A large-ish part (5-10 pages, estimated) will be setting the scene with some theoretical tools that I am using but did not invent. These tools will eventually be used as the basis for analysing data.

I will say the word so you don't have to think it: plagiarism. I have absolutely no desire to plagiarize so am very careful about citing my sources - however while writing I get the feeling that I am simply copying off of others.

Question, in two parts:

Can anyone give a strategy for how to write a theory section and make it ``your own'' while clearly citing relevant material?
Is this feeling actually normal and am I just over-reacting?

Although I'm not in "physics/applied-math", but, rather, "math", I see the same or similar issue arise. Let's consider the point that, by this year, the "context/background/set-up" has very likely been highly optimized, both for effectiveness and for succinctness. Nothing wasted, nothing superfluous, etc. So it is likely to be hard to "improvise" much on its description without making it worse in some way. This may be the case even down to small notational conventions, wording, etc.

So, be absolutely scrupulous in citing, and try to have it all in your own head so that you can write it yourself (not literally copying), even while citing, ... and remarking something like "we recall some standard facts/ideas/set-up, e.g., from [X]."


Citing unofficial translations One of the references I use in my text is paper A.
However, I've actually read an unofficial, unpublished translation B which can be found online.
The translation uses more modern definitions/terms and corrects some errors.
How should I properly reflect the usage of the translation in my bibliography?
Currently, I use the original reference together with a note in the bibliography which explains the situation:

[reference A entry] Translated unofficially by translator as title
B, year B. Translation available online at url B.

Note that the original author did not give permission to publish the translation.
From the Translator's preface:

[author] has asked that all republication of any of his works (in original or translation) be ended.
He has not actually invoked copyright (which, as stated above, he does not believe in), but asked this as some sort of personal privilege.

Citing both, as you currently have, is fine and provides good a good indication to readers who are unfamiliar with this paper.
With regards to the fact that the translation was not permitted by the author, that is strictly not your problem. Copyright doesn't apply to people who are viewing or otherwise using the copied content, but to its distributor (i.e. the translator in this case). This would be no different to me simply sharing the URL of an unofficial stream of a football match (where the official source is a payed TV channel) with a friend --  I would never get into trouble for this, only the website hosting the stream could.


What happens if a student takes pictures of a test and sends it to classmates that have not already taken it? My friend had to take their test separately, because of a certain disability, before everyone else had to take the same test. They were supervised by a staff member and when the staff member left the room they decided to take pictures of the exam and proceeded to send it to a few classmates that were going to take the test in the next few days. The professors became aware that the test was compromised (leaked) and made a new test in 45 min that covered harder material. The professors sent out an email saying they were tracking down the student(s) involved. Should my friend come clean or transfer before the professors are able to suspend or expel them?
Any advice will be helpful - thank you

Your friend engaged in outright cheating. In nearly all universities, what they did is a major violation of the codes of conduct that students are rightly expected to abide by. This isn't a "grey area" situation, your friend knowingly did something that was very wrong and I cannot imagine that the university authorities will see much cause to show leniency in this case. Further, as there were likely only a limited number of student who took the test early, your friend is likely to be caught. The professors probably already suspect who it is and are gathering evidence. I doubt your friend will have time to go through the whole process of transferring before they are found out. Further, if one of the few students who took the test early suddenly applied to transfer, it would look quite suspicious.

In this situation, there really isn't much that your friend can do. The ethical thing to do would be to admit what they did and accept the consequences, with the faint hope that coming clean will lead to some degree of leniency. That said, if self preservation is the only concern, they can sure attempt to transfer before they are caught.

As for you, as a budding academic, choose your colleagues and friends wisely. People's bad actions can rub off on you and they can bring you down with them. Someone willing to do this is a poor friend to have indeed.


Should I reach out to my future advisor before accepting PhD admission? I have been offered PhD admission which I have not accepted yet.I have already been assigned advisors though.

I want to reach out to my potential advisor to discuss future research and maybe even dissertation topics ? Was wondering if that is okay for to do ? i am little hesitant because I am not sure if this is the norm for how things are done ?

Yes. If you're certain about the advisor you'll be working with, feel free to get in contact with them. Even if you change advisors before beginning the program - or even if you don't join that program - it will not hurt to introduce yourself and to start planning.


Contacting promotor and assistant/supervisor in regards to master's thesis after weeks of radio silence I am a master student and currently finishing my master's thesis.
Ever since the beginning of COVID I have been experiencing depression and anxiety. This resulted in not being able to work as hard as needed on my thesis and led to a few delays of intermediary (but not compulsary) deadlines during this year. At the beginning of summer, my promotor, assistant and me made a raw time schedule to make sure I would be able to finish and hand in my thesis before the deadline.
About three weeks ago, I was supposed to send them a mail with my progress but due to the lack thereof and a multitude of anxiety attacks, I convinced myself it would be better to wait to send an email until I have something to show for. This anxiety related situation dragged out and now, with two weeks to go until the final deadline, I have most of my thesis written, except for the discussion of some results of my experiments (which I partly still have to create), and which is the most important chapter of my thesis.
My intent is to send an email on Monday, but I have no idea on how to address the situation. In my mind, they, my promotor and assistant, probably think I have given up on making the deadline of my thesis. I basically went radio silent for a couple of weeks and the guilt is eating me up. In addition, I don't even know if it is still possible to do the amount of work that is still needed to complete my experiments as I have not started my last one yet.
Could anyone give me some insight on how to handle my situation? Thank you.

In my experience, this situation is pretty common, so even if the advisor/promoter aren't happy about it, they likely have dealt with this situation before. I think you can let your guilt go for now. The best course of action is simply to acknowledge the lateness without dwelling on it, and try and resume normal communications going forward. I think you know your mistake here, but it is always better to send an e-mail with an update when you hit a deadline, even if you don't have "enough" progress to show. Your advisor likely wants to help, but they might feel like they don't know where to start if they haven't heard from you.
A simple statement such as: "I apologize for the tardiness of this e-mail, I know we had originally discussed a deadline nearly a month ago. Due to the pandemic situation, I have not been able to make progress on my thesis as quickly as expected. Here is my current progress. [description]. My plan for the next few weeks is as follows...." If you have concrete suggestions for how they can help, I would put them in your e-mail. Otherwise, let them take the ball from there on how to support you going forward.
In the meantime, if your situation allows you to access mental health support services, I think they would be useful in helping you find more healthy coping strategies in the future.


What to do when you're not confident your advisor will be able to write you a strong LoR? The title is pretty self-explanatory, but let me explain.

The lab I'm at right now is very big. It's around 30-40 people. I'm a master's student that just finished his first semester and am looking to apply for PhD programs this fall/winter so that if all goes as planned I'll start school in the fall of 2021 right after graduation.

The problem is that my advisor is "more like a business person than an advisor," so to speak. He's always attending networking events, meeting people, etc. rather than advising his own students. The few times that he does hold "meetings" with students is when there's something to be discussed regarding a project that brings in the funding. Even in these meetings it's more like a briefing session where the students fill him in on progress rather than him advising us on what to do.

Anyway, long story short I need him to write me a strong letter but I'm not confident he'll be able to. Your advisor is the one who should be the most familiar with your work, but in all honesty my advisor probably doesn't even know what kind of research at least 90% of his students are doing.

I imagine that it would also look a bit strange on the admissions committees' parts if an applicant's advisor's letter lacks quality content.

What should I do in this situation? I have about 6-7 months until applications open.

Edit

Allure brought up a great point in a comment and I'll try to fill up some more details on how the lab I'm at usually operates.

The lab is usually busy grabbing government or corporate grants (as I assume most are).

The professor pinpoints a few that he wants.
The students write up a proposal and bring it to him, which he assesses. Afterwards he meets with whoever to present the proposals.
If the grant is approved then we get projects to work on.
Teams consisting of PhD students and juniors like myself are assigned to different aspects of the project.
The "meetings" that I mentioned are usually the aforementioned teams briefing the professor, with the PhD students usually doing most of the talking. Honestly speaking, juniors like myself usually just sit there and pretend to take notes.

So yes, usually it's PhD students that I'm working close with, and I'm more than certain that a letter of recommendation from "someone who's not even a PhD" aren't acceptable as LoR's.

My anxiety and worry stems from the fact that, as mentioned above, the most detailed and supportive letter should be from one's advisor. However, I have a strong feeling that it's going to turn up to be a generic one like "student X exhibits very strong research potential!"

The best practical approach is to try to make it as easy as possible for your "hands-off" advisor to write the best letter about you. Even if they delegate the task to someone else, it will be helpful for whoever is writing to have all the relevant information about you. I recommend at least preparing the following:

A summary of your research accomplishments. If you worked in teams, highlight what you personally added.
A summary of your non-research contributions to the lab. This includes students that you mentored, any responsibilities you took on, other kinds of service to the department or university, and times when you helped others with their research.
A few of your strengths and a specific example for each.

Whether your recommender uses this information is up to them. Having it  can only increase the odds that their letter is more thorough, specific, and helpful to your application.

Finally, having an advisor like yours is obviously not ideal, but it is also far from uncommon. I assume that their mentees in the past have gone on to successfully find jobs, postdoctoral appointments, etc. So maybe your advisor cares more about writing recommendations than you might guess based on their advising style. After all, an advisor does have some interest in the success of their students as well.


Should I include a paper presented at a conference of which only the abstract was published under publications in my CV? I participated in a conference in which I submitted and presented a Paper. It didn't get published in their journal, but the Abstract and the Title of it got published in the "Book of Abstracts" which was received by all the attendees of the conference.
Should I write it under publications in my CV ?
If not, how should I mention it in my CV ?

Mention it under "conference presentations".
A printed title and abstract are not enough to convey a paper publication in a CV.


Minimum table dimension in thesis I'm wondering what the minimum amount of rows and cells (i.e. cells) for tables in a thesis is. That is, above which amount of cells should I switch from continuous text to tables. Obviously, it also depends to some degree on the size of the cells, i.e. the amount of text.

I currently have a table with two columns and four rows. The first column contains cells with one word each, the second column has cells with 2-4 words. It looks really dumb on paper, but I resist writing continuous text because there really isn't more to say on the four rows and it would sound "jerky".

TBH, I never heard of such a minimum for rows, columns or cells for a thesis. I suppose it would be same for any other table.

If you really believe that the table doesn't look so neat with only a few columns for too many rows, then transposing the table would be a good idea (as @Wrzlprmft suggested). If the amount of data looks unworthy of being depicted as a table, then you may you any other sort of graphical presentation such as a chart. This might help you with more innovative ideas for presentation.

Having said the above, this really is a question for your thesis advisor and would depend on any guidelines referred by your institution on writing a thesis.


What are the pros and cons of publishing a new unpublished idea in a poster session in a leading conference? I worked on an idea and got new results. I came across a very prestigious conference that calls for poster abstracts. I sent mine and it was accepted for a poster presentation.
Should I present it there or it is better to publish it as a paper first?
What are the pros and cons of submitting my idea as a poster?
Also, I want to mention that I worked on the idea independently without a supervisor which was the main motive for me to send the idea in the poster session.
What advice would you give me also?
Thanks

In my field (in computer science), posters are usually a "low cost, low benefit" activity.
Pro:

A small amount of visibility
A small but nice CV entry
A small opportunity for feedback and input

Cons:

A small time investment for actually developing the poster and, sometimes, writing up an accompanying paper
A small cost for registering at the conference (I assume that the conference will be online due to COVID19, otherwise the costs could actually be larger)

In the end, it probably won't make much of a difference, unless lightning strikes and you happen to get amazing input/feedback/collaboration opportunities (not impossible to happen but unlikely).


Thinking about quitting the Ph.D. because I feel depressed in this town? I have been living in this town for 16 months, but I am in this Ph.D. position only for 4 months. For the other 12 months, I had been working as an employee in the same research group.

I really like the research, the project, the prof., the colleagues and also the stipend. The only thing I hate about this place is the town where I am living. It is becoming more and more difficult to stay sane. It is only a few thousand "old" people and things close at 6:30 in the evening. I have been used to the life of a city (in and out of my home country). This small town is driving me crazy. I am trying to be strong, but I am not sure if I can keep it up for 4 years.

Don't commit to anything until you know your options. If you can find a more "suitable" position then you can decide at that time.

But evaluate all the aspects, including the support you get, and the support you might get. Not just financial support.

One advantage of your current situation is that you aren't going to spend more time on the degree than needed and you aren't going to be distracted by nightlife and such.


Choosing an email address/provider for academic work as you change positons I'm an on-again-off-again academic, I guess you could say: I've switched positions in and out of academia several times over the past decade. When I write academic papers (or even Free Software in the context of academic work), I often face a dilemma regarding which email address to put down in my contact information. The dilemma is not always the same; I want to focus my question on two scenarios:

Research work you pursue "on your own time" which is not a (direct) part of what you work on at your current employer; and when you know your employment is likely to end soon.
Research work you pursue between periods of employment, or which your current employer is not interested in being associating with.

So, here are some options of what to use as your email in these scenarios, by no particular order:

An email account on the university you got your PhD from, which is guaranteed not to expire (as much as these things can be guaranteed), and does not indicate whether you are a student, or currently a faculty member etc. Example: your_name@alma_mater_uni.ac.xy
Your general-purpose personal email address at some large, free mail account provider. Example: your_name@gmx.com
A professional-affairs-only custom email address at one of the large, free email account providers. Example: your_name_academic@gmx.com, or your_name_phd@gmx.com or something better-sounding.
A personal email address at a smaller, academia-oriented mail account provider. (I don't know any of these but perhaps they exist - with free or paid accounts.) Example: your_name@academia-mail.com or your_name@academia-mail.edu
A professional-affairs-only email address at a smaller, for-pay mail account provider. Example: your_name@fastmail.com

Which do you believe is the best choice, and why?

A related question: Which email address should a student use in a publication?

After some of my personal e-mail hopping (also as corresponding emails on papers), I'd recommend getting a domain name and linking it to one of your email accounts. That is, only if you do not get to retain your academic email indefinitely if you have one (the uni I used to be at has the regulation to delete the e-mail and do no forwarding...)

By having your own domain, you can move services but keep the actual email consistent over time. I.e., you can use name@domain.org and where that points to just changes.

Any kind of service (and domain) that you cannot move around nor have any assurances for longevity on, are to be avoided IMO. I made that mistake with both my university and a corporate account so I learned the hard way...


Visit to a different university - is it OK to bring my girlfriend along? I am a PhD student, and I was recently invited to visit a university which happens to be at a very attractive touristic location.

It goes without saying that the purpose of the visit is purely scientific, and any other matters are  tangential. On the other hand, it has occurred to me and my long-time girlfriend that it would be a perfect opportunity for her to see this touristically attractive place. Now, I am wondering how best to make the arrangements, so as to maximize both research and personal benefits (and not offend the host as a by-product).

To state the obvious, at the time when I am supposed to be doing research I will be doing research, and not get distracted by the presence of my partner. The place is interesting enough to keep her entertained through the day, and to keep us both entertained during the evenings. I would not expect the host to have much interest in how I spend my free time if I want to be left to my own devices, so if me and my girlfriend make totally separate arrangements and only spend the evenings together, this should not cause any problems.

Keeping things entirely separate feels a little impractical though, so I have some questions about issues that I do not see as so clear-cut. My host will be booking accommodation for me and paying for it. Is it impolite to suggest that he book a double room, and we pay half of the price from our own pocket? It is probable that I will be invited to some social gatherings - maybe beer after a seminar, maybe dinner. Is it polite to bring my partner along/resign from joining? Would it be OK to streach the visit for an extra weekend after the research is done (paying for the hotel, of course, but hopefully still getting the return flight refunded)?

I would also be grateful for input on any issues that I have not yet thought of.

A few details, just in case they are relevant: My field is (pure) mathematics. The university is in Europe, at the Mediterranean coast. The visit is about a week long. We are in a long-distance relationship, so a extra week together does make a difference. The host strikes me as rather easy-going, but I don't know him that well.

It is perfectly reasonable. I have done it a couple of times and I know colleagues that frequently do it. Her presence at work/social events depends on the event and how well you know the host and the events. Often the work/social line gets blurred. I am friends with a number of my colleagues partners and my partner are friends with them and their partners. Sometimes my partner will join me for social events when we have a visitor.

That said, while it is not inappropriate, the trailing partner at academic events never has worked well for us. I have been both the leading and trailing partner. The person working is often tired at the end of the day and not really in the mood to be a tourist. We find it is a better use of our time and money to travel both as tourists and really enjoy our holidays.


Is teaching for a biology program without "specialized accreditation" bad for your career? I plan on graduating with my PhD in May and am currently job searching for academic positions for next fall.

I am looking into applying to be a full-time biology faculty member at a school which is accredited, but where the biology program does not have "specialized accreditation" for the field.

The question is: is it worth it?

I understand that attending a non-accredited school as a student can be detrimental to long-term success, but is the same true for TEACHING in a non-accredited biology program? Maybe more specifically, what are the pros and cons to working for a non-accredited program?

As a related follow-up: which would be better (or perhaps less worse) for my career as a university professor: full-time position at a poorly ranked non-accredited program or an adjunct position for a accredited program at a better-rated school?

In my experience, very few biology programs are accredited, for example at liberal arts undergraduate colleges. But they're still important, since liberal arts students still ought to be exposed to biology. So I don't think that association with a good quality teaching program will hurt your prospects as a teacher, but unaccredited programs tend not to engage in research very intensively, if at all. So as others have mentioned, you should probably consider a post-doc at a research school if that's your goal.


What happens if I get a grant for my PhD project but I decide to quit and start another PhD somewhere else? My PhD is self-funded and I probably change in 2016. Can I apply for a grant now and then change my PhD later?

Does it legally or ethically force me to stay and finish the project?

Or my Prof can hire another PhD student after me to continue working on that project?

UPDATE

Let's put it this way: I have a self funded position and everybody including my Prof know that I'll most probably leave next year but I want to get some money as long as I'm here (before changing).

Can I apply for a for example 2-year research grant and quit after a year or it obligates me to stay and finish the project?

Of course you are not forced, nor obliged, to finish your current project.

But it might very well be that, depending on your grant conditions, you will have to pay back the grant money, fully or partially, when you do not finish the project.

Furthermore, it might be wise to try to keep being on good terms with your current professor and colleagues. This is most likely achieved by involving them in your decision and motivations (which you might already be doing, as you write in your question).


How to read and take notes on research papers In each research paper, there are a lot of things that I want to highlight for later use such as definitions, explanations and concepts... While most of them focus on the topic of the paper, there are some relating to a different or broader topics, e.g. a paper about investigating performance of a specific system may introduce different benchmarks and metrics for performance evaluation and explain why those approaches are applicable for this specific situation.

Normally, I just highlight all of them, put some notes directly into the paper or using Evernote. However, when I want to look for all highlights and notes about one specific topic, I find it difficult as they scatter in different papers and documents. So, are there any tools or techniques to affectively highlighting important points and group them by topic while reading research paper?

This probably isn't an ideal solution; but I still find it to be the most effective in the long run:

I simply keep a log of what I read, and I specifically do this using tex. That way, you will have a searchable document for any words that you may be looking for in your notes. You can also use the makeidx package to add an index to your text document, which lets you "tag" sections of your documents with various keywords. I also make sure to cite what I read, even if it is for my own purposes. This is especially useful when you are writing a paper, since most of your references will be ready in bibtex format.

It took me a while to get used to, but I find it very nice to have a well organized research log.

Since requested in the comments, given below is what the log looks like. I don't want it to become a full latex document, but it should be sufficient enough to give you an idea. Note the index markers, which are basically "tags" that don't show up in the text.

\section{Paper #1 Name, Authors, Date, \cite{...}}
My summary of the motivation and findings of the paper, or whatever I find interesting/useful.
May be as short as a few sentences or as long as a page, depending on how relevant it is.
\index{an important word}

\section{Paper #2 Name, Authors, Date, \cite{...}}
Same thing here.. \index{another important word or two}

\section{Paper #3 Name, Authors, Date, \cite{...}}
and so on..

\printindex

Then you can look up your page numbers in the index, which is included at the end of the document. For more information about the package, see CTAN and Wiki.


Do I HAVE to have a PhD to get a post-doc position? I suppose this is probably largely lab dependent, but I'll go ahead and explain anyway.

I graduated last year with a bachelor's degree in engineering, and landed a job as a Research Assistant (negotiated up to Research Data Analyst). I was hired at the same time as a Post-doc fellow, doing very similar work together. I have done well, and for various unfortunate reasons my colleague has not done so well. Long story short, he is quitting from frustration.

In contrast, the PIs are very vocal in their appreciation for my work, allow me to take place in interviewing candidates for his replacement, and allow me to take on more responsibility and make sure I feel like a valued  member of the team. Add on the fact that I have learned a tremendous amount in the last year here, and I am feeling very confident in my abilities (after all, I succeeded with a bachelor's where a PhD struggled)

I have been entertaining the idea of seeking new employment for financial reasons. They do not pay me what I believe I deserve. They might, if I showed them an offer from another institution though, and many of the job postings I've seen would suit me extremely well - I have all of the required and preferred skills. I would need very little training and love the work.

The problem is a good deal of the job postings specifically ask for a post-doc, because the typical bachelor's degree would be unqualified for this type of work (never published, can't read papers well, and doesn't have the computer skills to survive), although a couple postings did mention they would hire based on skills.

So in your experience, if a lab is looking for a research assistant type of position, and are hiring post-docs for it, are they specifically looking for a post-doc, or would they hire a research minded 'employee' with a lesser degree?

Am I going to have to go back to school for 4 more years to apply for jobs I'm already qualified for?

postdoc without doc cannot exist... You might be hired as something else, another description, same job, but not officially as a post-doc, by definition.

As commented, the funding might just not be there for such different position. I'm sure that, if I'm reviewing spending information from a grant, I wouldn't agree with that switch, unless it is significantly cheaper. Further, most of the sponsoring agencies I know, have a some sort of guidelines for paying people, and it would be difficult to justify someone without a phd receiving postdoc level money...

Your question sounds like "Do I have to go to medicine school to be a surgeon" or "Do I have to pass the bar to practice law". Doesn't matter that you think you are qualified, officially, you are not.


Do universities have a comprehensive reference document for all their policies and regulations? As an organization, a university has various types of regulations (academics, disciplinary, etc), which are separately documented.

Do (at least) large universities prepare a comprehensive book containing the code of laws of the university in different sections. I mean a reference book addressing all regulations of the university.

For example, when there is an official conflict between two parties, using that reference to justify their actions, instead of dealing with section documents.

If yes, could you please reference them for review.

Yes. It will be called a "Policy and Procedures Handbook" or something like that at most universities in the US. The reason to have such a handbook is to ensure that employees follow proper protocols about a range of different issues. This protects both the employees and the universities legally.


What is the proposed penalty for students that paid an essaywriting service to complete their papers for them? I had noticed a sudden change in the quality of the essays submitted two of my students. When I confronted them, they were quite frank and admitted that due to lack of time, they had assigned their papers to be written by an outside source, an essaywriting service (a booming business that must be).

What is the proposed penalty?

If I take this on an administrative level, they face a pause of educational activities for 6 months to 1 year. But since this is the first incident, I do want them to learn their lesson, but at the same time taking into account that they were honest with me, not being punished too hard.

What do you propose? Is there something I can do to keep this from an administrative level and at the same time punish them?

The official punishment already has a fork, being the first time and honest can help them to get a suspension closer to 6 months than to a full year. Also, you can help them get a speedy process, so the penalty starts counting as soon as possible.

It is important that there is an official record of this event, so they can't pull the "it is the first time, I promise" again. They now have a record, and they know it.

This said, I can't believe they didn't know they were doing something wrong, so I don't think one should be very forgiving.


A professor invited me to their seminar when I enquired about working on a master thesis with them: did they reject me? I am a master student. In the next year I need to start my work on master thesis. I have sent letters to two professors in the same group, stating my interest, and have asked if they have a suitable project for me. One said that he is retired and cannot take long term responsibility, but he invited me to join a seminar (closely related to my interest), funded by their group. The other professor also invited me to the seminar, but said nothing about the project.
I mostly believe that the latter professor has rejected me, but I am not sure, is my intuition correct?

The first one has clearly rejected you for the reasons he gave.
Their seminar group is a place where their existing students might present and discuss their work, including PhDs and post-docs. This invitation essentially is for an initiation ceremony. If you like their work and are interested in making a project out of their research directions and they think you have the requisite background they might accept you in their group and the professor will work with you for your thesis. That is what I make out of this.
Be positive and enjoy a nice seminar. One should worry about things in their control. Best of luck!


What are reasonable alternatives to changing your name for academic publishing when you have a common surname? I've recently embarked on my PhD studies (cancer, structural biology) and have yet to publish. Currently, there are some 200 papers in my name and several thousand under my surname. Because of this, I am considering switching my surname to an old, rare, surname in my family, which is only used by one active researcher.

My question is this: are there any reasonable alternatives that does not include legally changing my name? I personally don't mind changing it, but the old surname happens to be "noble", and may come off as quite pretentious. I would be able to change to another, less pretentious, surname, but in terms of rareness, no alternative comes close.

In short, what are my alternatives?

In terms of publishing papers, I'm not aware of any requirement to use your legal name. A common example would be those who continue to use their maiden name (where people change their name on marriage). A friend of mine did the reverse, and wrote her first paper under the name she would assume when she married shortly afterwards.

The trickier case is what will appear on your PhD. It may not matter much, but it would probably make life easier if that said the same as your papers. You'd have to talk to your university about their rules.


Lectures are way ahead of the planned schedule for the course. What should be done? In my university, we submit a lecture plan at the academic semester starts. The lecture plan is a kind of semi-official documentation on the schedule of lectures or topics (Ref: Planning a course: lecture-by-lecture or topic-by-topic?). The lecture plan looks like the following that also includes the plan for quizzes, tests, projects.

--------------------------------------------
Week    Topic      Subtopics     Expectation
--------------------------------------------
W01     Topic1     St1, St2      To achieve.
W02     Topic1     St3, St4      ---
...some weeks of such lecturing...
Quiz1 ...
W07     Topic7     St1, St2      ---
W08     Topic8     St1, St2      ---
...and some more...
Mid-way Test
...Again lecturing...
Project
Final test
---------------------------------------------

Now I am in a problem. The mid-way test has been scheduled in next 3 weeks. But, I have completed all the stuff required for the mid-way test. I don't have any more things to lecture and I don't want to.

Should I complete the course well before time? But, again my dean might not be happy with this.

Or, what should one lecturer do in such a scenario?

Suggestion with some experiences would be really appreciated.

P.S. This is undergrad course if at all it matters.

Generally, when a course is assigned a certain number of credit hours, that means that students (and professors) can expect a related number of contact-hours via lecture, tutorials or labs. Your students and dean will likely be upset if you cancel classes for next 3 weeks.

If you don't want to introduce new material, there are several things you could do.

Review material or go further into depth
Have students work on their projects
Have students work on homework or small projects


How valuable is being in an A+ rank CS conference with a short paper? My paper is accepted in an A-rank conference in computer science as a short paper. I need to reduce it to 6-pages instead of 10-pages.
All the reviewers said the paper has all the required elements to be a decent paper, but the presentation and problem introduction should have been better.

Also if i have to cut 4 pages, I need to reduce the references and the propositions and the proofs, and some of the related works!

So I'm not sure if it is better to withdraw it from this conference and submit the revised full version to another one? Or i should take the opportunity of having my paper in this top conference and try to submit the extended version to a journal paper?

BTW, i'm almost at the end of my PhD study and have not yet published any paper in a top-tier conference, and this work is one of the main results of my work (however there might be one another work to be submitted to another A-rank conference).

I'm wondering how valuable is to have a short paper in a top conference?!

That depends a bit on what you define as "valuable". As Buffy says, having a presentation and presence at a top conference is certainly very valuable in terms of visibility in the community and opportunity to make connections (never underestimate the importance of those!).

However, in my experience, as a line in your CV, everything that's not a full paper counts for very little, even if it's a short paper at a top conference. In other words, if that is intended to be the main paper of your PhD and you intend to go onto the job market with this work, you need to get it accepted as a full paper. If it's just a side project, or just one in a longer string of papers that together form your PhD, leaving it as a short paper and taking the opportunity to attend the conference and get your name out there may be worth it.

I should also say that, assuming your reviewers are right and all it needs for this work to become excellent is some presentation-level cleanup, it feels like a pity to not do this small additional work and try again at the next deadline for a top venue, rather than downgrading it to a short paper.


Article-based PhD and advisor's (new) role? My engineering university offers a relatively new option to do an article-based dissertation, where the primary research is submitted (and hopefully published) in several scientific journals (at my university it's 3). The dissertation is then shorter than a typical PhD, because it describes how the articles fit together to form the thesis, etc.

It's a relatively new idea (for engineering PhDs and for me), which I find interesting as an advisor because it engages PhD students more in the research experience (publishing). Also, it is theoretically more efficient for the advisor and student (as a co-author), since time and energy spent on revising could be more focused on getting publications, and not only on a big PhD dissertation that few people will ever read.

There are other advantages described here (not my university).

My question is not about whether it's good or bad, but how the role of an advisor on co-authored papers might change in such cases.

For example, when students write a traditional dissertation (masters or otherwise), they often struggle with communicating. Students grow and improve written communication and contents of the dissertation in an iterative and incremental process (draft revisions after feedback from the advisor).

In traditional grad-student co-authorship setting, I would take a more active role as an editor (as my advisor did when I was a PhD student) on a paper, mostly because of experience and to increase chances of getting an article published. Sometimes that role is minimal, if only a workshop or conference is targeted, since it might be easier to publish there.

But with an article-based PhD, it seems that the active approach in editing co-authored journal papers is essential, and in effect writing a big part of the dissertation for the student. I realize every case is different.

I'd be happy to know from experienced advisors in this setting to know if and how an advisor's role must change in article-based PhDs.

This topic is near and dear to my heart, as the number of days until I finish exactly such a thesis is measured in a single digit number.

If you field is dominated by journal, rather than book, publications, I think its a vastly superior system, leaves you better prepared for what you'll actually have to do in the future, and leaves your CV in hopefully a stronger place.

  But with an article-based PhD, it seems that the active approach in
  editing co-authored journal papers is essential, and in effect writing
  a big part of the dissertation for the student. I realize every case
  is different.

This has not been my experience - even the most active members of my committee who are co-authors on papers can't really be said to have written a significant portion of my work. Generally speaking, I would send them a fully fleshed out draft paper for their comments (which is exactly what I tend to do as first-author on a non-thesis paper), and then we'd iterate through the draft several times as they tinkered with language, added their own pet sentences, asked for additional analysis, etc. But the paper, in its final form, is very much dominated by my work and my writing.

One of the keys may be to not wait until the end of someone's graduate career to work on their writing. If someone needs you to fundamentally rewrite massive parts of their dissertation papers, in my mind they're not ready to defend. They should be at a stage of maturity where they can produce largely independent writing, in need of only the usual modifications a co-author would provide to a manuscript.


Are there general guidelines for order of front and back matter sections in a thesis? I am writing my PhD thesis (physics in a European university) and wonder how to order the "meta-data" chapters.

My university gives very few formal regulations and my adviser wasn't sure.

What I have come up with till now is:

Frontmatter

Titlepage (position fixed by University)
Statement page that I wrote this (position fixed by University)
Disclaimer that part of this work is subject to publication
Acknowledgements
Abstract
Table of content
Table of figures

Mainmatter

The "meat" - the real work

Backmatter

Appendix
Glossary
Bibliography

I know this question might come off as opinion based but I believe there are reasons for certain orderings which are based on facts.

One of the wonderful things about your thesis is that it is one of the few documents that there is very little constraint on how you are allowed to arrange it.  Once you have satisfied the university's formal requirements (of which there are often few), it is up to you (with, of course, the consent of your advisor).  So arrange things however you feel makes the most clear and accessible presentation, and it will be OK.


What are the incentives for universities to recruit athletic student Is there any special incentive for universities to have many athletic students? I am speaking based on my personal observation on North American universities.

I often hear that universities look for students that are "well-rounded", but I do not believe that alone explains the numerous special early offers given to athletic students. This phenomenon, combined with some acknowledged cynicism, led me to this question.

There is likely more than one correct answer to this, but here are a few answers that vary and may be true in multiple environments.

Student athletes

If we are talking about athletic students who are going to be "student athletes" (i.e. play on the universities intercolligiate sports teams) then the incentive is to win those tournaments. Depending on sport, winning an NCAA tournaments can be a very valuable endeavor. Additionally, as noted in the answers to this question, noted in the comments above there is a publicity value to having a notable sports team.

Athletic Non-Student Athletes

Involvement in extra-curriculars with attendant good grades shows that students aren't just getting by in high school, or dedicating all of their time towards studying, and therefore are more likely to succeed. In these cases, members of the student body, people in the band and on the yearbook committee get more or less the same boost.
A different type of student participates in sports, and by seeking out those students, you can improve the chances of a well rounded student body. People who are sports minded are often different kinds of competetive from your "type A" valedictorian-type students, where team values are rewarded. Also, Charles Murray has noted that sports participation is more highly correlated with lower SES, although not perfectly. Relatedly, there are many who grow up in a very poor environment, who pursue sports because they feel, wrongly, that it is their only ticket out. They have shown significant capacity to learn, but not enough capacity to play on the college team, and seeking those students provides them an opportunity the otherwise might not have.
For some universities athletecism is part of their mission. For example the U.S. military academies require participation in intra-mural sports for all students, for somewhat obvious reasons. One can imagine that other schools might have primary training objectives that require physical fitness.
Some schools make an athletic student body a part of their sales "pitch." Places the University of Colorado play up the active nature of the campus and the student body, and consequently they want to ensure at least a modicum of that. On the other hand, if a student body is organically athletic, then recruiting students who are interested in that sort of activity is part of the "goodness of fit" that selection entails, and schools want to ensure that their offers are accepted, so they will tend to opt towards students that are like their current students, to increase the probability that the students they admit come.
Finally, the advantages of fitness for intellectual activity are well documented. Admissions may simply be trying to do what they can to skew in favor of this additional criterion for admissions that increases the probability of success at school. It is probably a less reliable proxy variable, but since all schools are chasing pretty much the same graduates they could be using a "Moneyball-esque" strategy.

All of this is based primarily on my own experience and conjecture. I doubt highly that any of these factors weigh heavily at any school, and certainly not all of them at any school. I doubt, further, that many schools actively recruit athletic students on principle, any more than they recruit people from a language club or the choir, but these are at least some reasons they might want to.


Can a bachelor of software engineering study masters of electrical engineering? I'm currently in the process of applying to college for undergraduate degree in software engineering. I really love everything about electronics from hardware to software. I find it difficult to choose between electrical engineering or software engineering till I decided to take software engineering then continue my education for master in electrical engineering. Though, I'm not looking to offer myself more job opportunities, I literally want to know every single bit about hardware and software. My question:

Is it possible to study software engineering and then masters in electrical engineering?

It depends on the program you apply for your masters degree. Some universities and educational systems accept changing fields for masters degrees and some others not. Some programs may require the applicant to study some more courses from the bachelors syllabus to help them be more prepared for their masters program.

I think you would better ask the program you want to apply to, to see whether they accept and consider applications with different bachelors degree or not.


Paper author has not included all suggestions in peer review I am peer-reviewing a postgraduate paper. I reviewed the paper and sent off my recommendations for major corrections. Now the paper has come back and the author has only implemented around half of my suggestions.
They restructured the paper as requested, but failed to add some detail when requested in a couple of places, neither did they change the referencing to fall in line with the house style. The paper also has some spelling and grammar errors.
Should I recommend acceptance to the editor anyway? I am rather disappointed at the fact that some specific detail, as requested, was not included, but at the same time I do not want to deter this author and the paper is quite good in its current format. I feel that the parts left out, though not detrimental, should have been included at least for good practice. I am thinking of recommending acceptance with a note along the lines of what I have written above. Or should I be stricter?

The author owns the paper. They should consider any suggestions you make but need not implement any specific recommendation. Give up your "personal" feelings. That isn't your job. Re evaluate the paper on its merits and give it a fair assessment.
You are, of course, allowed to repeat your old suggestions, but it is a mistake to judge it solely on whether all of your suggestions were followed.
Some, but not all, authors will state in a "rebuttal" their reasons for ignoring suggestions. It isn't normally required. Judge the paper as it appears before you. Complain to the editor if you must.
Also consider that some really good suggestions are saved for future work by authors rather than included in the present paper. The work may already be in progress.