Can you publish a paper Simply Implementing another Paper's Algorithm? There was a highly cited paper published earlier this year in my field which introduced a highly theoretical, non trivial, algorithm that relied on extremely heavy theory. The algorithm was exact (Gave the correct solution) but 3 papers were published later on criticizing that it was highly non practical (Its implementation was a nightmare) and proposed approximation algorithms that were simple to implement.

So over the past year, me and 2 of my friends have been trying to implement the exact algorithm and finally we were able to implement it. The algorithm spans 14 files and is implemented in Python. The running time is acceptable for the input size in my field (takes 3-4 minutes on a modern computer to terminate). We also verified its correctness on a data set and it really did predict the exact solution.

We would love to publish the code, but one of our advisors said that it is unlikely that Code only would be publishable in a reputable journal/conference. One option is that we can just put it on Github but that doesn't really count as a publication. Are there conferences/journals which would take a 1-2 page paper that just describes a hard implementation? The only novel thing we did was that we've had to make very minor changes to the algorithm to make it practical but proved that these minor changes don't change the correctness (just makes implementation a lot easier!).

Any ideas?

This is a judgement call and will be for editors and reviewers. But the main question they will want answered is what is new/novel in your paper? If you can give them that, then they will be more likely to accept it.

The other question is, whether exactness is worth the effort. If the approximation methods give good enough answers then the expense of an exact solution may not be worth it in practice. Can you address that issue in your paper?

You don't describe anything here about scaling if that is an issue with the algorithm. A few minutes on a modern system may be good or bad, depending. If the algorithm needs to be executed once for each Google query, then it is pretty bad. If it has to be executed once per "noticed supernova" then probably fine.

There are a lot of questions your paper could address that might push the editor toward acceptance if you can handle them well.


ChemRxiv vs. arXiv acceptance Both ChemRxiv (https://chemrxiv.org/) as well as arXiv (https://arxiv.org/) are services for publishing preprints.

arXiv focusses on physics, mathematics, computer science (CS) and some more topics. From the questions and answers in this discussion forum, I got the impression that publishing a preprint on arXiv at least in some disciplines is rather common as an accepted way to have your work published.

In contrast, in a chemistry context, it seems that publishing preprints is far less common, and I as a chemist only know of ChemRxiv because I wondered myself if a preprint service exists for chemistry related research. At the institutions I have worked so far, this was never considered at all. Only peer reviewed publications count.

Provided that my impressions are correct: Why is there such a relatively low acceptance for preprints in chemistry as compared to other disciplines? Or the other way around: Why do some disciplines value preprints higher than others? Especially in CS related questions, it seemed to me that arXiv is suggested rather frequently. Are preprints in other disciplines really helpful for the publication record?

The main problem is that your impressions seem to be incorrect. (At least from my maths perspective) Putting a preprint on arxiv is just that, namely putting up a preprint. Almost everything put on arxiv will be sent of to a peer reviewed venue as well, usually at the same time (there are exceptions, e.g. when people put up non-articles such as lecture notes for posterity). It is useful to make a result widely available and in cases even to establish priority, but it is not "proper" publishing and generally is not accepted as such. It is just a way to put the result out there right now instead of waiting until it is published (which in cases can take years).

In a way this approach is an attempt to please both sides. The bean-counters and bureaucrats who care about numerical "publication record" generally ignore arxiv and look at peer reviewed stuff only. But the actual peers reading your papers care more about the content than about the venue it is published in. (Though they still will cite the published version if available)

Also keep in mind that people can only cite what they actually know about. And in some disciplines, the use of arxiv is so prevalent that it also functions as a unified source. Since every preprint is on there anyway, many people only check the new releases on arxiv, so not releasing a preprint is not an option anymore.


My professor uploaded an unsigned recommendation My question is about letters of recommendation for University of Pittsburgh , graduate studies. My professor uploaded a plain PDF document of the letter over electronic recommendation. Will this create any issues? The document was not signed, but it was not mentioned anywhere to sign the letter of recommendation (which was done in the case if students themselves uploaded the letter)

I am worried.

I wouldn't worry too much about it.

We're currently in a transitional state between a world of paper documents and a world of electronic documents, and the conventions for digital signatures haven't really converged yet. As such, some people sign on paper and scan, some sign digitally, and some don't sign at all.  If you're dealing with a large institution, they've probably seen it all, and are unlikely to hold it against you.  After all, even if it was signed, what's the likelihood they would actually know what your professor's signature looks like?


Is it advisable to upload theses to the arXiv? I'm currently uploading my MRes thesis to my university website, but I have some doubts regarding the permanence of the link as it may change after I graduate. I do not have many illusions over who may want to read my thesis in the future, but I would like to have a link to give to people or to put on papers in the future without fear of the link breaking in the near/mid/far future. Additionally, I know that having it available in a place spiders are more likely to look makes it (marginally) more visible to web searches and thus more discoverable.

A quick search turns up a good bunch of PhD theses, but it doesn't say how many there aren't very many MSc or BSc theses in there. My reading on this is that it is OK but by no means a standard practice.

Before I upload it though, I would like to know if there are reasons not to put it in such a public place. I am after all a bit of an arXiv fanatic and there may be factors I'm not considering. Any thoughts?

There doesn't seem to be any real restriction on publishing theses of any kind to arXiv. Therefore, whether you choose to do so is a decision that should be made between you and your advisor, taking into account any regulations your school may have. If your work has been funded by an external agency or company, you should also take their requirements under advisement.

However, so long as your topic falls under arXiv's category guidelines, and there are no restrictions preventing you, there isn't much to lose by submitting the final version of your thesis to a public repository. It would ensure far greater visibility for your thesis than if it's left on your university's website alone.


change the citation of preprint version into journal version of article In my article, I have cited a preprint version (arXiv) of one references. After my article has been published in the final form, I received a request from the author of the preprint article asking me to make Corrigendum that tells the readers about the journal version of his cited article. I am new in the publication field and I want to know whether I should obey to his demand and make the corrigendum or leave the citation as it is.
I might mention that the contents of both preprint and journal versions are similar and the version that I have read and referred to in my manuscript is the preprint as the journal version was not available at the time I wrote the paper.
Thank you for your advise.

Is there a major difference (a grave mistake or something) in the journal version? Apparently not.

Is there a grave mistake in your paper that you cite a preprint? I don't think so.

You also cite the version you were working with, which is Ok and a right thing to do.

I'd correct the reference in my database for the future use (and obtain the journal version, of course), but I won't bother with corrigenda. They are for bigger mistakes than just a wrong version of a reference.


Is peer review process by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science anonymous? The title says it all, could not find anywhere this information clearly written. Would appreciate a short feedback.

I haven't submitted grants to those departments, but for most federal grants, the researchers applying are not blinded. The reviewers for other departments are also often not blinded, but you have to dig to find who they are- for instance, for the NIH you find the study section that will review and find the list of who is in that review group.


Citing multiple Github repositories with a single citation I have reached the maximum paper length and already shortened everything as possible. I use 4 different github repositories, which I mention in my paper. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no room left to add a citation for each repository.

What options are there to solve this problem?

Would it be a good idea to create a new own repository that references the 4 different repositories and only cite my own repository?

There are really only two solutions to this problem, and which is appropriate depends on the customs of your field:

Name the repositories (and possibly give their URLs), but do not formally cite them. In some fields this will be unacceptable, others it's up to the author, and in yet while others it is considered unacceptable to cite a non-peer-reviewed source like a repository (I have had journals force me to de-formalize software citations before!).
Shrink something else to make space for the repository citations. You may think this is not possible, but I promise you that you can get the few lines you need without significantly affecting content through minor tweaks in wording, layout, and such (including in reference contents!)


Citing a rejected paper in related work A paper was uploaded to Arxiv that is very similar to my research. I cited it in the related work section of the paper I am currently working on. I was planning on noting the shortcomings of this Arxiv paper when a few days later I found that it was rejected from the conference via openreview. My questions are:

Should I leave this citation in?
Should I say that it has been rejected?
Should the knowledge of the rejection change the way I talk about the paper?

This is the first time something like this has happened to me, so not sure how I should approach this.

Should I leave this citation in?

Definitely. A paper on arxiv is still related work regardless of its submission/acceptance status.

  Should I say that it has been rejected?

No. That seems inappropriate. The paper may soon be accepted elsewhere in which case your comment about rejection will be outdated.

Just cite it like you would any other paper. If you want, your bibliography could link to the openreview page where people could see the reviews and decision.

  Should the knowledge of the rejection change the way I talk about the paper?

Not really. Perhaps the reviews include some useful information. Otherwise treat it like any other paper.


Who evaluates Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship proposals? Who are the evaluators of the Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship proposals? Other academics ? How are they selected ?

You will find details on the evaluation process in the Guide for Applicants. The evaluators are experts (=researchers) in the field. They will be matched to the proposal according to their profile and to the abstract and keywords. They will for sure be in the general research area, but might not be in the exact same field of the proposal. It is (at least, officially) not possible to find out who evaluated the proposal afterwards, but you can find a list of former evaluators here:

http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/experts_en.html


What does it mean to be offered waived-fee OA publishing? I submitted a manuscript to a journal for non-open-access publication and the editor came back and said that they want to publish the article as open-access (same journal) and waive the fee for this.

As not to be too broad, what implications does this have for my paper? Is it generally viewed positively to have OA publications? Really, in the end, I am trying to look at the pros/cons of saying yes/no to this.

It is still an open question whether open access actually leads to more citations or not.  This is at least partly because the models and players in OA are still rapidly shifting, especially with the rapidly increasing influx of low quality or scam publishers who have embraced open access because it is an easier way to bilk money out of insecure early-career academics.

I will assume, however, that you have already vetted the journal and know that it is a significant and reputable one in your field.  Let us also assume that it really is just as you present: the article will still be published in exactly the same way, just not behind a paywall and this will cost you nothing.  In that case, the general wisdom is that, all else being equal, an article that's easier to find and read is likely to have higher impact than one hidden behind a paywall.

Free open access in a normally closed journal is actually less unusual than you might think.  For example:

Nature makes certain types of large community studies open by default.
Special issues and special collections in a journal are sometimes negotiated to be open access by their organizers.  If your article fits with such an upcoming collection, it would be natural for it to become included in the policy.
Certain types of information, particularly in biomedical research, are required to be published open access (either immediately or within certain timeframes) by some government funding agencies

The real question is: what is the reason in your particular case?  Ask the editor. If it's something that makes sense, like one of the cases above, then great!  Embrace it and get some extra citations.  If not, then ask yourself again whether you really trust this journal...


Undergrad research in Computational biology I am a freshman and been doing Computational data analysis(using R) and map(kallisto,bowtie,.....)  the data a grad student gets from sequencing. I feel like my other lab mates who are doing wet lab like actual experiments are getting more experience. I take lots of time to understand the data just to output or make a conclusion.
 How can i get the most out of computational aspect of the research. I enjoy what i am doing, and it is nice to come up with conclusion and professor agrees(or disagree), but i feel like i am not contributing as much as my lab mates.

I am planning to apply to grad school(computational biology, genomics). Is there any advice on how to get the most out of my undergrad experience ?

wet lab like actual experiments are getting more experience

It is a common misconception that biology almost always happens in a wet lab. Indeed, some things can only be done in a wet lab, but computational biology is actually one of the greatest examples that counters this misconception, due to its flexibility.

If you want to spend more time behind a pipette instead of a keyboard, you should be able to ask your research advisor for projects or classes that get you more involved in that direction, for example PCR and gene sequencing. However, if you believe that computational biology is "less experience" than wet lab biology, it is important to understand the benefits that dry computational biology brings to general biological sciences.

Take Mendel's cross-pollinating peas exercise. If done in the real world, it would take several weeks to generate a single generation of peas (and hope that nothing bad happens that causes them to die). With the power of computational biology and some programming, you can perform dozens or even hundreds of generations' worth of experiments in a single day.

The power of computational biology comes from the fact that it can be done either cooperatively or independently of a wet lab. If you only want to do data analysis, you can do that. If you want to apply some real-world wet lab culturing with image-based analysis of PCR scans, you can do that.

As a computational biology student, you should be able to determine as much or as little wet biology or computer science that you want to do. My thesis was entirely done without ever seeing a biological organism, as I only used neural networks to simulate generational development.


Should I convince my advisor that thesis work is not finished yet? I am a third-year Ph.D. student in computer science. I have finished all course requirements and I work full-time as a software engineer at a FAANG company. I am doing my best trying to balance time between work and school. But today I had a meeting with my advisor and he said by the end of summer he expects me to wrap up all my thesis work.
Basically, I did

One year of study the research material and taking graduate-level courses to study the problem
One year of research to understand the problem and come up with the solution
One year of solving the problem, coding, and showing my method worked

What is remaining is writing a paper and defense.
My advisor is very strict and I am kind of surprised he said that. I don't feel like I have accomplished anything yet and there is more to the problem. Should I try to explain the work is not finished yet? Or maybe he is getting tired of me and wants to focus on other problems.

Working full-time as both a software engineer and a Ph.D. student is unsustainable. If writing a thesis based upon the results you have is likely to suffice (speak to fellow students, read theses of prior students, speak to your advisor), I'd suggest you take that route. Reduce your workload to something more sustainable. Your thesis needn't be your best work; your thesis need only get you a PhD. Graduate, pursue the next step.


Does publishing a paper with a non-edu email influence the review process? I saw many good papers on good journals (by Springer, Elsevier, IEEE, etc.) with a Gmail as a corresponding email.

I'm about to submit a paper and since I don't have (yet) an academic email, I would like to know how bad is it to publish a paper with a Gmail account. Does it have influence on the author's reputation or the reviewing process?

None. Outside/commercial email addresses are more likely to be permanent than academic ones, since people change jobs all the time. I think that a Gmail or Yahoo address is fine, and I rarely look at them when reviewing. Some venues use double-blind reviewing, so the reviewers won't know your email address or affiliation anyway.


Re-reviewing a previously rejected article but some authors have changed from the previous submission. Should I mention that to the editor? I recently accepted to review an article for a journal. I actually reviewed the very same article for another journal from where the submission was rejected. This is a rather common occurrence however, as I was looking at my notes from the previous review to see if the authors have addressed the previous issues, I noticed that the new submission has actually different authors. For example:

Initial Submission: Author1, Author2, Author3, Author4, Author5
New Submission: Author1, Author2, Author5, Author6, Author7

I will clearly mention in the review that I have reviewed the article before (actually the submission is in a different journal of the same publisher) but is the change of authors something that I should mention in my review?

It's not particularly unusual for authors to be added during a revision of a paper, but for them to be removed is quite unusual and often linked with something improper going on.

Since this submission is a different publication than the original version that you saw, the editors do not have this history in front of them, and I think that it is indeed a good idea to flag this as a concern to the editors.

Moreover, if the article has not been significantly revised but the set of authors has changed, then that's a major red flag that the authors are doing something improper. If this is the case, then the editors absolutely must know, and should probably investigate wrongdoing.


Should I refuse my advisor's request to write a research paper? My school policy for PhDs does not require any publications, but it's good to publish anyway. Recently my advisor asked me to write a journal paper, but I have more experiments to focus on.

Should I refuse him or just put my work on hold for a while? Personally I want to publish, but this time I am really not in position to write quality paper as I need focus on my work to finish my PhD on time.

I suspect that the time you invest in writing any papers now will be mostly paid back because it will make it much easier to write your dissertation.

I published several papers during my PhD research, and am currently writing my dissertation. My first step was to copy the introduction from each paper into my literature review chapter, and put the body of each paper into a separate chapter of my thesis. Of course, I have to write segues and reorganise the information a bit, but that gave me a big head start on the dissertation. Of course, you'll need to check that the copyright agreement you sign with the publisher allows you to include content from your paper in your PhD dissertation (most do), and also verify that your institution allows this as well.

Another tip: If you write a paper, hang onto any material that you cut out to meet space requirements. You may want to include that material in your thesis.


Cover letter for job application to someone I have personally met I intend to apply for a postdoc position. The contact mentioned in the job advertisement, to whom I should address the cover letter, is someone I have personally met and talked to on a first-name basis (let's call him Dr John Doe). Therefore the natural form of address, for example in an e-mail, would be "Dear John". However, the cover letter for an job application is a formal document, so perhaps I should instead address him as "Dear Dr John Doe" or "Dear Dr Doe"? Thanks in advance!

I would lean toward the formal here, though it would be fine to remind the recipient of your past association, assuming it is professional and not personal. I doubt, however, that it is hugely important in most cases. But I also expect that you would already know if one or the other were greatly to be preferred.

In follow up contact you might change that, depending on the response to your initial inquiry. If he replies back as John, then John it is. But your letter will be seen by several others, as noted by user Anyon in comments.


MS student in CS meeting advisor for the first time in person (USA). What should I wear? (male) I am meeting him in his office on campus.  I am a master's student in computer science.  I figured that suit and tie would be too formal as it isn't really an interview since I already have the position.  If I were just regularly attending grad classes, I may wear T-shirt, shorts and flipflops (during the summer/fall) and jeans, polo, light jacket, sneakers during the cooler months.  Should I wear khakis, dress shoes, and a nice button down shirt?  Ties?  Yes or no?   I want to make a good first impression but not have it look like I'm trying too hard.

In addition, he invited a few other grad students to his house for a cookout next weekend.  What should I wear to that?  I'm guessing more on the casual side but should I go in shorts/t-shirt or jeans/polo?

I've never even visited any universities in that part of the country, but I think your comfortable shorts/T-shirt should be perfect for a cookout in any part of the country.  For the first impression, make sure you choose something comfortable.  I think dress shoes would probably be overkill.  However, a short-sleeved button shirt (i.e. tailored shirt with a collar) would be a nice touch.  Do you have some sort of sports shoes?  That would be a happy medium between dress shoes and flip flops.  If not, I'd go with the dress shoes.

If you ask what food to take to the cookout, I'll chime in on that one too.


My advisor wants me to make my PhD thesis weaker I am a final year PhD student in mathematics at a university in Spain and about to submit my thesis in a few weeks. During the last months, I have been writing up the remaining details of a project. Let me make clear that this project is not the only one contained in my thesis. However, it is the heart of the thesis and the other projects contained in my thesis, while in some way independent, yield interesting results when combined with the project I am talking about in this question. Moreover, the topic of the project was proposed by my advisor, but I mostly worked on it without talking to him (he was visiting other universities and sick for a very long time, and there were other reasons as well).

The project is a classification of certain objects, meaning that it consists of two parts:

Giving a list of examples of said objects;
Showing that the above list is in fact complete.

While coming up with the examples was kind of hard at the beginning, it was pretty straightforward and algorithmic once I got the hang of it (I always told my colleagues that one could teach a chimpanzee how to do it). The mathematically involved and complicated part is to show that the produced list is in fact complete. This involves several creative ideas and is highly non-trivial.

My advisor now thinks that the thesis is too long (it is about 130 pages, part 2 being roughly 25 pages long), and that I should remove part 2 from the thesis (i.e., that I should not show in the thesis that the list is complete): according to him, a longer thesis has more potential of containing small, subtle mistakes, and obviously mistakes are bad. He said that he cannot be sure that everything is correct, since he never read all details and I need to submit rather soon. He is also travelling and busy until I am supposed to submit.

However, I do not want to cut the second part of the thesis, for the following reasons:

I already have the proof, and I am sure that it is correct. Why should it not be included in my thesis? The alternative is to include an unproven claim in the thesis, similar to "the list is in fact complete, which we will show in a forthcoming paper".
If I remove it and only keep part 1, my results are incomplete and the project only consists of "describing some examples", which is - as I explained above - pretty easy once one knows how to.
Obviously, I want my thesis to be as strong as possible.
The interplay between all projects of my thesis cannot be made as strong, as well.
I know who the referees of my thesis are going to be, and one of them is notorious for being a very harsh grader. While I am pretty proud of my thesis in the current form, I am afraid that removing part 2 will affect the grading of my thesis.

I explained my point of view to my advisor, but he kept saying that the thesis is too long (apparently the period of time the referees are given to evaluate the thesis is pretty short) and that it is too unsafe for him to submit it as in its current form.

How should I behave in this situation? I am extremely thankful for any advice!

If it isn't going to damage the relationship with your advisor too much, you should submit your complete thesis. The arguments you provided from your advisor are pretty weak, and I'm quite sure that 130 pages isn't particularly long. Your arguments to keeping the length are compelling (strength of ideas, likelihood of appeasing difficult thesis committee member, etc). That said, we are only hearing your advisor's opinion second-hand. It's possible you are not giving us all the information, either because you misunderstand your advisor or your advisor has not fully detailed his concerns (which is definitely not optimal).

You said you mostly worked on this without talking to him. I may have missed it, but I don't see that you have explained your reasons to your advisor. Is there time to do this? Ask him what would happen and how would he feel if you submitted your thesis as is? This should preferably be done in person, but you may need to phone or email him.

Good luck! Thesis time is always stressful, even under the best of conditions!


Applied to two MS programs, but one wants a decision before the other has made a decision I applied to two graduate schools (both for an MS).  "University A" gave me an admissions decision already.  Upon reading their admissions letter, I have to make a decision within one week (it's currently mid-June).  Unfortunately, I still have not heard back from "University B".  They will be making their decision by July 31st.

I'm not entirely sure what to do here.  My preference would be to go to University B, but if I don't get in there, then obviously I'd like to go to University A.

Would it be wrong to accept the offer to University A, and then withdraw later?  Or, would it reflect poorly on me if I asked for an extension to make a decision?  I find it strange that University A wants a decision so quickly, seeing as how you can apply for admission for the fall quarter up through mid-August.

Would it be wrong to accept the offer to University A, and then
  withdraw later?

Ethically, I think this would be wrong unless you expressly told University A of your consideration when you make the decision.  When you accept an admission offer you are taking up limited resources and potentially depriving someone else of admission to the university.

  Or, would it reflect poorly on me if I asked for an
  extension to make a decision?

Not at all - just tell them that you are very interested in A but also have other possibilities and would like to make a fully informed decision.  The worst thing that will happen is that A says "no".

  I find it strange that University A
  wants a decision so quickly, seeing as how you can apply for admission
  for the fall quarter up through mid-August.

Presumably, University A has a limited number of slots that they can fill, and, if you say "no", they would like to extend the slot to someone else before decisions are made.  I'm a bit surprised that these universities are making fall MS decisions in June - these decisions are typically done by mid-April.


How to get in a Master program in Applied Maths coming from a Physics Background I am having a big problem finding a master program in mathematics for which I can apply. My background briefly:

I grew up in Brazil. I started learning physics and mathematics as autodidactic in high school. When I started college in physics, I already knew the whole content of the bachelor degree, plus master subjects (quantum field theory, general relativity, etc). Before that I did a proof for a master program and passed, but was not admitted because I needed the Bachelor. In the following 6 years I had to attend classes and make graduate coursework in a Brazilian university. I earned my physics degree in 2015, and moved to Germany in the beginning of 2016 to live with the other half of my family here.

I learned about the Bologna process and the importance of a master degree for the first time in my life. In the beginning of the third of the six years of college in Brazil, I had decided not to go through with academia, but had to finish the degree to have what is called a "superior education" in Brazil and have better chances in any job market. Here on the other hand I finally discovered applied maths and it's applications to industry, and felt in love with it.

But I find four big obstacles to being accepted in any master course:

1- Having a physics and not mathematics bachelor

During the college, I didn't have to open a book of college physics. This gave me much time to study subjects of mathematics, as Analysis, Abstract Algebra and Group and Representation Theory.

But, as much as I have already the pre-requisite knowledges to a master program, they won't be recognized because I don't have them in my academic records.

2- Having earned a grade in Brazilian system, which is considered very bad in international grading system.

I was always the best student in every class I took in my life. I had always the best results in examinations. But in the Brazilian system, the results in examinations do not matter a lot: people loose many points if they do not watch all lectures or do not do all the exercises. I couldn't do any of this because I worked full time to survive together with the college, both in daily time. Plus, I never in my life heard that a better grade would have any use. A grade in Brazil is exclusively a passing criteria, and no employer or graduate program takes it seriously. My final grade was 72%, I was ranked second in my peer group, but with this seems like I can't be accepted in any university in the EU.

3- I only have one recomendation letter. I didn't want to follow academia and research, and this would be the only reason in Brazil to commit to research programs and be in contact with researchers. Also, it is not allowed to do so while having a job.

4- I don't have any money. I figured out that the perfect solution for that would be to make a distance learning master and work during the day where I currently live. But this makes the possibilities more restricted. Having to attend a presential full time university, I don't even know how would I pay for rent.

Anyway, I am sure that if I could take courses in mathematics I would have very high grades in european system and would be able to proof my potential. I haven't found any university in Germany which offers this possibility though.

My general question is: how can an autodidactic go for a career in mathematics? I just want any possibility at all that does not involve starting a whole new bachelor again.

Thanks in advance fellows

Because of your financial situation it sounds like you will need to either gain full time admission to a masters program that includes a scholarship offer

or

Attend part time while you work

Many admissions officers will not be familiar with the Brazilian grading system. In addition to enclosing your transcripts and cover letter, submit proof (if it is not already on your transcript) of your impressive class rank. Use your cover letter to further explain you academic history.

You may need to prove some of what you learned as an autodidact in order to demonstrate your preparedness for the graduate programs you apply to. Either produce research or find a relevant test that you can use to prove your knowledge. If there is not a standardized test relevant to any alleged deficiencies in your knowledge base (judging you based on transcripts) ask the school you are applying to for the right to take a final exam of a capstone bachelor level math course to help prove your knowledge base.

You will have to prove to the schools you are applying to what you learned as as autodidact. If you can do that you may be able to gain admission without the need to take more undergraduate coursework


How to properly describe future works in Master's Thesis? I have developed an application for the Master's Thesis. It provides enough functionality for demonstration purposes and to explain the workings of it. However, many other areas (some major, some small) can be improved or are required to be improved in the application. I am mentioning them in future works along with the proposed way to achieve them.
My question is, What approach is the best to mention the missing parts in future works without sounding like that nothing was accomplished or my research was weak while being completely unbiased about my application?

Science is never complete. If the work that you have done in your master's thesis has been worthwhile, the most likely outcome will be that other researchers will want to develop your work further. Since this is the standard state of affairs, there is a standard place for describing future work in your thesis. This place is at the end of the Conclusions chapter. If you are writing that chapter well, you can both address future work that remains to be done, and give the impression that the work in your thesis has been worthwhile.
Your Conclusions chapter will start off by recapping what you did in your thesis; a short, high-level summary. Then, you will refer back to the problem statement and substatements you posed in your Introduction chapter (or maybe you put them in a separate chapter; this is also fine). For each problem statement and substatement, you will now methodically describe how the statement has been answered in your thesis, with explicit references to specific evidence in tables, figures, or the text. Once you have described how the problem statements have been answered, you then turn to describing future work, perhaps in a separately numbered subsection of the Conclusions chapter.
By building up your Conclusions chapter like that, you can give proper space and attention to work that remains to be done, while also giving a clear overview of the contributions of your thesis itself. If you refer back to the problem statements at the start of your thesis, you make a very structured impression: the start of the thesis and the end of the thesis are connected, and you summarize what you have done. So you combine sounding unbiased with discussing future work while also keeping the focus on what your research achieved.


Balancing (Re)building Foundations and Research I'm a third year postdoc in mathematics.

I have been reasonably productive; however, I'm starting to feel some of my foundations in my subject slipping (especially since I specialized in my field fairly early into my PhD). The techniques I use in my research relate to a certain type of object, so the general knowledge in my field has slowly becoming lost. My work mixes a lot of fields, so I also have the enjoyment of knowing many fields shallowly instead of one specialization extremely deeply. I am now realizing that it would be useful to go back and learn some of the foundations in my field much more deeply as well as the foundations in related fields.

This realization is daunting, considering how much time I spent before in graduate school to get some understanding. I want to keep my research at about the same pace and then also do this.

Have others had this experience?

If so, what kind of plan led them to have a firmer understanding of their field?

This feeling is pretty normal at that stage. (I also guess that the feeling that one should know foundations better does never really vanish for many people.) To keep up your pace, but still broaden your foundations I suggest that you

choose some books you'd like to go through and reserve some time every week to work on it,
embrace the fact, that you will be able to pick up new stuff in your field more quickly than during graduate studies,
be aware that you'll pick up more and more foundations "on the fly" while doing research.


Why don't journal publishers ask for proof of affiliation? It seems like journal publishers do not require credentials for proof of your affiliation and identity. There are many places where such credentials are important, but even the most popular journal publishers do not ask for them. Why is that so?

The crucial point is: Why would the author lie? Let's try some hypothetical answers:

To bluff the editors and reviewers so that they think you're at a top place. But reviewers will likely be from your field of study and realize that you lie. They would probably know it if you moved to a high-ranking institution.
To make the paper look good in your CV. This is a non-sense, you sell your affiliation in different ways than by listing them in your papers.

I can't think of any other reason. Given that the authors have no incentive to list a false affiliation, there is no reason to verify it.

Also, remember that some affiliations are very hard to verify, for instance if you stay somewhere for 6 months and want to list it as an affiliation, you possibly do not appear in any official lists.


Does a significant participation weight on the final grade increase classroom discussion? Currently at the institution that I study, we have class participation which is enforced (more or less) by making it a significant percentage of the final grade.

For instance, one of my classes has participation as 20% of the final grade. We are marked on the basis of how much we participate each class on a scale of 1 - 5.

  Question: Are there any research papers which show (or don't) that having a high participation weight causes a majority of the class to repeatedly participate?

My Observations.

Based on the two classes I have been in where the participation weight has a significant impact on the final grade (>20%), I have noticed that the same people (more or less) talk each class; the majority of the class does not participate at all. Furthermore, the "discussion" is not a discussion but rather a question and answer with very few follow ups.

Thanks for your time!

It is of course difficult to judge objectively whether a discussion is productive, but there is some literature on the subject.

A 2010 review [1] on classroom participation in college says about graded participation:

  Course policies on participation as set by the instructor also impact student participation. Berdine (1986) and Smith (1992) suggested that whether or not students participate depends on how much their participation counts toward their final grades. The “pearls of wisdom” approach where students record their participation each day to count toward their end of semester grades was found to be effective in increasing participation in the assessed course and reported to increase participation in other courses (Junn, 1994). Fassinger (1995a, 2000) suggested that students should earn extra credit rather than counting participation as part of a student's grade, and Boniecki and Moore (2003) and Smith (1992) found that rewarding students with extra credit did increase participation.

and

  Mandatory participation (Dallimore, Hertenstein, & Platt, 2004) and calling on students, even when they have not volunteered (Auster & MacRone, 1994; Dallimore et al., 2004) can both be effective practices for encouraging participation. However, Moguel (2004) noted mixed perceptions of cold-calling, and Karp and Yoels (1976) noted that this happens in only about 10% of classroom participation.

The paper by Dallimore, Hertenstein, & Platt [2] mentioned above uses a student survey, and asks students what they thought was effective at improving classroom discussion:

  A questionnaire was administered to students on the last day of the course. We asked students to respond to questions regarding what professors do or say that: (a) increases student participation and (b) either increases or decreases the effectiveness of the discussion.

Some students cited graded participation as increasing student participation:

(This is part of "Table 1 Student Responses Regarding Quality of Participation and Effective Discussion Factors")

However, they used cold-calling alongside grading participation, which students seemed to find important:

  Notable in Table 1 is the fact that graded and required participation is a major category that emerged for both quality and effectiveness. Respondents repeatedly identified the importance of graded participation, suggesting that instructors should "make it a significant part of our grade." When asked what a professor says or does to increase the quality of student participation, grading and requiring participation were regularly mentioned (including responses which would be considered cold calling according to our definition). For example, one student observed, "the fact that professors call on most students to answer a question increases my incentive to prepare [thus enhancing discussion quality]."

A more recent study [3], also using a student survey, found that in a survey before the course,

  43% of students surveyed indicate they participate more when participation is graded.

After the course (which had required, graded participation), a little over 40% of students agreed or strongly agreed with the statement "I participated more in this class because participation was graded":

(Table 5)

and roughly 30% of students said they participated more than in other courses:

(Table 6: Participation Comparison: Current Course to Prior Courses)

[1] Rocca, K.A., 2010. Student participation in the college classroom: An extended multidisciplinary literature review. Communication Education, 59(2), pp.185-213.

[2] Dallimore, E.J., Hertenstein, J.H. and Platt, M.B., 2004. Classroom participation and discussion effectiveness: Student-generated strategies. Communication Education, 53(1).

[3] Paff, L.A., 2015. Does Grading Encourage Participation? Evidence & Implications. College Teaching, 63(4), pp.135-145.


Posting master's thesis on arxiv? I read this question, in which all answers recommend posting one's master's thesis online. My thesis is available from my university's repository, but I'm thinking about posting it on arXiv since it's more easily searchable. However, I don't think I've seen master theses on arXiv. Is this something that people typically do? Are there disadvantages that I'm missing?

Posting a master's thesis on the arXiv is uncommon, but not unheard of.  My feeling is that there's little point to it: if there's material worth publishing in your thesis, then you should turn it into papers and post them on the arXiv (in which case the thesis is unnecessary), and if it's not worth publishing then it's not worth posting to the arXiv.

If you decide to post both the thesis and the papers to the arXiv, you should indicate the relationship between them clearly in the comments so you don't look like you are inflating your publication record with duplicates, as well as in case you trigger the automated plagiarism detection in the arXiv.

One potential issue is coauthors.  If anything in your thesis is coauthored with someone else (either from a previous paper or to appear in a future paper), then I do not think you should post the thesis to the arXiv.  The problem is that you'd be pointing readers towards a version that lists you as the only author and relegates your coauthors to a brief note in the text, and you would be increasing the chances that they would cite the thesis rather than the coauthored papers.  Instead, it's best to emphasize the papers by posting them to the arXiv instead.


Should I ask a letter of recommendation from a prof who I rarely see? I'm applying to grad school this fall for math PhD programs and I need to figure out who to ask for letters of rec. I'm doing a summer reading course which is technically under a professor, but since he is really busy it's actually under a grad student. I've seen the professor only once or twice for paperwork, but I mainly work with the grad student. At the end of the course, should I ask the grad student to write about me and give it to the professor for him to write me a letter of rec? Or is this a bad idea?

A question you have to consider is - does the Professor know enough about your work, work ethic, attitude etc to be able to write a strong and meaningful reference for you.  A 'vague' and 'form-letter' type of reference could potentially harm your application, if it is the main reference you use.

Having said that, it would not hurt to ask and obtain a reference (if the Professor is comfortable doing so) to add to your portfolio.


Graduate Admissions and Earlier Programs I began an undergraduate program in subject A and because of circumstances outside of my control (receiving threats from someone with a history of violence against me), had to repeatedly withdraw from courses in that program.

I am considering going back to school in a totally different subject, and I very strongly feel that I have the ability to do well. If I do well in this subject and want to enter graduate school for it, would they be willing to only consider my grades in the relevant second program and overlook the earlier unrelated one, especially considering I had a legitimate reason for it and did well afterwards in the related program? Or would the withdrawals send up too many red flags?

(Edited in later) I think this question is rather different from the How does the admissions process work for US Ph.D. programs question because that's a more general question about making up for bad grades or things, but I am asking about special consideration for extenuating circumstances. There's a difference between getting a bad grade in a class because you weren't good at the material as opposed to having to withdraw from it because you are receiving violent threats from someone who has previously beaten you.

First of all, I'm sorry for your painful experiences. To answer your question:

Based on my extensive experience directing a graduate program at a leading public R1 university, your initial experience in the initial program will have very little bearing on your chances of admission. I say this for a number of reasons:

We are concerned with trajectory even more than overall grade point. I am relatively unconcerned by someone who gets C grades during freshman year, so long as I'm seeing A and high B grades by junior and senior years.
When a student goes to school for a couple of years, then does something else for a few years, and then returns to school, I consider the grades subsequent to return almost exclusively. In most cases, unlike yours, this is because the student needed time to grow up. But I'm happy to accept that he or she (frankly, it's usually a "he" that fits this pattern) has grown up and to accept the high marks after the return to school as ample proof. I don't care what somewhat was like as a 19-year-old, I care what that person will be like in my program.
You can and should explain the switch of programs in a graduate application. Having a letter-of-reference writer explain it as well would be a wise move. Once an admissions committee sees the highly valid reasons, there is little chance that they would hold your record at the first institution against you.
Everywhere I've been, if grade points are used to prune or order applicants, only the gradepoint at the final undergraduate institution is used. This may not be universal, but frankly I find it unlikely that most graduate admissions programs would go to the trouble to compute the proper weighted average across programs, even if they did care about your earlier performance.

I hope this is helpful and perhaps even encouraging.


Application requests experience or interest in professional/leadership programs I am a recent PhD graduate in a STEM field and I am currently a postdoc. I am also applying for assistant professorship positions since a postdoc is not permanent.
One of the applications for an assistant professorship position requires the usual documents (CV, research plan, letters of recommendation etc.) however this application also requests a "one-page statement listing experience or interest in professional and/or leadership programs" (this is taken verbatim from the posting for the position).
I have never come across this request for an assistant professor position before. Could someone please provide some advise regarding the content to write for this section of the application please?

This is a bit speculative, but it may be that the university has an interest in running highly intensive non-degree programs for professionals. A number of universities to this and it can be an important source of funding for them. They are sometimes called Executive Programs or something similar.
I once had a couple of grants from companies that wanted specialized training (and guidance) for some of their professionals. But some programs are just open to applicants willing to pay for admission.
If that is the case, you can probably learn that online or by asking a department head. You can then format a reply.
Experience and desire may or may not be a requirement, but I suspect that it would be a consideration. Willingness to work with non-traditional students would probably, in the described circumstances, be as important as prior experience - at the assistant professor level, where it would be less likely to have happened.
This is much more likely to be the case in some fields than in others, of course. In my case it was modern software development practice that was of interest to local companies.


MS thesis defense equivalent to publishing as a MS student? When applying to Ph.D. at the top 10 programs in the US, does MS thesis defended to committee members have the same weight as publishing paper as a MS student? Or am I at the disadvantage of not having any publications?

I was in EE working in Physics department in the field of Quantum Optics.

No, a defense is not equivalent to a publication. A defense may just be something required by university rules and takes some of the responsibility and guidance from the advisor and gives it to others. Some such theses are available in, say, the university library, but that isn't the same as journal (or conference) publication which is more public by definition.

The defense is usually a closed system within a department, thought there could be external members of the committee. But a publication has been vetted by independent referees and an editor and it is done in competition with other papers.

And if a defense is required there is no reason that you can't also do a paper if the results are good. It might not be the thesis itself, but could be based on the work.

A publication is almost certainly better if you plan a career as an academic, but possibly not by a tremendous amount. The admissions committee may actually do some (probably minor) evaluation of the work in either case. But having a publication in a reputable place will relieve them of some of the burden of judgement.


Advisor is unhappy with M.Sc. research results and is showing signs of preventing the student from graduating. What should be done? I am having difficulties with an advisor who has not been clear with me on my research project, and I am fearful that I will not be allowed to graduate on time. What should I do? Please allow me to explain:
(Please note I am trying to be as vague as possible to conceal the situation and identities).
Previously, I was working at a company that was taking advantage of me, so me starting my M.S. was a ticket out of a bad work situation. I did not have many options to begin this program, and I really wanted to study this subject. So I began a M.S. program. The tough part of this situation was that I was introduced to a project right in the middle of it, so right from the start, it was rocky. There were probably less than 20 minutes devoted by the advisor to explaining the project to me, and it really wasn't set up for the kind of measurements that I was to take. It really wasn't set up for success to begin with, in my opinion.
The first year did not go well because of said reasons. Being more prepared the second year, I accomplished everything that the advisor wanted me to. I was therefore not able to do it the first year, but with the second year, I was able to get significant results. This work was to be included in a M.S. thesis, but the professor wanted me to  produce work that could be published in a scientific journal. However, in my area of study, it is not usually possible to publish results with only one year of data. The advisor did not like this, and is continuing to push me to analyze other kinds of data to try to make results that would be deemed publishable.
With this in mind, the data that I did collect makes a good thesis chapter. The original objective that was only briefly explained to me was accomplished, with results that showed the success of my experiment. However, knowing that I may not be able to publish it, my professor is telling me that what I have as a thesis article will not meet the advisor's expectations for graduation. I am trying other means of data analysis, but am not getting significant results. These results are not pleasing to this individual.
This problem is further complicated because the professor will not give me clear directions on where to head with this project. Every time I ask for help, I get no clear answers, just papers sent to me that only partially relate to my project. I do think that if my thesis is not going to be considered 'good enough,' there needs to be specific suggestions for improving it. But there are none. To make matters worse, I have not been prioritized, having been blown off several pre-arranged meetings with no apologies. I just never get a clear answer, and I often feel afraid to approach this person.
I feel like I can defend my thesis chapter well, but I am concerned that this person will ask me a whole bunch of questions during my defense (might not be related to my thesis) that I will not understand just because they are upset at my insignificant results. The committee may deem me unfit to graduate if I'm not able to answer them. It is not a requirement to publish in a peer-reviewed journal to graduate, so I have not failed that expectation.
As I feel like I have been short-handed in this process with no direction provided, what steps can I take to get around this? I want to graduate, but I feel like politics may impede this. Has anybody ever heard of anything similar? Is there an appeal process that I could take, if I am not allowed to graduate?
Thank you for reading!

This is half of an answer.

Has anybody ever heard of anything similar?

Yes. Conflicts like this unfortunately is not uncommon, judging from what I have observed in only two universities.
Indeed, it appears to be more and more common.

Is there an appeal process that I could take, if I am not allowed to graduate?

Formal appeal process?  Yes. The process varies from department to department. You should be able to find it in your students' handbook.
However, this should be considered as a last resort ---
it is quite unlikely going to work if your goal is to graduate.
Looking at the bigger problem though,
it seems the most straightforward solution is just to work hard and get results that will be sufficient to meet the requirement (publishable). This will certainly solve your problem, and it is likely the most efficient way.
If that's not the kind of solution you are looking for, then first, you need an unbiased assessment of your work to determine if you actually did work that is sufficient for graduation. While you may feel you have done enough, you need to consider the possibility that you are not an expert yet, and your assessment may not be correct.  If you can find another expert who thinks your work is sufficient for graduation, you may have a case, otherwise, I'm afraid there is not much you can do (if your goal is to actually graduate).
I disagree with the first comment, I think it is quite dangerous to start with graduate program director or some kind of ombuds. This would indeed be the official channel, but if you do that, your chance working out a reasonable solution with your advisor will be greatly reduced.


Recommendation for creating a graphical timeline representation Can anyone recommend a site / program / software for sketching and creating a graphical timeline representation. In need of it for a paper.

A simple way is to use the SmartArt feature in various Microsoft Office programs (e.g. PowerPoint) to create a timeline. Google Slides can also be used (Insert -> Diagrams -> Timeline). See e.g. this guide for more details and inspiration. Alternatively, as henning states in a comment, you can just use a generic drawing app.
TeX solutions also exist, and have been described on other stacks. See e.g.

How to create a timeline with LaTeX?
How do I develop a complex time line?
How can you create a vertical timeline?


Should I warn new/prospective PhD Student that supervisor is terrible? My supervisor got some funding and is hiring new PhD students. Today one of them came to an interview and we told him about the things that we do.

The main problem is that my supervisor is a terrible supervisor. He wants to lead the research project but has no idea on how to work on real implementations. He does not help or even provide feedback although he still is the leading author of all the publications we do. He does not want to spend money on us or on equipment, but expects results as if we were using high-end equipment. He treats us plainly wrong, taking credit for our accomplishments, humiliating us when possible, not helping or leading in any way and not allowing as to grow as researchers.

I know that I could be biased for some personal bad experience but 100% of the students at my research center (both his students and other students) agree with me that he is, by far, the worst possible advisor that there is in our research center.

My question is: should I warn a new coming PhD student about this so that he can take his decision taking this into account, or am I supposed to say nothing because it is not my business?

On one hand, when I was where he is now I would have LOVED if someone told me about this situation, but on the other hand as a PhD student I'm risking a lot by saying this and I don't know if I should get involved.

EDIT: At the end I did it. I called him as it was impossible for me to see him face to face. I basically explained him several facts (not opinions) and my personal view of the situation, trying to be as much understanding and empathic as possible. Luckily he has done research before and understand me very well. He thanked me for the honesty. On one hand I feel that I did the correct thing, but on the other one I think that this situation is a time bomb that could explode at any time... But today I slept like a baby, which I think is a good sign. Thank you all for your answers, they helped me a lot.

You should. As you mentioned yourself, you would have loved it if someone had warned you about things before you went, and "do unto others as you would they do unto you" is a good maxim to live by.

Having said that, you should also take steps to protect yourself. Talk to the student in private, and ask for confidentiality. Do it face-to-face or via telephone/Skype if you can; if you must use email, avoid using your institutional email address. You've already acknowledged you might be biased, so tell the student the facts only and don't add anything that you inferred from the facts. For example, instead of "He does not help or even provide feedback", say how many times you meet him or attempt to contact him a week. Describe how those meetings went - what did you say, what did he say, what did you do next? Try not to say "he does not help" as though it's a bad thing: it's actually possible he is expecting you to work independently for various reasons (e.g. you were so good he doesn't think you need close supervision).


Include rejected paper in Masters application? Is including the manuscript of a rejected paper (without claiming that it has been published or mentioning any rejections) as a supporting document in my application ethical / would it in any way increase my chances of admission?

I would recommend putting it in your cv as a Manuscript in Preparation section where you list authors, title only. If you don’t do that, it’s something to bring up very briefly as either a bullet point of writing a resume, or in the cover letter. You may wish to spin this as “motivated to disseminate research” rather than to prove your aptitude for research, since publishing and doing research aren’t synonymous. Good luck


How many "office hours" are common (or standard) for full-time lecturers? In situations where one teaches purely undergraduate students (20 hours per week, 16 weeks per semester, 2 semesters per year) how many hours per week, and how many weeks per year, are people normally in their offices? Does this number change after the main teaching semesters complete?

I have just finished my fall semester and I find my normal office hours cannot handle the demand from the students. I'm a bit torn. On one hand, I want to support my students as much as they care to be supported but I must balance my own needs. I have plenty of other things to do besides teach (I have to prepare for the spring semester and that will take me significant time, I have marking to do, etc.). More office hours means less time (thus less quality) for prep (and other various tasks).

When I consider what my peers do, I see they often do less than the school requires of them (I am not interested in following their example). With > 300 students, it seems the only way to really satisfy the demand is to be there 20 hours per week...which leave me little (no) time for my other tasks.

My goal here is to try to identify what is fair to all involved.

Edit: I've posted a follow-up question to this one.

My undergrad university held regular "helpdesks" in a classroom - where one or more teaching assistants and  sometimes the lecturer were present. They essentially functioned like an extra (and optional) tutorial class, and the more proactive students would come in and work on their assignments, discussing among themselves and asking questions.

This allows you to spread time a bit more fairly among students than at an office hour, where one student might take up a lot of time and leave others waiting at the door. Answer one question, and then move on to someone else.

Perhaps you could try a similar strategy?


I (independently) solved a fellow student's research problem. I want to publish it. What should I do? A fellow student and I are part of the same graduate student research group (in applied mathematics), under the same PhD supervisor. The (relatively new) student came to the group with an idea for a thesis, and we helped him come up with a different research idea that more suits our research interests, but still ties to his original goal.

The current formulation of his research problem is mostly due to input from me and our mutual supervisor. As in the model is based on our suggestions across multiple meetings.

Being interested in this student's research problem as well (or at least my formulation of it), some months ago I offered that we collaborate on it. Not much came out of it, mostly, I think, because this student is still very inexperienced, and his mathematical maturity is not so high.

Some time ago I came up with a different partial solution for the aforementioned research problem. As part of our (failed) collaboration I asked him several times to update his simulations to consider this solution, but he seemed to be against the idea, believing that the original formulation is better. Our meetings mostly consisted of arguing about which model is better and me trying to teach him some mathematical concepts he can use to analyze his work.

A few days ago I have (independently of the student or our supervisor) come up with a solution which is better, and completely different from what the student has been trying to analyze. The solution invalidates a lot of the student's work up until now (he has been working on this problem for a few months), since it is simpler and more effective.

I want to write up this solution in a paper and publish it. I already have basically all of the results written down (except one lower bound which I am still working on), and a nearly complete first draft.

Here's the problem. Do I include this student as a co-author? I am conflicted, because this paper really is my own original work. However, it is based on the research problem which our group "handed over" to this student. I do not wish to put him in the unfortunate situation of having months' worth of work invalidated, and everyone in our group views the problem I have solved as "his" problem. However, it is also true that this paper consists entirely of my own research.

Ideally in this case I would approach the student and ask him to collaborate with me on the paper, as in, refine some of the results, or simplify some of the proofs. However, based on many conversations with him, I believe that the student is too inexperienced to do this, and is not familiar with the main mathematical tools I have used to prove the paper's result.

How should I proceed?

Some more details: I should mention that I have no personal qualms about sharing authorship. I am mostly worried about two things:

whether it is the most ethical thing to do;
I feel that if I include him as a co-author, he will want to make a contribution to the paper. But I want to have complete creative control on the paper, and feel that sharing creative control with him is going to slow me down.

There is a larger issue at hand that you seem to be missing.

Yes, I do believe that you can publish your own work, and probably independently if neither your advisor nor your colleague helped. And I understand that there are some field-dependent conventions in mathematics that would be best to discuss with your advisor.

That being said, I believe that, being a senior and more experienced student, you should not have allowed the situation to have reached this point. That is to say you should not have scooped your colleague in the first place. You offered your help to collaborate with your colleague and ended up quite literally stealing his project and are now thinking about publishing it because he was not able to work as fast or as efficiently as you (because he is inexperienced, as you said). This is something that should have been discussed with your advisor at a much earlier stage.

You should understand that this will probably not be the last time that you can benefit from collaboration, and you don't want to be known as the person who steals other people's projects. Healthy collaboration is an intrinsic part of academia (and society, in general). You are expected to be trusted to review other people's papers without scooping them, and in the future you will likely advise inexperienced students in their own projects, many of which have been suggested by you, and that you could solve with much less effort. More importantly, you will be partly responsible their success.

Speaking from your advisor's standpoint, I would consider your action harmful to the group's health. While I generally applaud collaboration between students, in my group, projects and milestones are set with the understanding that students can benefit from them, and that they can help them progress in their more ambitious goals (i.e., a dissertation). This is particularly important for inexperienced students. Should there be a major change of directions (such as a student unable to make progress and someone else benefiting from it), I would like it to be run through me (or other senior member of the lab) first so that it can be arranged for nobody to be in a losing situation. In your case, your colleague is in a losing situation, his name going in the paper or not.

The moment you noticed a solution to the problem, you should have informed your colleague (and possibly your advisor) and both of you should have worked on it, together.


where the term of startup came from? I am finding literature about the term startup came from, which is referring to budding company. However, the info is scarce. Can anyone suggest to me, what the best website to find for terminology/etymology used by scholars? If applicable, it is good if there is a journal discussing about this

The Oxford English Dictionary has this definition:

  orig. U.S. A business or enterprise that is in the process of starting up, or that has just been established; a startup company, venture, etc.

[So, as I read it, their definition contains an etymology.]

They have earlier examples of the adjective, but for the noun, they have examples of "start up" from 1970 and "start-up" from 1986, but "startup" only from 2001.


How to tell if a Journal is peer reviewed and/or legitimate? I am working through my dissertation and was just wondering, how would you know if a journal is peer reviewed or actually legitimate? If a journal etc has an ISSN number on them, does this mean the journal is peer reviewed and good to use?

ISSN numbers are cheap and don't mean anything.

There's no algorithmic way to tell if a journal is legitimate, but some indications:

If it's not open access, chances are it's legitimate. Non-OA journals actually have to publish good articles or nobody will subscribe. OA journals can get away with publishing junk since the author pays for it.
Check their website. It's likely to say if the journal is peer-reviewed.
Who's on the editorial board? Are they established researchers in the field the journal covers?
Who has published in the journal? Are they established researchers in the field the journal covers? Are the articles of poor quality?

If you're unwilling to do the research yourself, you can also check out Cabell's International which maintains whitelists and blacklists (this, however, is not a free service).


Why does the IPCC 1.5 degrees report say "Do not quote, cite or distribute" at the bottom of every page? I thought I'd have a look at the recent IPCC special report on global warming of 1.5 degrees. From wikipedia, the link to the report was given as:
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/

At that site, there are links to the chapters of the report, and every chapter I've looked at so far has "Do Not Cite, Quote or Distribute" at the bottom of every page.

Who is that an instruction to. Me? Why wouldn't the IPCC want people quoting or citing their report?

Is the link on wikipedia to the wrong version?
Have the IPCC published the wrong version?

(Implying here that people granted access to a draft version shouldn't be sharing it)

I've never seen a footer like this before, but I see something similar is recommended here in this question

I just got this reply from one of the lead authors:
"The 1.5°C Special Report indeed still had a "do not cite/do not quote" label on it, but that is in the meantime removed. Important to note, however, is that the version of the report that is currently online will still be subject to copy-edits as well as consistency edits, which can be significant. By the time of the UNFCCC climate summit in Katowice in December of this year, this should all be updated."


"Admission free" for master program I'm aiming to apply for a MA in Germany and in the description for my programme of choice it says:

The study course is admission free.

I'm a bit unsure of what this could mean, any German student could clarify if this means that meeting the criteria is enough for admission or something else?
How to apply section

Most important points
The study course is admission free. Application
for beginning students is possible in summer semester.
First day of application: December 15th 2017
Application deadline: March 31st 2018
Special admission requirements: Bachelor's
degree or equivalent qualification in Philosophy or in a closely
related field worth at least 60 credit points.
Admission requirements: A very good command of German is required.

Application/admission procedure section

This is an open admissions degree course, and applications are
accepted for both the winter and summer semesters. Please note For
open-admission Master's degree programmes it is strongly recommended
to submit their applications as early as possible before 15 July for
the winter semester. If the supporting documents are submitted after
these dates but before the standard application deadlines, your
application can only be processed at the start of the lecture period
in the new semester.

This is most likely a very confusing translation of "zulassungsfrei", as opposed to "zulassungsbeschränkt";
the former meaning that there are no special restrictions placed on who will be admitted, you just need to satisfy the basic requirements for being allowed to enroll. In case of a Master's degree, that would probably be a relevant Bachelor's degree.

"Zulassungsbeschränkt", on the other hand, means that there will be some selection procedure because the number of spots is limited. Usually selection is by grades.


If you're given an hour, is it bad to finish a job talk in half an hour? I am applying for postdoc this year. I was given standard one hour for my job talk. I prepared for a 45-50 minute talk and 10-15 minutes for Q & A. But probably I spoke bit too fast and also people didn't interrupt me, my talk was over by 30-35 minutes. Is it really bad for getting a job?

Giving such a short job talk is a negative rather than a positive.  Generally the point of a job talk is to engage and impress the audience with (i) your research and (ii) you as a potential research colleague.  They want to hear a narrative that starts from a place they know and builds up to some impressive results, ideally that they would like to hear more about over the coming months and years.  If other candidates are "filling the space with good content" and you come up 33% (or whatever) short, then you risk creating the impression that you don't have 60 minutes worth of good things to tell them.

That's just an impression though.  People who care will look back through your dossier, so you needn't worry too much about that.  Moreover, usually there are only a small number of candidates brought in for job talks and interviews, and a talk / interview has to be really bad indeed in order for those who were supporting you (in the current job market, getting interviewed is certainly a very strong show of support) to change their mind.  Ending very short doesn't seem to qualify in my opinion: people who are not in your favor may point out that your talk was short, while those in your favor will think "So what?  S/he's still a good candidate..."

You shouldn't be thinking in terms of having killed your chances for a job but rather of having not fully exploited the opportunity you've been given.  Based on what you write I will guess that you are not very experienced giving 60 minute talks.  (And in fact that's how you're going to look more than anything: inexperienced at giving such talks.)  That's something that's easy to improve upon: practice more at giving such talks.  Nowadays most people use powerpoint/beamer, which makes it pretty easy to control the pace.  For something like a job talk, you should have at least one "dress rehearsal," i.e., a practice talk in front of real, live people who will stop to ask you questions.  If you did that and still came up that short, there's something to figure out: did you get so nervous that you skipped a lot of material?  If so, you can compensate by making more slides.

Let me end with an anecdote.  When I was on the job market, I gave one talk much earlier than the rest: it was from my perspective before the semester even started.  For this and various other reasons I did not have a "dress rehearsal."  I had the opposite problem: I had way too many slides (I mean actual slides, printed onto clear plastic and put on an overheard projector; this was 11 years ago) and I ended up plunking down slides full of dense text and then skipping most of the text.  I went on to give three more versions of the same talk at other places, all of which were much more polished.  Where did this shaky job talk take place?  At my current institution.  They hired me anyway, though I heard that one of my colleagues was motivated to look back at my teaching letters for reassurance.


Do scientific methodological beliefs affect the topics that are investigated? Do scientific methodological beliefs affect the topics that are investigated?
I've lately been led to this question, since I've wondered about what a difference would it be to do a "very empirical" vs "very definitional/mathematical" Ph. D. thesis. In e.g. image processing one can find applications and technique introductions. While technique introductions are often tested on empirical data, their results may not be like those of real empirical phenomena. On the other hand, doing empirical studies might require those methods. There are e.g. plenty of classification and segmentation algorithms that truly work well only in "specific types of data", when "in empirical sense" they should work on "data with broad variations". But on the other hand things like CNNs seem to approach this kind of "data as it is" -view.
But if "scientific methodological beliefs" for example assume that "empirical is hard", then could this motivate more studies on "easy approximations", rather than "phenomena themselves"? Intuitively they need to agree somewhere, but I was more thinking along the lines of:
Is it possible to produce a lot of research by researching "easy approximations" than "studying the real thing"? Does scientific belief justify this by making people "okay with easy approximations"?

Do scientific methodological beliefs affect the topics that are investigated?

The obvious answer to that is, of course, yes. Scientists are people, too, and while we try our best to conduct the actual research as objective and unbiased as possible (and sometimes we fail at that as well), lots of very subjective and "unscientific" factors go into the selection of concrete hypotheses, problems, and methodologies to work on / use.
These include perceived chance of success (nobody wants to spend a lot of time and money on a study they assume will fail in uninteresting ways), perceived importance, personal taste (if you hated mathematics the question you raise in your introduction would likely not even cross your mind), chances of writing a high-level publication (people are much more likely to commit to a study that could get into their favorite A* venue than one that is unlikely to), and many other factors.

But if "scientific methodological beliefs" for example assume that "empirical is hard", then could this motivate more studies on "easy approximations", rather than "phenomena themselves"? Intuitively they need to agree somewhere, but I was more thinking along the lines of:
Is it possible to produce a lot of research by researching "easy approximations" than "studying the real thing"? Does scientific belief justify this by making people "okay with easy approximations"?

"Perceived difficulty", especially in relation to expected impact and publication chances, are certainly one of these factors that make people choose which concrete problem to work on over others. However, I would argue that this is less about "beliefs" and more about fairly pragmatic cost/benefit estimations: if empirical works take a long time and are not valued highly, then fewer people will work on them. Again, researchers are people, too, and as a group researchers (just like anybody else) react to the incentives that are presented to them.


Do applicants have to pay separate fees to apply to two PhD programs at the same school? I initially thought yes, but it seems after some research that this is not true!

It seems the fee goes to the overall graduate school, not one specific department.

Can someone in the grad world back this up for me?

I would rather not send an email asking, may seem ungenerous.

I strongly suspect that you would have to file two different applications to apply to two different programs, and each application would likely require a separate fee to file. This is in part because you would have separate essays and letters of recommendations for different programs, each of which would require separate handling and consideration.

If this is a hardship, though, some schools offer an application fee waiver to students who are of limited financial means, but you may have to contact the individual school to inquire about the possibility, because it may not be publicly stated that such an option exists.


Unexpected long delay with paper review and no answer from editors We've submitted a paper to a well known journal, but it's been more than one year without a reply, despite multiple e-mails sent to the editors. We got a reply once, just pointing to another editor which did not answer our requests.

Just to clarify:

aug/2014: paper submission;
mar/2015: first e-mail sent to editor (no reply);
may/2015: second e-mail sent to editor, which answered pointing to another sub-editor and saying that the delay might be caused by a late reviewer;
jun/2015: e-mail sent to sub-editor asking for clarifications about the delay (no reply);
aug/2015: e-mail sent to editor and sub-editor asking for news about our paper (no reply);
oct/2015: again, another e-mail for both editors (no reply), and we even asked to confirm the receipt, without reply either.

What is the next thing we should do? I guess that withdraw our submission is the logical step, but we don't want to lose all this time of reviewing without any feedback and knowing that our paper was probably reviewed by one or two reviewers, and it could be near completion.

First thing first, I would suggest planning to never submit to this journal again.  Some journals take a very long time to review, and in some fields more than a year of reviewing is not uncommon.  Editors, however, should be reasonably responsive to email and months without reply is not reasonable.

Although, there is one case where it might be reasonable: it might be that all of your email has been going into their spam filter.  You don't say where you are from, but there can be problems of this type: I recently had an experience where some international colleagues had their entire domain blacklisted by anti-spam systems and it made every interaction very painful and difficult.

Either way, at this point, you've basically got two options for escalation in attempting to find out the status of your paper:

Make contact via another medium than email, preferably by phone so you can get a human on the line.
If that fails, get in touch with the publisher and let them know what's going on with their journal.

You also need to be more persistent in your attempts to contact: emailing once every two months and just taking no response as your answer is really letting things slide.

If all of this fails, then you're stuck with an unpalatable choice: leave the paper in limbo or withdraw.  Neither is a particularly good option, but neither is the end of the world, either.


How should paragraphs be formatted in a thesis? I'm currently writing my thesis/dissertation and was wondering if there is a preferred convention for the way paragraphs are formatted and spaced in a thesis.
Would they all have indents; would they be spaced or not spaced apart from each other.
I'm doing my best to separate topics but sections / subsections but when a subsection has multiple paragraphs worth of information, I want it to look neat.
Any recommendations, advice or ideas are appreciated and welcome.
Cheers

The library at your institution can probably provide you with a thesis or two from your field. You can use those as a source of guidance.
Your advisor probably also keeps copies of the theses of former students. Again, those samples can guide you and you know they were acceptable in the past.
Some universities and some departments separately have style guides that are either suggested or required.
You can also get some feedback from your advisor on early drafts and use that as a guide. You don't have to do it "blind". But a locally accepted solution is probably he best.


If my supervisor sugests a very specific addition to something, can I use it verbatim? Say you send a document, it could be a report, or a literature review, or a draft paper, to your supervisor. They write back something along the lines of;

  Yes, looks good. You need to define the foobar and also add somthing
  to section 3 like;

  The demonstrates the fungability of baz in the context of high energy
  ice cream sundays. The delicious factor is an extreme motivator.

  Yours
  - Dr Sprinkles

They are clearly not asking for it to be put in as a quote, but is it expected that you would use some or all of it verbatim? That feels odd since it was written by someone else, but rewording it just for the sake of rewording it could result in something distinctly awkward.

Does the nature of the document make a difference?

In my experience with suggestions like these, the idea is that you more-or-less insert it verbatim, with edits for style (after all, your supervisor probably wrote it off-the-cuff) and flow with the surrounding paragraphs.

Your supervisor is probably a better writer than you, and so her suggestion is most likely a good one. If you really hate it, you aren't obliged to use the phrasing (but using the ideas is probably good).

If you're feeling "odd" about using someone else's writing, I wouldn't worry. Either she is already a co-author on the paper, or she's helping you edit with no expectation of receiving credit for her short suggestion. If you're still worrying, make sure to thank her in the acknowledgements or something.

It seems remarkably unlikely that there is any plagiarism concerns here. For one, this looks like a concluding sentence, so it's unlikely she's plagiarizing a write-up of results she is only just helping to write up. Secondly, as I mentioned, suggestions like this are usually made off-the-cuff. If you are very concerned, Google the phrasing and make sure she's not subconsciously copying it from a paper she didn't author.


Unpublished PhD work and unresponsive advisor I finished my PhD two years ago. However, my advisor left academia one year before I defended. I finished my research and successfully defended it (obviously), and have a good draft of my paper, but my advisor is completely inaccessible and has seemingly no interest in it (otherwise he would have answered me or contacted me). Is this work lost forever, meaning I cannot publish it without his consent?

Unless he is truly a co-author and collaborator, beyond supervision, then you can publish it on your own. Advising doesn't automatically imply co-authorship in most fields. If he must be a co-author for ethical reasons, then prepare the paper with him as co-author and send a copy along to him stating that you intend to submit it to "xyzzy" unless you hear any objections. Of course this gives the advisor a sort of veto, but a co-author would have that in any case.

Within the paper, thank him for his help, as well, I think. Thank him when you send the paper to him as well, of course.


(Why) Is post publication peer review (not) taking off? I know, this is a bit of a broad question. But looking at the developments and having experienced a reasonable amount of pain with established publishers and their either complex, slow, or restrictive processes/production stages, I'm tempted to ask it here and look what others think or know about that.
Post-publication peer review has been discussed quite a while ago here and here, it's been promoted and practised on platforms such as Publons and PubPeer.
But is this idea, launched many years ago to complement "classical" peer review, really successful? Are established processes/practises being replaced/improved?
Note for clarification:
I envisage something like a combination of classical pre- and an optional post-publication peer review strongly based on open self-archival platforms such as arXiv. Nothing on the academic side would change, editors and reviewers would move over to such platforms to continue their work just like before, largely unpaid. Even cult-like reputation-building, gate-keeping, etc. is still possible even if not desirable. But in domains such as CS, physics, or math, where production is largely done by authors anyway, costly, error-prone, after-acceptance production stages would be replaced by just self-archival and EiC-driven quality labelling systems as they have been used for years at top-tier conferences to certify such things as reproducibility. I think, it's time for a change. (I wonder whether this question is more something for meta.)
Further note: After the many useful comments and answers, I'm extending or rephrasing my question to: Why isn't full-fledged self-archival with classical peer review and curation, post-publication commenting, and avoidance of old-school production procedures finally taking off?

Most papers that are published are uninteresting.
The median paper has less than one reader not counting the authors and the reviewers.
The current reviewing system relies on a network of responsibilities that are independent of the author.  The editors have a responsibility to the community as a whole to get papers reviewed properly, and the community gives them esteem for performing this duty.  The reviewers have a responsibility to the editor to actually do reviews, and the editor is usually some influential person (and in any case will probably at some point be the editor for one of the reviewer's papers).
Suppose I have written one of my usual mediocre papers that is among the 70% (my estimate) of papers that are never read.  How would post-publication peer review be organized for it?  If I have to find reviewers myself, then everyone is going to say 'No' or do a bad job, because no one feels any need to impress me and it's not a very interesting paper to read.  Moreover, the best reviewers for my paper are people with a little higher status than me, and they would definitely say 'No' to me, but they might say 'Yes' to an editor.  (Keep in mind that, as the system is set up, some top people in a field do far more reviewing than they write papers, while many people write one write-only paper every several years (or grad students who stop doing research write one paper from their dissertation) and never review.)


Are my expectations for undergraduate student support unrealistic? I'm attending a Russel group university in the UK, and studying Computer Science in the 2nd year of an undergraduate degree.

I'm reasonably happy with the vast majority of the taught content, but sometimes certain parts of the syllabi trip me up or I'm not sure if I'm correctly understanding how to approach solving certain problems. At Sixth Form, if I was stuck I'd try and work it out myself and then ask the subject tutor if I wasn't getting anywhere.

At university, there appears to be a stark difference in the academic support offered. Many lecturers do not have regular office hours and are unresponsive when asked if an appointment could be scheduled. Questions sent via email aren't comprehensively addressed, even when it's clear that substantial independent work using external resources (content from other universities, various textbooks etc) has been done to try and tackle the problem (vs. simply asking for an answer with no work to show for it). There's little I can do other than consult my peers when I don't understand something - and if many of us are stuck we feel completely lost.

There also seems to be a difference in the support materials provided. Many modules don't publish example problems or solutions, provide any form of solutions to past exam questions or sign-post relevant textbook exercises. This differs greatly to previous exams prior to university, where the exam board would make marking schemes, model solutions and examiner reports available each year. I feel ill-prepared for most exams, because I find it difficult to verify my answers to practice problems are correct.

Is this the norm for undergraduate study, or are these signs of issues within my department? Are my expectations in terms of academic support unrealistic?

Are my expectations in terms of academic support unrealistic?

Yes. You're describing the general existing level of academic support at your school, and that is by definition the normal level of academic support at your school.

This kind of thing varies greatly from one school to another, and most of the variation depends on the prestige of the school. Your school is in the Russell Group, which AFAICT (being American) means that it's a top-level research university with highly selective admissions. At that type of school, faculty are often highly focused on research rather than teaching, and the attitude is often that if an undergrad was smart enough to get in, they should be smart enough to succeed by going to lectures, reading the book, and doing the work independently.

Taking an example of such a school at the University of California system here in the US, the schedule of office hours published for math and psychology suggests that different departments have different expectations for faculty office hours, and some faculty have no office hours at all, even though they are teaching lecture classes. Presumably there are TAs for a lot of these courses.

As you move down the ladder to less prestigious schools here in the US, you see more and more academic support being offered. Here in California, we have a three-tier system. The next tier below UC is the Cal State system. There, a typical teaching load might be 12 units, and someone teaching that many units is contractually required to have 4 hours of office hours every week.

After that, the next step down is the community college system. At the California community college where I teach, I'm required to do 5.5 hours of office hours every week. We also have extensive support services. We have a math lab, writing tutors, and students paid to work as tutors in the sciences.

  There also seems to be a difference in the support materials provided. Many modules don't publish example problems or solutions, provide any form of solutions to past exam questions or sign-post relevant textbook exercises.

This type of support is the sort of thing that is typically considered normal at the lower rungs of the ladder, but not at the higher rungs. At the type of school you're attending, the expectation in a certain course might be, for example, that you decide for yourself what problems to do out of the book, rather than being given a list. If you need to see solutions for exercises, you can, for example, find a textbook on the subject that has solutions for some problems.