Changing Phd topic in between because of lack of 'usefulness' of current research In my current study. I am trying to solve a problem A by using a technology B. My supervisors consider themselves as experts in B. I have a scholarship for 3 years and 1.5 years are over. I have passed my exams and my Ph.D. proposal presentation was passed 6 months back.  But now I realize that B=evolutionary computation is not a useful technique and is incapable of solving any real problems in the industry. I have a first-hand experience with that, now.

I wish to explore C and D as techniques but my supervisor is totally against it stating he cannot help me in that. Considering I am using a scholarship I am under additional pressure to do only what his 'vision' states. Any other technique I propose is challenged vociferously by them even in the inception stage.

What should I do? I can confront them and say that EC is useless and I wish to explore techniques which actually do something. There is no top conference which will accept my work but it lead to extreme pressure and  argument. My supervisor is only interested in his growth within the academic community of EC and has no concern about what industry does. I do not wish to be an academician and investing my time on training myself in such a work is not in sync with my aspirations.

Kindly suggest as to what I should do? Should I give up the scholarship and look for other Ph.D. opportunities? That is a huge waste of time and effort, though. The scholarship is given by university and not through my supervisor's funding.

What is a good way out here?

First of all: talk to your supervisor! what does he expect as results? What does he think? does he really want to leave you for the rest of the time doing nothing?

I think, to say that a technique B is not useful to solve A can be a PhD alone. Are you really sure that it is not? Did you exploit EVERY possibility? Or are you just not interested in finding the right way but are more interested to do something that works?

Even dough in the end, Einstein, Newton, Gauss and Shannon are the ones who were right, but never forget about the hundreds and thousands of people, that tried another approach/theory but found out it was a dead end! This is research. Writing that and why some approach not works is as valuable as finding the right path. Mostly regarding such a big field as you mentioned.

If you can really state that there is no way to use this technique (and propose other/ use similar techniques like ANN or ML in general), that's already good research. I really think, you just don't like to do a PhD at all?

  I do not wish to be an academician and investing my time on training myself in such a work is not in sync with my aspirations

Three possibilities:

give up the PhD and go into industry. There are a lot of companies which do research, mostly in the field I assume you are working on (machine learning, big data?)
Ask your supervisor what you should do next and stick with this PhD
if you really find another topic, which you find very interesting (even if it may fails! that's academic research, stick with it...), you may start a new PhD. But I would only suggest that if you do it for the fun of research and not as training. What you actually train as a PhD is doing research on your own. So don't expect the same experience and usefulness for the industry you would earn in the industry.


What are the benefits of an MBA to someone with a Computer Science degree? I know this is relative to a person's unique situation or career objectives, but generally speaking, what can a Master's in Business administration do for a computer scientist?
The reason I ask is because I have a bachelor's in CS and I jumped right into a semester of my MBA, having it a third of the way finished. But now I am retracted because I'm not exactly sure what will come of this degree.
Will it propel me in my career (opportunity and/or salary) or will it just be a complete waste?
I guess my initial thinking was that an MBA would allow me to be able to manage some software/IT projects being well versed in development as well as the business side of things that stimulate ideas. But now I am wondering if this would even be the best way to achieve that. I'm stuck at a crossroad and would appreciate some feedback, preferably from someone who has experience in these career fields.

I remember asking this question 5 months ago. Fast forward 5 months later and I've accepted a position as an entry level developer! The sweet thing: I got a salary increase because of my MBA! I start in June, which is a month after I'm supposed to graduate. The other nice thing is that the MBA program only cost me about 16k in total, which isn't too bad if you ask me.
In terms of the education itself, I don't regret it one bit because it steered me in the direction of finding financial literacy, which is huge in these times. I was taught all sorts of CS topics, but never the importance of financial literacy. I believe my CS degree taught me how to make money, but my MBA taught me how to manage and KEEP money.
I thank everyone who shared their responses because I remember back then how stressed I was. Everything is pretty smooth sailing now


Does a PhD application decision letter give the reasons for the decision? Why or why not? Out of curiosity, I am wondering if a PhD application decision letter gives the reasons for the decision?

If yes, why? If not, why?

In my experience in the US, I have never seen any sort of decision letter for an application (whether for Ph.D. or any position) that gives reasons for the decision. It may be different in other countries, but in the US at least, there are many good reasons to never give such information formally.

The actual decision-making process is never as clean and clear-cut as anybody wants it to be, and with the limited information available in applications and even interviews, there are going to be cases where people make mistakes or make good decisions for unclear or hard to state reasons.  Lots of good people may get turned down for reasons having nothing to do with them, such as just having too many good candidates in the same area.

If an institution gives real reasons in an official statement (as opposed to something meaningless and bland like "not an appropriate fit at this time"), then it is opening up the door for all sorts of potential problems and disputes, not to mention potential legal liability if something could be construed as relating to a protected category such as gender, age, religion, or ethnicity.  They also have to worry about seriously unbalanced people who may take it as a personal insult and begin some sort of stalking or harassment campaign (it happens!).  Not giving reasons may feel unsatisfying and cowardly, but it is an easy and safe path for an institution, and as such is generally official policy.

Now, if you have an informal trusted relationship with somebody who was involved in the decision process, then it is sometimes possible to get a strictly unofficial take on what may have happened.  You might learn things you didn't want to know about how sausage is made, however.


How can I cite a previously given, unavailable talk without self-plagiarism In University, I was part of a philosophy reading group where people would occasionally give talks about their on-going research. Several years ago I gave one such talk, and presented original and new ideas that were never published or presented in a more formal setting, although the ideas were also presented in a term paper I wrote that same year. There is no public record of the contents of the talk, or even that that talk happened.

Now I am in a situation where I wish to reference that same idea in a research paper. It is outside the scope of the current paper paper to present those ideas as a new thing, but it would be something that would be appropriate to reference as existing.

How would I do that? I could get a DOI for the talk and reference it using that, but I would feel weird about referencing an unavailable talk that I gave, as it would feel like citation padding. This is doubly true since it is early in my career. I could write up a summary of the talk and put it on a publicly available repository, but I’m not sure if that’s a thing that is done. Are there other options?

I think the right action hinges on this point:

  It is outside the scope of the current paper paper to present those ideas as a new thing, but it would be something that would be appropriate to reference as existing.

It seems like you want to reference your past work because it is out of the scope of the new work and yet still relevant. If this is correct, then referencing the talk will not help the reader, who may (or may not) need to know about the past idea, concept, or whatever it was. Therefore your only option would be to publish the ideas in some form (paper, blog, etc.) or explain them briefly in the new paper.

If you simply want to show the history of your ideas, but it is not important, then I would leave out and simply acknowledge whoever helped you out.

If you are worried primarily about self-plagiarism, I do not see how not citing a non-published talk, that you yourself gave, is much different from not citing some thoughts you had in your head two years ago. It is a bit different, but not to the extent that it would constitute self-plagiarism, which is really about making it clear what is and what is not new in a paper as it is assessed for novelty during peer-review.


What is the meaning of promotor and copromotor in Dutch PhD thesis? I would like to know what is the difference between author and contributor in the Dutch system, and how to appropriately cite such a thesis? Only author? (APA format) Why this strange name promotor? Is this related to promotion?

In Belgium (Flanders) a Promotor is the English term they use to refer to the Advisor/Supervisor. The co-promotor would be a second supervisor. Therefore, I think just citing the Author is enough.


My advisor won't review my papers, and he does not let me publish them without his approval I am a last year PhD international student in engineering. I have written so far 3 drafts that I need feedback + approval to submit them for publication. I delivered the first draft almost 2 years ago.
My advisor is a really nice person, but he/she is lazy and he/she won't review my papers. I am close to graduate and I don't have any publications because he/she won't let me publish until he/she gives me feedback, which it seems that it's not going to happen.
I don't know what to do about this situation. I have tried many different ways. Asking politely, having "interventions" here we tell him/her how bad this is for our careers(because my other lab mates are in the same situation), sending constant emails texts or calls, and he/she always responds "I know I have been bad, but we are going to get it done soon" and then nothing happens.
I am getting depressed here, I already lost all the motivation. I have no idea what am I going to do when I graduate because who is going to give me a job/postdoc without any papers ( I actually have one paper from undergrad, but it is very basic), and since I am international it is even worse.
I would like to know if anyone has any advice, if maybe someone went through something similar and were able to move on. I am starting to consider to just finish my PhD ASAP, move on and start a new career on something else.
Thanks for reading.

This seems like a case in which a delegation from your group should ask for an intervention from a higher level. If it is a general problem in your research group then department heads and deans need to be aware of it.
You may not get the feedback you need, other than from each other, but the "permission to publish" needs to get resolved, perhaps as a demand from above.
It might also be possible, depending on the overall organization, for other faculty to intervene on your behalf.


The aggregated chance of admissions to top program in the humanities Let's look at admissions to top PhD programs in English, where it seems like the top 10 schools each receive about 300 applications for an average of about 6 spots (these are approximations only). Across this sampling of schools, assume that there are 600 unique applicants. If all schools select different candidates, which admittedly is very likely not the case, the chances of being admitted to a top 10 program bounce from something on the order of 2% to more like 10%.

How overly optimistic is this calculation?

I think the basic idea of the calculation is fine.  It's actually irrelevant that some superstars will get accepted to multiple programs. The schools know that and compensate with mechanisms such as (1) sending out more acceptances than slots, knowing some percentage will decline, (2) waiting lists, late admission decisions, and early admission encouragement to fill their remaining slots.

So from a practical standpoint, looking at the entire sum of slots filled versus applicants makes sense.  Of course details may be slightly more complicated.  But the basic insight applies.

Edit:  Yes, cag51 is right that your qualifications matter.  This is not just picking colored balls out of bags.  However, even here the 10% versus 2% point makes sense.  (Consider that if a perfect selection process is run, you need to be in the top 10%, not the top 2%.)


Can I take credit for contributions to study materials on my CV? I currently work for a well-known company that publishes study materials for a certain branch of mathematics. I have done quite a bit of work under them that has been published through their website (and is used to profit the company), however, no one's particular name is labeled on the materials (they just state the company's name).

Would I be able to include such work on a mathematics graduate school application CV other than mentioning it briefly in my work experience? If so, should I create a section "Publications" or  with some other title? ("Publications" seems misleading to me, as it suggests a peer-reviewed journal or other scholarly text of some sort.)

These are not academic publications that you can legitimately claim on your CV.  At best, you might be able to describe this work experience in a different part of your CV, but keep your publication section clean.  A publication is one that you claim authorship of the given product, whether it is a peer-reviewed article, book, book chapter, monograph, etc.  Once you have a stock of publications, then you can create some logical categories.


Where to put explanation of figures, in caption or in text? I am writing an article which include some complicated figures.
These figures are networks with different colored nodes. About these figures, for example, I want to say:
Red nodes show XX, blue nodes indicates to YY, and Yellow nodes show TT.

Currently, I do not know where I should indicate to the details of figures, only in text, only in captions, or in both of them?

Somewhere during my studies I have learnt that a figure and its caption should form a self-contained element. That means, if I isolated a single figure together with its caption from a random publication and gave it to you, you should from those bits of information be able to deduce what this figure is about and what you see there. That does of course not mean, that a physicist must be able to understand the full implications contained in a figure drawn by a chemist or vice versa, but they should be able to understand that "fancy stuff" is in the top left, "other fancy stuff" in the center is indicated with some arrow annotations and a drawn overlay indicates the mechanism that makes them do whatever is interesting.

So in your special case, either make a legend containing the meaning of your different colored nodes or, if that is not possible, describe that in the caption. You can repeat that in the text if you feel it's necessary, but you're not obliged to do so in general. Also, it's no obligation to put into the figure caption the full interpretation of the implications you draw from this figure – this should go to the text. Hence the figure caption could be something like

  Figure 1: Process scheme of the process of doing fancy stuff. Yellow nodes indicate XX, red ones show YY and green ones TT.

In the text, there can then be the interpretation of the figure, for example:

  The process scheme of this is shown in Figure 1. As can be seen from the arrangement of the red, yellow and green nodes, everything is very colourful – which is very good in our case – and the guys at management would love it. However, a closer look at the connection between node "foo" and node "bar" reveals, that there could be some problem in [whatever fancy stuff you want to say]...

TL;DR: Put the stuff that is necessary to understand what's in the figure either directly into the figure (legend) or into the caption. The discussion of the figure can go to the text.


How should degrees be listed in an e-mail signature? I have the following degrees:

PhD in Information Technology (Computer Science concentration)
MS in Systems Engineering (MSE)
MS in Engineering Management (MEM)
BS in Computer Science

What would a proper e-mail signature look like?

Examples:

Dr. Bob Roberts
PhD IT, MSE, MEM

or

Dr. Bob Roberts
PhD Information Technology
MS Systems Engineering
MS Engineering Management
BS Computer Science

There is no formal academic convention for email signatures, although your university or institution may have formatting guidelines. You can simply include as much or as little information as you want the recipient to know.

Personally, I think your name and position are sufficient and listing every degree you have is a bit redundant (and, as others have pointed out, pretentious). People will probably infer that you have a BS and MS if you also have a PhD.


How to approach supervisor about running a start-up along side PhD? I have had a good opportunity to begin a start-up that would be providing SaaS to Universities. The start up is not related to my PhD topic, other than it also relies on my programming skills. As it has reached an inflection point it has started taking about 5 hours a week to manage it, but I can easily put those hours in by working a different schedule (Late or at weekends). I have a co-founder which means if a busy time hit in the PhD they could take more burden temporarily.

Institutional factors

My university is very supportive of start-ups  with several different initiatives and programmes to ensure this happens.

Early on in my PhD I asked my supervisor about how I should be spending my time during my PhD and they said I should keep side projects to my personal time and devote the working week to the PhD.

Context

1st Year PhD student in UK
Funded by UK Research Council
Had idea for project during undergraduate.

Other Questions related

Is it possible to work on extra activities (start-up project) during PhD? :
Very in favour of proceeding but advises caution if not in related field.

Responsibility/ethics of startups during graduate studies
Quite against the idea if it is not related field. Also asks about disclosure but does not answer regarding how to do this.

My dilemma

This idea has been pitched to people who are on a similar managerial level and could mention it to my supervisor.
They have thoroughly got behind the idea and want me and my co-founder to develop it.
I would rather tell my supervisor myself than them find out 2nd hand but am conflicted by the universities stance on supporting entrepreneurship versus my supervisor encouraging me to focus on the PhD for normal working time.

I'm aware that somewhere down the line the start up could take off meaning I might have to go part time, if allowed. Should I mention this?

How should I go about bringing up the start-up to my supervisor?

First, make sure this is allowed at your institution.  Then develop a solid plan for how you will handle both projects before taking it to your supervisor.  To the first point, it seems that you already have, but make sure that you understand your institution's rules.  For instance, is it allowed to use school resources?  What does that mean in your institution?  It could mean something as obvious as using a school computer to run a simulation for the business, or something as subtle as taking a phone call in your school office.  You need to be 100% sure that you are not violating any institutional policies.

Some institutions are hands-off when it comes to external projects as long as they aren't done on campus, others aren't.  For instance, where I did my masters, we were not permitted to make income outside of the school without losing an equivalent amount of funding.   Where I did my PhD this was not the case.

Next, make a clear plan for your advisor to understand.  As was pointed out in the comments, both projects are going to take a LOT of time to do well.  Your PhD should be the priority.  You need to make sure that your advisor understands precisely what working on the business and working on the PhD mean.  Be realistic.  It's very likely that you will check your business email while working at school, so don't pretend that you won't.

Your advisor has already stated that you should keep your side projects to your free time.  You need to be very clear what that means.  PhDs aren't necessarily like jobs.  You might not be able to get much research done one morning because the ideas aren't there, then work well into the night to make huge progress.  Does that unproductive morning count as free time?

Have a strong plan for what you want from your advisor. "I want you in on this" is not helpful.  "I need a support person in the role of algorithm development.  Here are the specific responsibilities I was thinking.  What do you think?"  is much better.

Finally, make it clear how much freedom the advisor has in this business.  Is he a co-founder, making equal decisions?  Is he an employee?  A contractor? A board member? Will you pay him?  What happens if he decides to hire a few co-op students and bring his long-time collaborator on board?  Who retains control of the business?  Who has ownership?  These aren't unique questions to student-advisor businesses, but they are important to get straight up front.  The worst thing that can happen is you both have different ideas for your responsibility and the business gets away from you.


What is the proper CV listing for an accepted paper that was not presented? This question is similar to ones about accepted papers not being presented; however, one thing that other answers fail to mention is how to list the paper in your CV. Quite simply what is the appropriate way to list an unpresented paper where you are are a) solo author, or b) a co-author?

The paper does appear in the proceedings

Its appearance in the proceedings makes it a publication, so you can (and should) include it in your list of publications.

If you separately list your conference presentations, you can't include this paper in that list, because you didn't present it.  Similarly, if your list of conference publications indicates which papers you presented [for example, by writing "(presented)" or making the presenting author's name bold], you can't give that indication for this paper, because you didn't present it.

  where you are are a) solo author, or b) a co-author?

This is irrelevant.  The publication list in your CV should list all authors of each paper, ideally in the exact order they appear on the paper's title page.

tl;dr: Just tell the truth.


Abstract appeared in the abstract book of a conference but the paper is not published, can I publish it elsewhere? I intended to participate in a conference, I sent my abstract and it was accepted. For some reasons, I didn't go to that conference and I didn't send my final conference paper.

However, my abstract (title, authors, abstract, keywords) is shown in the published abstract book of the conference and can be easily found online.

My question, since I didn't publish that work, I want to publish that same work in a different conference now, can I use the same abstract? Or I have to change it.

Yes. In my field you don't publish the same but you can present more than twice. Because conferences aren't journals but are seen as moments of discussion and dissemination of ideas and results.

I would avoid the same wording anyway. This gives idea of laziness at least if one is not sure to have found the perfect wording.

It might be different in fields where conferences are seen as the major source for results, but still, up to date, your results are not in the wild and they just left a trace as simple abstract.


If I want to become a professor, do universities care what field my PhD. is in or just that I have a PhD? I'm a self taught developer who was worked in the IT management field for a while. My academic background is an MBA and I currently teach classes on database development at a community college.

I want to be a Professor one day, and had been considering what to do for my PhD. Ideally, I'd like to teach either in the CS field or the business field as that's where the cross-section of my work is.

I've applied to jobs to teach at local Universities and Colleges in my state recently and I've had the feedback that I need a PhD preferably in field X.

Due to life commitments the only options to me that are realistic would be to do a part-time online doctorate in education (EdD) since they are cheap. I can then go publish research in my field or even get a post-graduate certificate in CS or Business to validate my knowledge.

My question is, is this even worth-while? While it may be a harder path for me to get my foot in the door, do Universities require me to have a PhD in my field or do they just need me to have a Doctorate of some variety and then validate my knowledge in that field (either via publications, post-grad certs, or even teaching classes in that field etc)

I already read through a similar question: Is it possible to become a professor in a field where you don't have a PhD degree? but it was very much focused on overlapping fields (e.g. finance and math)

Generally, you're going to need a PhD in a field very close to the one you want to teach in. Many programs make this information available to applicants, and indicate that they are looking for a PhD in field X, Y or Z. This is because these are the subjects where the information and experience that you gain during the course of a PhD are directly relevant to your ability to then teach the subject you are applying for. Simply getting a PhD isn't going to make you much more competitive for a position, unless your PhD shows that you have gained skills directly relevant to the position.

You mentioned the possibility of doing research or getting other certification of your skills, depending on where you want to be a professor, these could be a better option for you. If you can find a university willing to support your research, and get it published, this definitely shows that you have developed relevant skills for teaching in that field. Added to the fact that you have taught at a community college (indicating that you have some ability to perform a CS teaching job), and you have a much more competitive application than you started with.


Etiquette when continuing work on a research direction without involving former collaborators I have collaborated on a certain topic with researchers A, B and C, where A is my PhD supervisor (I'm now a post-doc), and B and C are senior colleagues from different universities. The collaboration lead to a number of papers, in which I was the main author, while A, B and C made important contributions.

I'm now working on an idea that continues the research direction of this earlier work. Since I already got pretty far with the execution of my idea, I don't expect much additional benefit from involving A-C at this stage. In fact, I would prefer to publish this work without them, since I'm in a career stage where the common advice is to assert myself as an independent researcher.

However, I have the feeling that A-C might be disappointed if I don't involve them - I certainly would, if I was in their position. Is there an etiquette for tactfully dealing with this kind of situation?

If you have a feeling that you will disappoint them then, by all means, let them know! And indeed, you should let them know that you've continued this line of research independently.

You can phrase your invitation in a way that it hints that you would like to go on alone. Something like

  Lately, I was working independently on extensions regarding our previous work and I went pretty far and I have such-and-such results. I believe that these results are interesting enough to make a publication. I would like your opinion about this and about potential venues that would accept this paper.

By this, you make clear that this is your work, you acknowledge their expertise and definitely you give them a heads up. This is actually quite common and I expect them to either ignore it (if they are busy) or be happy that you were able to generalize it and give you valuable hints/advice.


Can giving back to my alma mater have a positive impact on application? I going to create a really simple social network for my alma mater so that it could help people network better. After getting some work experience I was thinking of pursuing a masters degree in Computer Sciences. The school I graduated from is not a tech-school but best for arts and commerce in my country.

So I was hoping that it could become a stand-out factor in my application. I have an average percentage.

EDIT

The degree I graduated with was not a CS degree but a degree in physical sciences. Further, the undergraduate school as I mentioned did not have a "proper" CS department.

Graduate admissions is based mainly on the question: Does this candidate's preparation suggest that he/she will be able and likely to succeed in our program?  It is not awarded as a token of gratitude for service to the institution.

This project of yours could have a positive impact on a graduate application, to the extent the project itself is evidence of your readiness for graduate work (programming skills, initiative, etc).  But from this point of view, it's not really relevant that you created it for your alma mater, or that your alma mater uses it, just that you created it at all.

(The fact that your alma mater actually uses it could have a small effect on your application at that same institution, if some of the people on the admissions committee are personally familiar with the product.  They would have a better understanding of what the project says about you as a potential student.  Of course this could cut both ways, depending on whether they think the product is good or bad.)

I would guess that this sort of thing would be a relatively minor factor in considering an application, and would not probably not save an application that was otherwise weak.  But of course it will depend on your particular institution, their criteria, and the overall strength of their applicant pool.  You could get a better sense by having a talk with one of the professors in your department who is involved in graduate admissions.


How to do a PhD to equip myself for a job as assistant professor This is in reference to my older question: Will every PhD student from a reputed institute land a postdoc position?.

I have completed my master’s in pure mathematics and have got a funding for five years.
I have been told that there are few faculty positions available w.r.t the number of PhDs generated (I don’t know if its really true).

My questions:

How should I plan to do my research in order to get an edge over the others in getting a job?

Should I try to visit some famous universities (see if they accept me) and work with some very good advisors so that I get to solve a very good problem?
Should I try to get a breakthrough result even if  it takes seven to eight years and complete my PhD in that? Because completing your PhD in less than five years and having no major result will push you back.

In other words how should I prepare myself to be better equipped in landing a postdoc and then a job as as assistant professor?

I am asking this because, no matter how passionate you are about mathematics, you need to find a job some day or the other to run yourself and your family.

It is true that there are far fewer postdoc positions than graduates with a PhD. So it is legitimate to ask what you can do to improve your chances to eventually get a postdoc position, and from there on a faculty position.

The problem is that the number of factors that influence whether or not you will end up with one of these positions is large. There are some obvious ones:

If you get a PhD from a good university, that helps.
If you have a famous adviser, that helps.
If you are substantially better, that helps.
If you work in a field with current excitement, that helps.

Of course, there is also the issue that if you work in a field that is "hot" but that you don't enjoy, you're probably not going to do well.

Many of these factors are either out of your control (admission to Harvard or Berkeley) or that you can't foresee with your current knowledge, given that you haven't been involved in research for too long. But, if you get admitted to a good university, take the position and go from there.

(I will note that -- having read maybe 500 grad school applications in math -- about 2/3 of grad school applicants want to eventually become professors at a research university. This is wildly unrealistic -- I don't know exact numbers, but would imagine that overall only maybe 10% of grad students will eventually achieve this. I'm telling you this because you will have to contend with the fact that basically everyone around you has the same goal as you: they all want to go to a good university, be advised by that famous professor, etc. You'll have to work hard to be better than all of those others.)


Question of authership. Belonging to two institutions. Are both required to be mentioned? I have a question about my affiliations on my article.

I belong to two institutions, A and B (both are schools).  I have a regular position at A (so I receive a monthly salary from A). I also have a non-regular position at the other shcool, B.

This time, I am contributing to an article as a co-author at school B. Do I need to mention school A as one of my affiliations? (I did not do anything at A. I did not use any resources at A. )

One more question. Do you think school approval (review) at A is usually required ?

The answer to your question will very much depend on the specifics, but I will try to give some rules of thumbs.

  Do I need to mention school A as one of my affiliations?

This depends to a large extent to the relevance of you being affiliated to A to your publication. If the subject of your publication and/or the venue where you want to publish are even partially related to A's activities, then: yes you should present the affiliation.

Let me give an example: suppose you work as accountant at an oil company, and in your spare time you have done some environmental related research. While you might consider you to be unbiased, and the daily activities of your work do not have direct environmental aspects, it is still important for the readership of your article to know that you are professionally affiliated to an oil company. They can then decide for themselves whether they want take that into account when reading your article.

  Do you think school approval (review) at A is usually required ?

This depends very much on the rules that A has in place for their employees, and on your own agreements with A. Read your contract, any other agreements and regulations and ask your boss (or any other relevant person who has the authority to make decisions about this).

Some companies have strict regulations about publishing. You can try to make deviating arrangements, but if you do, make sure they are clear and they are in writing.


How to change the affiliated authors? I received an email from a journal to confirm my contribution to a manuscript that was submitted by my colleague, and I am the first author in that paper. In this email, there were two links; one for (yes, I am affiliated) and the other for (No, I am not affiliated), and I clicked by mistake on the second link, and my contribution to the manuscript was removed. What can I do to be affiliated to the manuscipt?

Thank you in advance.

You need to contact the editor as soon as possible and get your mistake rectified.

If you have waited too long then it may not be possible for the versions already made public.


I love pure math but detest teaching. What non-academic options do I have after finishing a PhD in Complex Algebraic Geometry? I love pure math and currently I am at a very low ranked US math PhD programme. My area is Complex and Algebraic Geometry which I love it. But, after some semesters of being a TA, I realized that I detest teaching. Repeating and repeating again. And furthermore, having to deal with those annoying undergrads is horrible.

I really love my research subject, but since I am in a very low ranked US PhD programme at an unknown state university, with probability zero I will get a research job or even a postdoc. What non-academic options do I have after finishing? I do not mind going back to my homecountry, but the only alternatives I have there(Latin America) are working in a Bakery again, which I did during my undergrad, or sell drugs or being a smuggler. I will not even get a faculty position because I detest teaching and my PhD school is very low ranked. I could not get into a math PhD programme in my country nor Spain nor Brazil, so I got into my actual PhD school.

What should I do? Any advice besides learning programming or finance, well I may not have enough time since in my programme all TAs are overloded with work. Thank you very much.

The only reason I remain is for my own self esteem mostly and because I love pure maths; otherwise I would quit. Having said that, I have no issues selling drugs, it is just not to hurt my grandmother, who raised me, that I am looking for an alternative. She made a lot of effort and worked hard so I could finish High school. But I would do anything for not ending up as a lecturer in a crappy community college or another unknown state U or U in my country.

It might be too early for you to claim you detest teaching and believe this could remain for the rest of your life. Teaching  does not only consist in "repeating and repeating again", and after a while you can find interest in teaching. Especially if you try novel ideas with your best students.

Part-time teaching can be an interesting way to stick to your field of interest, while doing something else.

Then,  it is unlikely that you get paid for a very focused topic outside academia. Meanwhile, there exists a belief, summarized by E. Wigner in:

  The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences

Many people outside academia have some fear of mathematics. Yet, it has found many applications. And those people need some fellow that master black magic. Topology has found applications in data science, algebraic geometry has potentials in cryptography or computer, and possibly other domains:

What are some applications outside of mathematics for algebraic geometry?
“Real”-life applications of algebraic geometry

So why not invest time in applied sides, while keeping connexity to mathematics, at least closer that with dealing with white powder (I mean flour for bread of course)?

Finally, in some countries (like France), there exist research  institutions where teaching is not mandatory (CNRS, INRIA). You could apply there, say for a post-doc position, and see what happens.


Does School Ranking Matter for Masters I am currently an undergraduate at a university whose PhD Physics program is ranked 25. I plan to go into PhD for physics in condensed matter physics; I have applied to PhD programs this year but have been rejected by all of them, including my home university. I thus applied to masters programs for condensed matter physics. I have heard back from one university with acceptance. The school is not a well known university for physics (it only has a masters, no PhD program) and is ranked in the 200s. I plan to get more research experience during my masters. If I accept the offer and complete my masters there and apply to my home university (and similarly ranked schools) for my PhD will these programs frown upon the fact that I went from 25 to 200s? I have done well in my undergrad but will future universities just look at my masters program? It's already difficult to get into good schools and I am not sure if going to masters in this new place will make it more diffucult.
***PS: I have nothing against universities with lower rank. It's been a rough semester in terms of grad school applications (I never thought I would be rejected from my home university and it's making me worried)

If you did well at a college ranked 25 in your subject matter, applied broadly for a Ph.D. (did you?) only to be rejected everywhere, then I’d start by looking into your application package and strategy first because that is a bit odd: are you sure your letters are good and from the right people, is your statement of purpose well-written and as tailored to where and for what you apply as it should be (have someone read it), etc, etc.
If your Ph.D. application was rejected because of a lack of relevant undergraduate research experience, then going for a masters first might help. Going to a lower-ranked place is not going to hurt you I think, but it’s not clear how much it is going to help you either.
However, as M.Sc. programs tend to be less selective than Ph.D. ones (because they usually help finance a university), to see you rejected again almost everywhere despite what you say are good credentials, there might be something off or at least sub-optimal with your application package (or you simply didn’t apply at enough colleges). You should go over it with someone experienced, like a mentor at your alma mater if you have one.


Difference between university/departmental service and extracurricular university service on CV I'm a first year assistant professor and the service component of the CV is somewhat unfamiliar territory for me, since my previous jobs never required service. For the last few years, I've followed Karen Kelsky's rules of the academic CV, which distinguishes between "university/departmental service" and "extracurricular university service" as separate CV sections. Thus far, I've listed all of what I consider to be service activities under the former, but now I'm not sure if some of these activities fit better under the latter category, or even if some of these activities merit space on my CV.
Some specific examples of activities I have under the service section include coordinator/organizer roles (curricular development, study abroad, workshop series), committee work, advisor roles (student organizations), and other miscellaneous things like managing/creating content for departmental social media.
To me, all of these activities were/are time-consuming responsibilities that I've considered worth mentioning in my CV, but now I'm a little uncertain if they all belong there (is any of this CV padding?), and if they do - should they be in separate sections? (my thought is perhaps that distinction Dr. Kelsky makes is hierarchical in some way. For instance, is advising a student group not as highly regarded as committee work?).
And a more general question, if it's allowed, are there certain things you just don't list as service? For instance, I know I will be serving as an advisor to majors/minors soon, but that strikes me as something I should leave off my CV because that's something all TT faculty are expected to do.

Extracurricular service is things you do completely outside the university setting. Volunteering at a food bank or such like these days. Tutoring disadvantaged kids.
The other is service given to the university and its students and staff in some way. Being chair of an admissions or hiring committee. Writing a report, or serving on a committee that is trying to make plans for the future.
There is also an overlap area. If you lead an informal campus Judo club or Chess club, just because you want to, you can probably list it either place, but "extracurricular" is more literally true.
They should probably be separated if the instructions separate them. But if they just ask for service without qualification, you could probably combine them.
And the required activities under Teaching and Research are separate, as you suggest.


Do course buyouts happen in pure mathematics? I am a pure mathematician teaching a 2-2 load at a state research university in the United States. I know that many of my colleagues in applied math, engineering, and the laboratory sciences are able to buyout much of their teaching as long as they are successful in obtaining grant funding.

This doesn't seem to be the case in pure mathematics, however. In the US, most external funding for pure math comes from the NSF or the NSA. A program officer at the NSA explained to me that they don't allow buyouts, even in lieu of requesting summer salary. I e-mailed the same question to a program officer at the NSF, and my e-mail was not returned. I also asked my chair if I could pay for a buy-out (down to 2-1) from my own money, and he said no -- only grants or startup money are acceptable for this purpose.

I am curious -- are pure mathematicians ever able to secure course buy-outs, other than in their first few years (when this seems common)? Are there any funding agencies whose funding I might compete for that allow this? Alternatively, are buyouts from salary acceptable in other departments?

The NSF won't generally allow a faculty member to take more than 2 months of salary per year from NSF grants.  Since you would typically want summer salary before buying out of teaching, this effectively makes it impossible to buy out of teaching on NSF funding alone.

However, if you combine your NSF funding with funding from other agencies (such as the Office of Naval Research, Army Research Office, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, DARPA, DOE, etc.), it's certainly possible to have enough months of grant support to buy out of teaching during the academic year.  Whether your program manager will agree to pay for this and whether your institution will allow it are still questions that you'd have to answer.


Does recording video of a scientific presentation violate the privacy of a PhD student? The answers to this popular question were somewhat controversial, but many including @dan-romik whose answer was highly upvoted mentioned that recording a video is a violation of personal privacy and in the US, Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

I neither can speak for the OP of that question nor approve his/approach, but the strong stance regarding personal privacy puzzled me. The mentioned question says

  We have a youtube channel in which students regularly explain their
  achievements.

Point 1: Can the reports of a PhD student recorded in video format?

A PhD student normally delivers reports of progress to the
supervisor. This report can be in verbal or written form.
I do not see any problem (including privacy) if the supervisor asks
the PhD student to deliver his/her report in video format.
Alternatively, the supervisor may ask the PhD student to deliver a
public lecture in the department. Since it is a public lecture,
anyone can record the presentation unless otherwise strictly stated
by the organiser.
Similarly, the progress could be presented at a conference. Many
conferences record the presentations.

Point 2: Can a supervisor share the presentations of a PhD student?

A research report is not intended for the supervisor's eyes only. An
educator cannot share the exam sheet of a student (according to
FERP), but the story is completely different for a research report.
The supervisor can/will directly use that report to report to the
funding agency who funded the PhD project in the first place.
The progress report is not only the progress of PhD student but the
work done in the supervisor's group. Therefore, it is not odd for the
supervisor to post the report publicly (e.g., the university website,
researchgate, etc).

Conclusion: Is video different from writing?

For centuries, academics presented their works in both oral and writing formats. Thanks to Johannes Gutenberg, writings are well recorded for centuries. However, video recording of the presentations is new, a few decades of recording, and one decade of sharing.

As a straightforward question, can someone refuse to appear in any recording because of personal privacy? This can apply to the PhD defence meeting too, as some universities record its video to be stored along with the written dissertation.

EDIT: This post has been restructured into a clear answer, rather than the discussion format it was originally in. Thank you Stella Biderman.

Recording a video of a scientific presentation by itself need not be an invasion of privacy. The invasion comes if and when the video is shared, depending on the nature of sharing medium, the control over shared content and agency to withdraw/clarify one's statement.

A departmental talk may be recorded for internal review. A conference talk may be officially recorded (though I have never seen this personally). As long as these are not shared, and are stored for internal use (quality control, archive, proof of the event), privacy is not invaded. Even so, many individuals may find this distasteful, uncomfortable and even repulsive. This should be respected to the extent possible.
Personal choice is crucial. A conference is certainly a (restricted) public presentation, but presenters go there voluntarily. If someone wants to go on YouTube, that's fine. But nobody is allowed to make them go there. The concern of agency is also important- does the presenter have the right to retract or clarify their stand? Once on social media, it is near-impossible to issue 'errata' or pull something down once people start sharing it.

Yes, video is different from writing.

The medium is of crucial importance, because it determines how the content is disseminated. A journal paper is restricted to subscribers (let's leave illegal downloads out of all discussions).  An open access paper is open to all, but typically accessed by those with a prior interest. Both have restrictions on how it can be further shared and used. This is not the case with videos on social media. Those are seen by a mixed population with different levels of interest. They can be shared very easily and without accountability. They lend themselves to defamatory and potentially abusive comments and unwanted, non-constructive scrutiny.

The nature of delivery determines the audience. YouTube is not an academic medium. Neither is a regular newspaper. Both are good for certain purposes, both may be used for outreach and even educational purposes, but are sub-optimal for sharing research. The packaging of academic content to make it engaging to the general public is a serious and involved matter, which should be handled by dedicated workers with necessary expertise. A typical PhD student is not expected to have this expertise. (After all, how many academics after Feynman do you know who did this on a large scale?)


Reference for use of name@math.univ.edu for mathematics department email addresses? I have noticed that many mathematics departments (a little over half of the public and private Group I departments) follow the name@math.univ.edu format. Does anyone know of a reference to a discussion in Notices of the American Mathematical Society or elsewhere about this common practice?

I don't have a reference about this. The split in email addresses is often because mathematics departments were among the early adopters of computing. I don't know whether this applies to your own institution, but it applies to several I have been at, of different sizes from 5,000 to 50,000 students.

When computing technology began to be available, mathematics departments were among the first adopters. Computers and mathematics go together. At quite a few schools, the computer science department is still part of the department of mathematics; at others, the two departments started together (when the math department began to hire computer scientists), and split apart later.

In the period before PCs became ubiquitous in the 1990s, mathematics departments often found funds (often via grants) to operate computer labs, web servers, and email servers on their own. At this time, especially in the 1980s, university-wide computing services were often quite primitive, and often consisted of terminal servers instead of PCs.

Over time, as computing became ubiquitous, universities hired their own IT staff, and began to run their own web servers and email. This is how, at several institutions I have been at, I had two different email addresses (one for the university and one for the math department) and two web pages (same split)

Now that email and web servers are viewed as a basic service that the university provides to faculty, it is more difficult for mathematics departments to justify having their independent systems. Administrators correctly look at the separation as an inefficiency, asking why the department can't use the same system as everyone else.

In my opinion, math departments that want to continue to have separate systems will need to present a very strong case for why the separate systems are necessary, beyond the historical developments that led to the separate systems coming into existence. As email and web services become more and more of a staple commodity, this argument gets more and more difficult.


Recommendation letter for college applicant sent via their high school Background: This summer I was the instructor for a course in which many of my students were in high school, and were enrolled in my course as part of a 'pre-college' program at my university. This was a regular course, in no way modified for the pre-college students, and there were undergraduates enrolled simultaneously in the course.

I agreed to write a letter of recommendation for a few of the pre-college students for their university applications. The students' high schools seem to have differing levels of involvement in their college applications. One of them said their school is managing their application, and that I should send my letter of recommendation to the school who will then put it in their applications. I'd prefer to keep my part of their application separate, since I'm not affiliated with their school and don't want to run the risk of my letter being edited.

Question: Should I refuse to submit a letter to their high school?

I'd send the letter in paper in an envelope signed (over the flap) by you. Perhaps offer sending several copies for every student, if they apply to several schools.

That is standard procedure for such letters (or was, pre e-everyting days).


Include year range in the Google Scholar query Can I include the year range search criteria in the query itself?

For example, if I want to search for a few words that an author published on the specific conference, I would form the query this way:

some few words author:"An Author" source:"A Venue"

However, if I want to constrain the search to only a specific year range, that is done by clicking to the Advanced Search button and entering the range there. As something like:

some few words author:"An Author" source:"A Venue" year:2016 year:2017

does not work, is there a way to enter the year range within the query itself?

Click on the left "Custom range..." or add to the end of the URL:
&as_ylo=2016&as_yhi=2017
as in:
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=richard+feynman&as_ylo=2016&as_yhi=2017


I was given to review a journal paper that overlaps with a submitted paper of ours I was recently given to review a journal paper that significantly overlaps with a work that we recently submitted to a conference (about half of the contributions are the same).

Any advice on what to do in this case?

(even if I tell the editor now that I'm unable to review the paper, I've already read it).

If you already submitted the paper you have some evidence of your own work even without a "published" preprint. Inform the editor of the situation and get advice. You may even be permitted to review it and point to your own paper in the review, but that would be up to the editor.

Parallel independent work is pretty common, especially in popular fields.

One option is to use editors of the two journals (assuming there are two) to act as intermediaries to get the two groups together. I don't think I'd recommend doing it on your own, however.


Why should a P.I be motivated to write a strong LOR even if that means losing a undergraduate from his/her lab? Suppose, you are the head of a lab, and there is a particular undergraduate in your lab that you want them to continue working in your lab while doing their graduate studies in the university you are working.
You know that the student wants to go abroad for their graduate studies, but if they can't, they will stay where they are (in your lab).
And they ask you for a letter of recommendation for their graduate studies.

Why should you write a strong recommendation letter for them, even though you know that it will increase their chances of going to another university for their graduate studies?

Note that, I've read this question.

When I am evaluating a research group leader, one of the most important things I examine is where their former students work.  If their former undergraduates have moved to PhD programs at excellent universities, that makes the group leader look like an excellent mentor who teaches their students well.  This improves the group leader's reputation and helps them recruit new students.

A savvy letter writer also knows that a letter which literally says "This student has excellent achievements x, y and z." implicitly says "I am a good supervisor for helping the student achieve x, y, and z."


For how many years does a university keep the thesis? For how many years do universities keep the thesis records. When do they destroy the old thesis reports? If there is some mistake in the thesis then in how many years can the university revoke the degree.

As far as I am aware, most universities keep a record of PhD thesis awards (title and recipient) in perpetuity. It is also the responsibility of the university library to archive the thesis; which is usually done on a permanent basis.

The reason for this is that future researchers, when doing their literature search should be reading these thesis to understand prior knowledge, as each PhD should be an original contribution to the sum of knowledge. Technology has enabled most universities to eliminate some of the burden associated with the perpetual storage of the thesis documents by allowing the microfilming of the thesis, which has now become the scanning and electronic storage of the work. There are consortia of university libraries that are working to ensure the problem of permanent storage of electronic texts is addressed in an era where we have non archival quality of electronic media.

The answer for the storage of PhD thesis and records would be "forever". For a Master's thesis or dissertation the answer is less clear. In many universities I am familiar with, often only the awarding department archives the Masters, and they are less reliable. I have seen with my own eyes archives of older Masters works being "tidied up". To me it was a travesty, but to others it was modernity.

A degree is not usually revoked on the discover of a "mistake" in a thesis. A degree might be revoked if it was discovered that nothing in a thesis was the original work of the student who submitted it; otherwise known as plagiarism, theft or deceit. It would depend on the statutes and regulations on the awarding institution on whether or how this might happen. One can consult the news archives to find many reported incidents of this happening. The revocation can even happen posthumously!


How to reference a picture from a website in a report? Let's say that I have taken this picture in this webpage

https://www.nde-ed.org/EducationResources/CommunityCollege/Ultrasonics/js_apps/transducerBeamSpread/

If I did change some things in that picture , How can I now make the reference of that picture in my report? Can you please write to me how the reference will be?

Thanks

Just caption it as "credit: www.nde-ed.org (with original amendments)" and then drop the link into a footnote.


Order of authors in an engineering publication Recently, I was involved in an engineering research project where I significantly extended the main functionality of the work. As my other team-mates were not involved in that aspect of the project, I thought I would leave them to do the write-up. I don't want to complicate things but lets just say their contribution matters less, at least according to my advisor.

This work is now being readied for publication and there's the matter of ordering the authors. Initially I thought we may be doing things alphabetically, but on the recent draft the order appeared to prioritize those who are doing the write-up, listing them first. My advisor raised no objection to this. If we are going down this road, it seems to me those who have done the most work should be first authors (i.e. me), rather than those who are doing the write-up.

I'd like to avoid any potential conflict with the people involved, and so I wonder if one acceptable compromise here is to specify the contributions of each author in the paper. Alternatively, we can do the alphabetical thing and make explicit mention of this as a footnote. I don't have any problem with either of these options.

First, am I correct in thinking that the ordering here is misplaced?

Second, are the compromises I list reasonable enough to propose?

You must discuss this issue with your advisor and all coauthors as soon as possible.  The right time to have the discussion would have been before the first draft is started, but unless you have a time machine, you have to have it now.  Since there are differing opinions, and the outcome matters, conflict is inevitable.  Welcome to adulthood.


Is it okay to include a historical summary of your research area in a MSc thesis? I am doing my MSc in mathematics/statistics, and a large part of it concerns fractal geometry.

I want to include some background of how early geometry arose, why fractals were largely neglected, and finally how they found new use/interest in the 20th century. I want to do this because it interests me a lot and I feel it helps explain the role fractal geometry plays.

I am concerned with whether or not this is in bad taste though? Presumably a master's thesis, especially in mathematics, should be concerned with the work you are doing and not a history lesson.

So basically my question is: Is it acceptable for an MSc/MPhil student in maths (or other science) to include a historical background to the subject they are studying?

I did something similar with my own MS thesis because the history of my particular field was not well known and somewhat interesting (the algorithms were independently discovered 4 times in different fields starting 1927 until it finally caught on). More importantly, it helped explain what I was doing. If it fits in with your narrative and your advisor is okay with it, then go ahead.


At United States PhD programs, is the research / TA stipend taxed as income tax? Is the research / TA stipend for PhD students at U.S. universities taxed as income?

This is really a question you should pose to an accountant since there are a fair number of conditions here that affect whether you owe any taxes.

Stipends are, generally, not considered wages, in which case you wouldn't pay Social Security or Medicare taxes.

However, they are usually considered taxable income, so you would need to pay federal income tax.

Then there are state taxes to consider; with 50 states plus DC and other territories, that's too broad a question to sensibly answer here.

In some areas (such as NYC), there are local taxes to consider as well.

However, if your stipend qualifies as a scholarship because it is "...granted to meet the cost of education", then it may be tax-exempt.

This IRS Topic 421 is a good starting place, but US taxes are complicated and expensive if you get them wrong, so I strongly recommend getting professional input here.

ALSO US citizens have to file taxes every year, regardless of where they live. Whether they have to pay taxes depends on tax treaties and local tax laws.

This might also be true of your country of citizenship. Again, the only way to know for sure is to talk to an accountant.


Are there any examples for an ArXiv publication nurturing or preventing plagiarism? First of all, this is about plagiarism in the sense of stealing ideas. Copy-and-paste plagiarism is included but not likely to happen in the cases relevant for this question.

Considering the publication of a paper prior to peer-reviewed publication on the ArXiv (or another preprint server), there are usually two main positions considering a possible theft of the idea (or somebody coming up with the same idea):

If somebody manages to publish your idea in a peer-reviewed journal before you do, you can prove that you came up with the idea first or at least independently if you have published your paper on the ArXiv. Therefore it is a good idea to publish papers on the ArXiv before they have been published in a peer-reviewed journal.
If you publish your paper on ArXiv before it is published in a peer-reviewed journal, others may steal your work and publish it peer-reviewed before you do and thus take the scientific credit. It’s difficult to attack those people since the ArXiv is not peer-reviewed. Somebody could make a living of plagiarising ArXiv papers. Therefore it is a bad idea to publish papers on the ArXiv before they have been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Are there any example cases (or even studies) supporting either of these statements? Such examples would include, but are not limited to:

Has a peer-reviewed journal ever withdrawn a paper because it plagiarised an ArXiv paper?
Are there well-known cases of “unpunished” plagiarism of ArXiv papers?
Has anybody ever successfully resolved a priority dispute with a publication on ArXiv?
Has anybody ever accused somebody of plagiarising an ArXiv article (with the fact that the plagiarised article was published on ArXiv affecting the outcome).

Note that it is really examples and not a theoretical analysis of the statements, I am looking for. (Neither of the two positions fully reflect my opinion and some of the soft premises¹ are debatable. However, debating about these viewpoints on a theoretical basis or attacking some of the premises is usually futile.)

¹ e.g., that scientific credit is only decided by peer-reviewed publication

If you publish your paper on ArXiv before it is published in a peer-reviewed journal, others may steal your work and publish it peer-reviewed before you do and thus take the scientific credit. It’s difficult to attack those people since the ArXiv is not peer-reviewed.

This assumes that peer-reviewed publications determine scientific credit, which may be true in some fields but isn't universal.  In mathematics, it is not relevant at all for assigning credit.  Peer-reviewed papers are of course more thoroughly checked, but they do not give you any additional intellectual credit, so this difficulty does not even arise.  (In particular, for assigning credit an arXiv paper beats a published paper with a nontrivially later submission date.)

  For example, has a peer-reviewed journal ever withdrawn a paper because it plagiarised an ArXiv paper? Or are there well-known cases of “unpunished” plagiarism of ArXiv papers?

This is a difficult question to answer, because how could you tell?  If the plagiarist doesn't copy any text, but rather just takes ideas, then it's virtually impossible to prove that anything was stolen.

In mathematics, it works like this.  If someone publicly circulates a paper, then there's a brief window in which people who have made the same discovery independently have a chance to announce this fact and claim a share of the credit.  They should do so more or less immediately upon learning about it.

By contrast, if too much time elapses, then the community doesn't count it as simultaneous discovery, but rather at best rediscovering something that was already known (which gives far less credit to the rediscoverer).  There's not a clear cut-off for the timing, but I see it as follows: days later is definitely OK, weeks later might be OK, months later is generally not OK, a year later is definitely not OK.

The biggest weakness in this system is that there's a window in which it's possible to steal someone's ideas and claim you came up with them independently.  This is certainly uncommon (indeed, claims of independent discovery are uncommon, regardless of whether they are true or false), but it's hard to know for sure how rare it is because of the difficulty of proving plagiarism of ideas.  Most claims of independent discovery are obviously true (because there's a manuscript that couldn't have been written so quickly, or there's a history of talks or discussions with other researchers, or there are nontrivial variations on the ideas and applications), but every once in a while someone makes such a claim without clear evidence.

Even when there isn't much documentation, I'm inclined to believe claims of independent discovery.  Faking this takes a lot of chutzpah and effort, it's not something you can get away with repeatedly, and it's an awkward situation you wouldn't want to put yourself in unnecessarily, so it seems reasonable to give people the benefit of the doubt.

In practice, I don't think the real danger is outright theft, where someone who wasn't working on this topic at all notices a new paper and says "That looks nice!  I think I'll steal it."  Instead, the most worrisome situation is when someone was actually working on similar ideas, but hadn't really finished sorting out the details.  When they see the paper, they immediately recognize some of their ideas, and the remaining details feel so natural that they say "Yes, that's exactly what I had in mind.  This paper is merely fleshing out my ideas."  They honestly believe that they had practically completed this work, when they might have been somewhat further than they thought.  There's a whole continuum here, from people who are basically right in their beliefs to those who are completely wrong, and it's not clear where to draw the line.

Of course I have no idea how often someone claims independent discovery based on exaggerated beliefs (again it's basically unprovable), but I imagine it happens occasionally.  It's certainly unfortunate if it takes place, but it's not nearly as bad as outright theft.  The worst-case scenario is having to share credit with someone who is less deserving.


Dullness vs. going overboard: Should I be calling people 'enfants terribles' in an academic paper? I'm just about to finish my master's in law with only my dissertation left to handle. I'm being extremely cautious with the language that I'm using when writing as I've previously been told that my writing style is not academic enough for a UK institution. Although I agree with this criticism (and I've been working to improve my use of colloquial expressions) I do think that law papers tend to be dull and much too monotonous because of this constant pressure to make them sound as neutral as possible (while also capable of expressing your distinct opinions). This dullness must also be annoying for the person grading the paper, especially after reading multiple boring and similar dissertations.

I've previously experimented with structure when writing one of my course essays in order to build suspense before unraveling the finding of my research. Judging by the comments (and the grade that I got) the person grading it was really pleased with the final result. This gave me the confidence to be more imaginative when working on my dissertation, but at the same time I do not want to get too carried away.

It is not that I find calling a person enfant terrible to be  particularly  original, I just think it might lead to the person reading it to crack a smile. Apart from making it a more distinguishable paper it will also be beneficial for my argument, as I will have to spend less time debunking this particular person's theories by drawing the attention to the fact that although they are very popular and frequently quoted, they are widely considered to be too extreme by his peers.

What is your opinion? Where would you draw the line when trying to make a paper more interesting? (note that this question is not about finding creative ways to hide a weak argument)

If I understand correctly, you are supposed to be evaluating the work and/or ideas of some other academic or writer.  You are wondering whether it will be funny and/or more efficient to, in lieu of a more careful explanation of the limitations of that person's work, dismiss them by calling them a (standard, even cliched) name.

This is not a good use of humor in an academic paper.  I find it juvenile.  And many academics would find this to be a terrible personal swipe.


Cutoff for a paper "in progress" on CV I currently work at a research org, and will be applying to PhD programs soon. For my CV, I am a co-author on a few publications that I'll be able to add, but have been recommended to add some in-progress or under review reports.

While "under review" is pretty straightforward, I'm curious what the cutoff should be for a report that is "in progress"? I have some projects that still have a year remaining, but we've written roughly half of the report. For others, we have less time remaining but have only written the introduction, or something like that. I'm guessing people will have very different opinions here, looking forward to seeing what you all think.

As an applicant to a PhD program, you want to demonstrate that you have been involved in projects that have lead to publishable results. It is common in my field (let's call it neuroscience today), for junior researchers to list in prep manuscripts. As to what constitutes an in prep manuscript, you should list anything that has a large enoguh scope that you can confidentially discuss the research methods, results, analysis, conclusions and implications. If you can do that, it doesn't matter if you have anything written (although if you are that far along, you should be writing it up).


PhD application interviews on same day for different programs I'm not sure if anyone has experienced this type of issue or has advice, but I've noticed that many of the doctoral programs I'm applying to conduct interviews at the exact same time. I'm applying to about 11 programs, and 10 of them have 2-3 day trips between Feb 1st and Feb 15th.

Granted, I will not get in everywhere, but I think there's a likely chance at least 2 or 3 interviews will overlap between schools.

Is this a common issue? How do I approach a program that I get into (and am interested in attending) without saying "yeah sorry I'm interviewing for a different school on that date?" I would imagine that this would tick off the program and possibly leave me hopeless for that program even though I made it far enough to get an interview. Are programs flexible at all to students who can't make their 1-time a priori determined interview trip?

It's common. Departments aren't naive enough to think that they are the only place you've applied to. If you email them in good time and explain that you have another interview, I'm sure they will happily arrange alternatives. This could be a visit at a different, mutually convenient time, or perhaps a Skype interview.  Just phrase your email a bit more professionally than "yeah sorry I'm interviewing elsewhere" (but I'm sure you know this).

I would sincerely hope that no university is petty enough to put a black mark next to your name simply due to a clash of schedules -- but if they did, you don't want to work in such an environment anyway.


How to effectively deal with Imposter Syndrome and feelings of inadequacy: "I've somehow convinced everyone that I'm actually good at this" Imposter syndrome is a psychological phenomenon wherein an individual is convinced that they do not deserve the success that they have achieved despite (perhaps extensive) empirical evidence to the contrary.  Some people with imposter syndrome doubt their own ability level. For me, this usually manifests in the thought:

I've somehow convinced everyone into believing that I'm actually good at this.

followed by the horrifying notion that eventually I'll be found out and my world will collapse.
I believe that the imposter syndrome is not uncommon in academia. I'm interested to know how other people here have experienced and dealt with it.

In particular, I'm looking for actual tactics that someone might
use to combat imposter syndrome.

Why I asked this question:
Beyond the obvious reason that this is something I have struggled with for many years and only recently gotten a handle on myself, there's also some evidence that merely realizing that other people experience imposter syndrome helps fellow imposters. As a grad student, I've managed to meet a fair number of people who are in their own struggles with imposter syndrome; however, the tactics and self-trickery that have helped me don't always speak to them and perhaps someone else's methods might.

I found two practices helped me a lot:

Reinforce what you know. The biggest problem with being an academic surrounded by other academics is that you're constantly being confronted by things you don't know. Even worse, it often seems like everyone else knows something that you don't know.
You don't need me to tell you how demoralizing that is. The fight is to go back and review what you do know, and reinforce your expertise in your subject area. Most academics are polyglots; choose some random thing you've studied, learned, or even just considered previously, and review it every now and then. It'll help you view the progress you're making.

Engage non-academics. You don't realize how much you know until you talk to the other 99.99% of people who don't know what you know. (Confusing sentence...) Write blogs, offer to give visiting lectures at a school or workplace, work as an intern or consultant in industry, champion a political cause related to your research. There are so many ways you can make use of your knowledge, and doing so will definitely help massage your ego which has been bruised by many semesters of feeling inadequate.


How to focus on a single area during PhD? My PhD supervisor says that I am overly curious and spend too much time studying lots of different area. However, he does say I am generally doing well and on the right track.

I am usually keen to meet new researchers, and I also spend time helping other PhD students to understand papers, even if they are not directly related to my field. I tend to keep studying a topic until I feel I fully understand it.

This has led my supervisor to believe that I am not working up to my true potential and just moving among areas too much. I have asked him directly and he says I just need to focus on one thing at a time, which I have started doing. I am just curious as to whether it is normal for PhD students to change and be immersed in different topics frequently, or am I just thinking too much? What strategies can help with staying more focused?

The main point of a PhD is to learn how to be a scientist. Involved in this is to focus on the work that needs to be done but also to pick up the necessary skill to solve the problem. As an advisor, I would get nervous if a student kept moving into new areas without a plan as to what these would be useful for. So from that perspective, if a student made good progress on the research, diversions would not be a concern; without progress, it would be a problem. Where you stand in this is not for anyone to say except based on a discussion between you and your advisor.

During my own PhD, I spent a fair amount learning tools that were only of marginal use in my own work. I am now very happy I did because as now a long-time faculty member, I have come to realize that the time I had as a PhD student to immerse in topics, is hard if not impossible to recreate after the PhD. I therefore advise PhD students to use their time wisely since the tools they learn during their PhD make up the core of their future toolbox. Contacts with other researchers and research directions is a similar issue in my mind. BUT, I always had in my mind that I needed to show progress and stay with my own research tasks as a priority. Balancing between the core work and forays into other areas is a necessity.

From your question, it does not sound as if you have a good balance and I therefore think you need to discuss the thesis work more with your advisor to make sure it is clear and structured to you. Only then will you be able to see your won progress and judge when you are on track.


Do journals allow me to modify contents of a paper? Suppose I sent a research paper to a well reputed journal. I try to prove a novel theorem in my paper using some lemmas. What if the reviewers find that the theorem is correct but some part of the proof or few lemmas I wrote in the paper are erroneous or not up to the mark? I mean cases where the error is not significant, but exist because I am a beginner to the field.

My question is will they ask me for a correction and wait till I send it to them or will they identify where I went wrong and help me in publishing? Will they simply reject the paper because the proof is amateur ?

If the reviewers feel that the paper generally has merit, but is in need of certain reasonable corrections or revisions, they will often write a list of specific changes or improvements that are needed, and recommend acceptance subject to those revisions.  This is what people mean when they talk about getting a "minor revisions" or "major revisions" decision on their paper.

Another possibility is "revise and resubmit", where the reviewers aren't convinced whether the paper has merit, or if the errors are fixable, but they explain their concerns and are willing to take another look if you're able to fix the paper to address them.

If they doubt that the paper can be salvaged, or if they don't think the results are interesting enough even if they were corrected, or the paper is generally not up to an appropriate level of rigor and clarity, it'll be rejected.  In this case they may not give you very detailed feedback.  After all, their goal is to help get good papers published, and if they don't think your paper is ever going to get there, why should they spend time on it?

Generally, it isn't the reviewer's job to help you write a good paper, and you can't use the peer review process as a substitute for your own learning.


Mentioning graduates names in the SOP? I found many questions that ask about mentioning professors names in the SOP. However, this doesn't address my question. Is it a good idea to mention the name of a program's graduate in the SOP? I am an international student, and I contact one of the graduates who is from my country. The program has a few graduates from my country (he is the only one I am aware of and I found about him online, and he clearly was doing pretty good "high gpa"- studied both masters and phd there). I just said he thinks the program is great in both education and job opportunities. The program is a top program, and it is obvious that it has a great education and good job opportunities. However, i mentioned this to clarify that I am really interested and I tried to get more info and contact people to make sure it is a fit before applying. (Not mass applying)

I think it would be ok, if done in passing; less than a sentence, perhaps. I think it would be much better, however, if one of your letters of recommendation mentioned the earlier (successful) student instead. I once benefitted from just that situation.
But, a word of caution. Make sure that your SoP is forward looking on your own plans and goals and how you intend to meet them. Don't get side tracked from the fact that this is, perhaps, your most important application document. Having someone else say certain things gives you a few more words to make the most important points.


Pros and cons to submit a poster? Our paper is rejected, but we are invited to submit a poster. We are given two options:

Poster with 2 pages proceeding.
Poster without a proceeding.

Another option is, of course, not submitting at all.

We still want to submit the full paper. What is potential risk of submitting a poster, with or without proceeding? All the conferences we want to target adopts double-blinded review.

I'm in software engineering.

It depends on what you want, and can, get out of that conference. I am from sociology, and in sociology proceedings do not count as publications. So I do not care whether I were in one or not. I heard that in other disciplines this is very different.

I attend conferences to network, to get inspired by others, and to get feedback from others on my own work. Networking happens at the breaks, and to get inspired I go to other talks and posters. So for those it does not matter whether I present a talk or a poster. For getting feedback I found that posters allows for a much more direct interaction with the audience. So even though they have lower "status", I found presenting posters often more fruitful then giving talks.


Is it okay for a reviewer to share an under review manuscript with their colleagues? In a research meeting I mentioned I was doing some peer-review for a conference and disclosed the general topic it was about, without any further details. Immediately my colleagues demanded I disclose information about details of the paper, authors, and they even suggested I should share the paper with them immediately, and they swore "they would not share it with anyone".

I refused and said this was unethical behavior. They all got really angry and took it personally, saying that sharing a manuscript under review was completely normal and ethical, and even recommended and the problem was simply that I did not "trust them".

What is your experience with this? What are your thoughts?

Do not share this manuscript.

It is one thing for you to solicit input, under an agreement of confidentiality, when you recognize there is another expert who can help with the review.

It is totally different when someone demands that you share it, not because you are getting help with the review, but for their own edification.  The manuscript is confidential.  Keep it that way!


Do we know what proportion of scientific reproducibility issues are fraud-related? A few days ago there was an article on the LSE blog about scientific reproducibility which made little sense to me until I realised they were equating 'low reproducibility' with 'scientific fraud':

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2016/07/21/could-blockchain-provide-the-technical-fix-to-solve-sciences-reproducibility-crisis/

I've tended to assume that most reproducibility issues are poor reporting of experiments, poor recording of external factors, poor statistical analysis inflating p-values etc but I realise that I don't have much evidence to back that up apart from personal experience. Are there any studies that report the relative proportion of irreproducible experimental results resulting from fraud versus poor experimental/statistical/reporting standards?

I very much doubt we "know' this in the empirical sense, as:

As a scientific problem, the "reproducibility crisis" is fairly new, and we're still developing the methods to really understand it.
It's very hard to distinguish fraud from error except in the most egregious cases. You can say, for example, that there's clearly some bias in a body of work in a field, but it's hard to say that any particular paper is clearly biased.

For example, is a convergence error that you chose to ignore because it was "pretty close" to the convergence criteria you set for a statistical model an error, or fraud? How about using Bayesian priors that turn out to be stronger than was probably justified? How do you distinguish fraud in the form of "nudging" a result over the line into significance from a largely insignificant effect being estimated with error that sometimes crosses the null.

Frankly, there's not even, IMO, a solid definition of "irreproducible". Is that "Finds a statistically significant result"? "Effect estimates are on the same side of the null"? "Our clinical/policy conclusions would be the same"?

Lacking even that, I'd assert it would be particularly difficult to attempt to assess fraud vs. error in any systematic fashion.

It would also be an exceedingly difficult study to run, as you'd need the cooperation of a bunch of people who comitted fraud.


Getting the results of an arXiv keyword search in my email I'm not sure if this question would be more appropriate here or on SO. My hope is that someone has already had this need and found a solution.

Periodically, I search for a specific research topic on arXiv. Unfortunately it doesn't correspond to a specific arXiv subject: papers of interest can be found under very different subjects, since it's somewhat multidisciplinary. Currently, arXiv only supports sending periodic emails concerning either an entire archive, or one or more subjects inside an archive. There's no way I know of to receive only the results of a specific keyword search. However, I've heard of someone who has been able to get that, but I couldn't get them to explain me what they did.

Have you ever had this need? Did you find a solution?

You can set up a Google Scholar alert. Google Scholar indexes, among other things, arXiv preprints (they typically take 2-3 days to show up), so you will get these in the email alerts.

Be warned that it also indexes journals, other repositories... And while it is possible to restrict advanced searches to arXiv, I haven't been able to set up an alert that only looks at arXiv. So if you are only interested in what shows up on the arXiv, you will have to weigh the pros and cons of also having alerts about papers you might already have seen elsewhere.


How difficult is it to transfer to a different field of study in a master's program compared to getting admitted in the first place? My friend in China has been admitted to some schools in the US, but hasn’t started his program yet, and is having some second thoughts about his field of study. It would be in the same school, from a different engineering field to CS.

Would it be easier to transfer once he starts or just re-apply with a different major for the next cycle?

This depends on both the institution and on how different the two fields are. If two fields are closely related they could conceivably share an admissions process and the department might not care much which program a given student follows. But in other situations, it might be quite difficult.

A change from engineering (other than, perhaps, Electrical Engineering) to CS is a pretty big jump and the two programs probably have different entrance requirements. There might even be a waiting list in one or both programs.

You can ask the institution for guidance, of course, but don't assume it would be easy. Asking would be better than just delaying.


Relating job hunting and PhD preparedness I am applying for a PhD in neuroscience and one of the requirements on the application is to write a supplemental essay about a time you experienced failure. I wrote an essay about finding a job after undergrad and the times I was rejected and what I learned to ultimately land a job after several rejections. I want to conclude the essay by writing a sentence or two about how the job hunting experience will prepare me for some responsibilities during my PhD. I'm having trouble relating the skills I learned while job hunting (tailoring applications, organizing application materials, networking, interviewing etc.) to what is done during a PhD. Can anyone suggest what I can connect this to? Thanks!

(tailoring applications, organizing application materials, networking, interviewing etc.)

During your PhD and in your future academic career you will spend a significant amount of your time:

Tailoring applications to grants
Organising materials for those grant applications
Networking at conferences, workshops, online, etc across your discipline and in to other disciplines
Presenting your research and selling yourself as a researcher as you present papers at conferences etc (not entirely unlike a very harsh interview)

It seems to me that you've answered your own question. Your experience has prepared you for many of the academic extras that happen beyond simply being able to do good research. I think that's probably your hook there.


Advice for first time mathematics TA during the COVID-19 pandemic I'm set to start my first year as a TA at a large R1 institution. My teaching assignment consists of being a TA for an honors calculus I section. This includes holding a weekly problem solving session (in person) to about 20 students. The lecture, however, will be online. My general questions are:

Besides taking the obvious safety precautions, (my university has mandated the use of masks on campus) what else can I do to make my classroom as safe as possible?

What would you do differently as a TA during a global pandemic? Maybe grade more leniently? Hold online office hours?

What would you do differently as a TA between an honors and non-honors section? For example, I was looking into old assignments and one of the differences is that honors calculus I cover epsilon-delta proofs and place more emphasis on theorems such as the mean value and intermediate value theorem. I'm guessing there will be a larger percentage of math majors than in your typical calculus I class.

Thanks for your advice.

Talk to the lecturer in charge of the course.
The lecturer (or professor, if that’s what your university calls them – different countries use different titles to refer to the equivalent positions) is your boss; if there’s something you’re uncertain of regarding how to teach their class, they should be your first port of call unless it’s utterly trivial.
So, ask them about how they would prefer you to handle things like office hours or grading; it’ll be important for all the tutors to be on the same page for those sorts of things anyway, so that students who were in one tutorial aren’t unfairly advantaged over students in others. Similarly, they should be familiar with what material will be covered in the honors vs non-honors versions of the class/unit/course/whatever your university calls it.


Changing study fields After reading countless posts about this topic, I still can't find my answer. I'm a little lost on the future study plan...

I am currently studying Advertising and PR but do not have an amazing interest in it. I will finish my undergrad next year and looking for postgrad opportunities. However, I was wondering how realistic it is to be looking at postgrad courses in animal science, biology, marine biology and so on...

I know it is 'easy' to switch from science to social but is it possible to do the switch the other way around?

Thanks!

It is very unlikely that you can make such a radical change without having to take a number of additional make-up courses at the undergraduate level, and your current training does not appear to have much overlap with your future plans.


Internship for PhD students I am a PhD student and I would like to do an internship at an American university or institute. How should I proceed?

If your advisor has contacts at any of the universities you'd like to work at, I would ask him or her to reach out for you. If you are looking to work with a specific faculty member, that is probably the trickiest route, as faculty members often use the summer to travel themselves, and it is rarely worth the hassle to hire an unknown student for the summer, anyway.

If you don't have a networking contact through your advisor or other faculty members at your school, my next suggestion would be to start networking at a conference, or through a professional organization that you are affiliated with (e.g., IEEE, AMS, etc.). Start getting the word out that you are looking to spend a summer at a U.S. school, and see if anyone has suggestions.

If you are looking for a paid internship, you may be at a disadvantage as an international student, and you are probably more likely to find something if you can fund yourself. If that isn't an option, you might also consider looking at internships in industry, as they tend to have more money for summer interns.


Resubmitting book proposal? Would it be allowable (or prudent) to resubmit a book proposal to a press where it was once rejected, provided it was revised afterwards? If so, what elements should be different or included in the new proposal, besides an updated writing portfolio/CV (i.e. a note on how and where it was edited)?

Would it be allowable (or prudent) to resubmit a book proposal

Usually, Yes, provided the revisions are substantial and have materially changed the book for the better.

You will need to read the proposal submission terms if the specific press allows resubmission of a rejected book. If they expressively and univocally prohibit it, don't bother.

  If so, what elements should be different or included in the new proposal

Please read the initial rejection letter and see if the reviewers have left any criticism/reason for turning your book down and see if the reasons cited have been addressed in your recent revision.

If yes, do highlight these revisions and include them in the new proposal/covering letter.