Difficulties with advisor inattention during MSc I'm currently half-way through my graduate research program. I have two advisors, one that was supposed to be my main advisor (who
admitted me into the program) and a co-advisor. Over the past few months, I feel that my main advisor has all but abandoned my efforts.

We're supposed to have weekly meetings but the main advisor will
skip them every other week or so for various reasons. For instance, they skipped
meeting with me recently to continue to help another graduate student with making edits
for a final submission of a paper. I, however, had the same final submission deadline
and also needed assistance with making edits from reviewer comments.

Initially, I thought that the main advisor may have just been unusually busy for the year.
However, I learned that they will email the other two MSc students sometimes 3-4 times in a single
day with correspondence about ideas to try. That is, it seems that they are actively engaged in the other students' projects. Further, their meetings with the other 2 MSc students sometimes go for 3-4 hours or even late into the night.
Conversely, my meetings, if they take place, are ended at the hour.

The co-advisor still meets with me regularly but they have their own graduate students and so
I'm not sure that they prioritize my project. I feel this way because I almost always have to remind them what my project is about at the start of meetings.
I have some questions:

Should I communicate my concerns with them? If so, how do I communicate this without offending
them about their supervisory capabilities?
Maybe I'm being overly sensitive about being de-prioritized and this is a relatively
normal situation? Does that seem to be the case?

I would like to work on a PhD so I want to get the most I can from this degree.

don't say "they don't believe in my ability as a researcher", it's self loathe and may become a self-fulfilling prophecy. As a supervisor of msc and phds myself, I think research skills can be learned. Are they pointing you towards resources at the university, like training on research methods? Do you think you lack those?

I add that weekly meetings are a luxury at my university, so maybe your supervision is working fine, and you may have just a bit of envy of the extra attention your peers receive? Or do you think your research is really suffering and struggling to progress?

I saw you've been thinking about possible reasons above, but I believe there are more explanations like (4), maybe the subject area of the other students is closer to what the supervisor does, so they have more to talk; (5) your area is more advanced than what they do so they don't know the methods and don't have much to contribute. I believe that you can talk to the main adviser openly about your concerns. You can directly ask them what they think about your research and where it's going. You can also ask about the frequency of the meetings. It will be a delicate conversation but it's better said and resolved than let accumulate. But the main question is, do you believe it's a good project? Is it interesting and innovative? Are you on top of the literature?

And grab the opportunity of writing that a publication, obviously it's very good for your phd application but also can increase the interest and frequency of communications with the current advisers.


Should I include a selection as an alternate in national competition awards on CV? I'm applying for postdocs with a PhD in Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies. I've seen some folks include nominations and selection as an alternate for awards on their CV.

I was an alternate this year for a Princeton fellowship and an alternate some years ago for the Association of University Women dissertation fellowship. Do I include these on the CV? I do have letters/e-mails to back this up somewhere in my files...

What about "best grad student paper" nominee at a national conference?

I didn't include these before, but now I'm not sure... What do you think?

The two basic criteria I recommend using for answering questions on whether to include something optional on a C.V. are:

Are you proud of it? [note]
Will it detract from other things on the C.V. by feeling like "filler"?

I don't know the particular awards you're talking about or how competitive they are, so I can't make a specific recommendation regarding them.  At one extreme, being runner up for an award where only three people are nominated isn't very interesting; at the other consider how big a deal it is for a movie to be nominated for an Oscar even if it doesn't win.  See if you can find out how big the applicant pools were and how many alternates were accepted, and if it was highly competitive, then include it on your C.V. and also include the competition numbers.
I would also advise to err on the side of inclusion (people who don't care will just ignore it) unless it will detract by comparison from other things that you have won.

[note] Certain things are non-optional, of course, for the sake of honesty, even if you aren't proud of them: you've got to include things like internships, and all of your papers, whatever you might have done while young and naive.


My supervisor does not believe my abilities I am a third year PhD student, I have got a problem with my supervisor, that I think I cannot continue working with him.
My problem is that he keeps insisting this fact that I need to switch from PhD to Msc. He thinks always negatively about my personality and my abilities. My supervisor was nearly 1 year on sabbatical, and I had no support during 1 year, and this is only 4 months that he has come back from sabbatical. Although he admits that I had good progress, but he keeps treating me negatively. I have reached to this conclusion that I need to change my supervisor. I cannot work with a supervisor who keeps thinking about me negatively. How should I deal with this?

It's may not be in your best interests to continue working with this supervisor.  If you can find another supervisor, then it might be wise to switch, but you'll have to consider how changing dissertation topics might slow down your progress.

Of course it's possible that you really are performing poorly.  If other faculty in the department are disinterested in supervising you, then that would be a strong indication that you aren't doing well in the program.


How important is the statement of purpose in a PhD application for admission to a top school in the US? According to this MIT statement of purpose guideline, the statement of purpose seems to be an important part of a PhD application.
However, I have also heard that, in the case of MIT, the statement of purpose is only reviewed after the application has been tacitly accepted.

So, how crucial is this part of the application, and what part does it play in the process of graduate admissions at top schools in the US?

This is an extremely general question, since it doesn't refer to the discipline. Since another answer comments on the social sciences, I'll speak up for physical sciences. (I'm in chemistry.)

We look at every facet of the portfolio. To do otherwise is to ignore useful information on the applicant. Let's be honest, we don't have much data. We get grades, GRE general scores, GRE subject scores, and recommendation letters. Plus the statement.

I mentioned in my answer to another question that GRE scores will sometimes serve as a first screen, to cut the pile down to a level we can really analyze. But that's not a "tacit acceptance". (I don't even know what that might mean.)

Yes. After a first cut, we look at the statement of purpose 100% of the time.

And yes, if someone writes a lousy statement with an otherwise good package, it's a bad sign. It tells us that the student just doesn't care to do a good job. Is that someone I want as a grad student? Probably not.

Even if a student has stellar grades, GRE, and a paper in Science but the statement is poorly written, I'm going to think twice compared to a student who might be a bit behind, but seems to have a vision and sells themselves well in the statement.


Feedback on "book summary" originated from master's thesis I am transforming my Mater thesis into a book. I need to write a 100 word summary for the same as well. Should I be mentioning in my book that it is an extension of my Master's thesis? The following is the relevant excerpt from my book summary.

"This book, which originates from author’s master’s thesis, discusses laser-based ultrasonic NDT method."

Personally I would not refer to your master thesis in your abstract. Often books are recommended based on an author’s life long in depth experience in a field. In your case I would look for recommendations of professors and put those on the cover of your book.


Master's Thesis Validity After completing my Master's Thesis, I continued to learn about the topic and unfortunately what I found is unsettling.

I found that the whole hypothesis is wrong. The basic assumption on which we could do some useful work is wrong. My supervisor and his supervisor both are working in the same field for years.
The topic was offered by my supervisor from the University, who is a PhD student and the topic was also verified by his supervisor. Still, its frustrating to find how they could have missed such a basic assumption and expected[Maybe] a student to figure that out.

Now my Questions are:

Isn't it the supervisor's responsibility to verify these things before?
What should I do morally, should I inform my University/supervisor? If yes. what happens to my Thesis grade.
Since I entered the Master's curriculum to continue into a PhD program, and since I want to continue in the same field as my Master's Thesis, how does this whole wrong hypothesis scenario affect my chances of getting a good PhD program.

As I can think, why would some professor hire a student for PhD, when if he/she reads my Master's Thesis can understand the whole idea/hypothesis amounts to nothing.

While applying for any PhD program, I need to provide at least 2 academic references. After figuring out regarding my Thesis, I can't even think of asking my supervisor of his recommendation. What do you think, how should I go about finding right references.

Honestly, I am really stressed and am thinking of enrolling into another Master's program, but I wish there is a way to find a right PhD program.

I am sorry for not providing details of my Thesis/Uni etc. for obvious reasons and for a long post with many questions.

Please help, as this whole scenario is really freaking me out.

One of the most revolutionary physics results of the last century is the Michelson-Morley experiment. The experimenters set out to measure something, but measured zero instead. It turned out that the basic assumption (Aether theory) was incorrect. That didn't jinx the experimenters in any way; instead their names have since become immortalized in undergraduate textbooks and one of them even went on to win a Nobel Prize.

Is it the supervisor's responsibility to verify these things before engaging a student? Maybe, but without knowing the details it's hard to say. In the case of aether theory for example, it's the experiment itself that's supposed to verify the assumption; in other cases, there's still a good chance there's something subtle that you're missing (or why would they engage you to study it?). This means the solution is to talk to your supervisor. See if you can convince him/her that the hypothesis is indeed incorrect, because a basic assumption is incorrect. If that's true, that's quite a result: it means both your supervisor and your supervisor's supervisor assumed something that seemed reasonable enough to engage a student to work on, and then later turned out to be incorrect. If the field at large also made the same assumption then even better.

As for getting into a PhD program, don't worry about it. Showing that a basic assumption is wrong is quite an achievement, and this should be reflected in your recommendation letters. It's possible the admissions committee will read your thesis and find out that you didn't discover anything revolutionary, but that's not a big deal: as illustrated above, proving that something doesn't work / doesn't exist is still a result.


Dating former student? Here's the situation: She was an undergrad, I was a grad TA. At that point, our interactions were totally professional and limited to the classroom.  However, she and I both since graduated and left the college/city where we got our degree.  I now am at another university working as a postdoc and she is working outside of academia.  We ran into one another and started spending time with one another.  Our relationship has been platonic, but I get the sense that it could go further, which I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to. I can't imagine that there would be legal problems with pursuing a romantic relationship, but would there be ethical or professional concerns (as an early career academic)?

There are professional/ethical rules at many universities relating to dating between students and staff, but these do not extend to imposing a permanent moratorium on dating between people who have previously attended that institution.  Essentially you are asking if there are any professional or ethical issues in dating another adult who has no connection whatsoever to your current employer.  I cannot see any issue.


Are 16 schools too many for a professor to provide recommendation letters to? I plan to apply to approximately 16 schools and am wondering whether that's too many for my recommendation letter providers.

It's happened before that a professor of my friend refused to provide all letters for him because they're too many. They refused to send all the LoR and cut it from 10+ to about five finally. It would be a disaster if the LoR provider changes his/her mind in the end. Also, I don't want to bother my professor that much.

I believe my professors are nicer than him, but still don't know what's a suitable amount of required schools.

I'm applying for master programs and the 16 selections are range from dream to match to safe, with about five in each category. I failed last year and thus I chose a safer (and might be a bit unnecessary) plan.

As other people have mentioned, the problem with 16 schools is that a professor cannot, either truthfully or operationally provide customized letters to 16 different schools. By "customization" I mean more than changing the name of the school and program. Good letters of rec use professor's familiarity with their field to speak to applicants' specific strengths with regard to the program, or referencing previous students of theirs who attended the program in question.

In honesty, I wouldn't expect to ask a professor to customize a letter for more than two or three schools, plus a generic one for the others. Maybe four custom letters if you have worked very closely with them.

You could let them know what your top few choices are, then acknowledge a generic letter can be shared among the rest.

I would also reconsider whether 16 is a necessary amount. In my field, 10 programs would be a lot.


Can we submit comment paper to some other journal other than the paper's journal on which we are commenting? Can we submit comment paper to some other journal other than the paper's journal on which we are commenting ?

It might be allowed from journals of the same editorial group (cf. example) if there's a scientific reason to frame the discussion in another journal (e.g. interdisciplinary publications and the comment pertains only one part). Aside from these cases, no.

In other journal is of course allowed to submit full fledge articles that critique or initiate a scholarly exchange with respect to a paper appeared elsewhere. The "comment" format, is specific to articles appeared in a journal and should not be placed elsewhere. It should also be timely, and be submitted within a certain time frame from publication.

You can find the rules specific of your case in the journal webpage and contacting the editor.


Create a website for adding supplementary material of a journal paper I just got the reviews for the paper I submitted to IEEE TCSVT and one of the reviewers asked me to provide them with some supplementary results. I am planning the create a website for them so they can go and download the results. Any suggestions on how I can create such a website for my paper?

Please use existing repositories when showing your supplementary data. Department websites die more often than we'd like.

Some options include:

Zenodo
Dryad
Figshare

See also https://www.nature.com/sdata/policies/repositories.


Do Australian academic jobs have similar tenure track policies as USA? Is the Australian academia following the same system as the US one? i.e., tenure track for a few years, and then tenured? Or it is more like the British one where there is 'probation' period?

I don't want to contradict Samuel too much, but his account of what can happen has definitely happened to some people. But it is extremely rare and I would argue a little over-simplified.

For starters, my paycheck from a major Australian university has the word "tenured" on it. So my first point is, yes, continuing positions are "tenured" - but lets not get bogged down in semantics because tenure def means something different in Australia. Indeed I believe the union considers this to be a f(ph)urfy so let's say there is some subjectivity there.

Having tenure does not guarantee that you cannot be fired though. You can be. But as one manager said to me once, it is more expensive to fire an under performing academic than to simply retain them as long as they keep doing their teaching etc. I work with lots of unproductive academics and many have been asked to leave. They simply said no thanks and stayed. The only time I have seen academics forced out, they left with large redundancies and, simply put, wanted to leave. When you read about retrenchments at Australian unis in the newspaper, often more want to leave than are given packages.

Gross incompetence or dangerous behaviour? Yes you can be sacked. But as far as I have seen you cannot be fired on a "whim" as someone suggested. A business case would be made (declining enrolments, lack of research activity, lack of administrative roles)

And yes, as Samuel said, management teams will go after departments at times. But redundancy packages are often generous and often people from an eliminated department will be shifted to another department (good academics stay, crap ones move to a lower ranked uni).

I also don't want to make this a peeing contest, but I have worked in the US system too and the Australian system is more protectionist of staff than the US system. But indeed tenure is probably harder to lose than in Australia.

I am tenured at a Australian uni. I say this to people regularly and no one corrects me. But yes, I know union types that tell me my tenure is not tenure. I heard this a lot 5 years ago, but not recently

In short, to answer the initial question, the Australian system, broadly speaking, is the British system. Tenure with probation (3 years, recently raised to 5 I think)


Check Robustness of ISI Q1 enlisted Journal? Recently, I've received an acceptance for publishing my paper in an ISI enlisted Journal called Indian Journal of Science and Technology. Definitely, it's great.

How can I check the robustness of this journal? How much value will carry on it in academic world?

Can anyone help me, please?

http://www.indjst.org/index.php/indjst/index

Q scale could be found for known journals, within the SJR website...

As you can check here, this journal is a Q1 in 2014...

Best


When writing a paper what's the difference between contributions and objectives? I'm currently writing up a study of a model which worked and had a clear statement of contributions.

A reviewer has asked me to clarify what the objectives were.

In the case of a project which went as expected, how are these different to the contributions? (I can see how if the results were unexpected they would differ).

Usually, the scheme of a scientific study has a hourglass shape scheme, from wide, to narrow, and wide again.

In the first wide, we use the introduction to describe the general topography and bring focus to a particular problem. Then we narrow down to describe how our experiment is designed, data are collected, analysis is done, etc.

When results are ready, we interpret them, and then again widen up the scope to talk about implications, applications, and recommendations in the Discussion section.

In my opinion, objectives are a list of actions to perform, or questions to answer so that you can complete the narrow part of the study scheme. Contributions are a list of applications or significance to other researchers that brought about by your work, and they are perhaps more fitting in the second wider part of the study scheme.

For instance, the objective of a project could be "to validate a low cost blood glucose measurement device." And if it is indeed valid, the contribution could be "allow more people to afford to measure their glucose, and potentially lead to better diabetes control in the population."


Should I review papers for a nameless conference? I received an invitation to review papers in a conference that is not very famous. However, the conference has a web site, and it has been held less than 5 times. Should I review papers for this conference? What is a judging criteria for deciding whether or not do the paper review for conferences?

Does it help you?

A good criteria are the people organizing the conference. Have you heard any of their names? Do you want them to know your name, too?

Also look at the papers published the previous years. Is there anything you like? Because that is probably the good papers you get to review (there will always be much worse submissions additionally that do not get accepted).
If you don't see anything interesting for you & in your expertise, then don't review.

Beware of 'pay to publish' conferences (is the publisher on Beall's list of predatory publishers?). There are companies that live of publishing article no matter what quality. To give at least the impression of being legit, they need names on their program commitee - and they reach out to low-ranked people and invite them. They want to abuse your name!

Don't get me wrong, there are really good small conferences (in particular some with 20+ years of history). But usually they have A) top names on the board, B) very interesting articles and C) no shady publisher, but e.g. Springer, ACM, IEEE, and some just put the papers on the website, or host them at a university library.


When to withdraw other faculty applications: conditional offer letter or contract? I've heard one should let search committees know when you've accepted another offer.  What is the right time to do that?
If I have an offer letter that is conditional on getting a work visa (which I think should be no problem), and I accept this offer, should I wait until I actually sign the contract?
This would probably mean putting several departments through the entire interview process with almost no chance of my actually accepting an offer.

Normally you should not withdraw your applications until you have received a binding job offer that you intend to sign.  If you are delaying signing it, that does not matter.
Depending on your circumstances, an offer conditional on a visa may be extremely risky.  Visa risk is unusually high right now owing to the pandemic, but even before the pandemic I have known people to wait for more than a year for a visa.


Follow up email to a potential PhD supervisor I have contacted a potential PhD supervisor and he sent me back a positive email and asked "have you contacted anyone else in the department or just me at this stage?".

I have replied to the email in a very short notice and stated that I have directly contacted him after careful consideration of the academic staff profile because I can more easily merge with the research theme he works on.

It has been 2 weeks but haven't received a reply, should I write a follow up email? If yes, what should I write in it?

Whether it is a potential PhD supervisor, committee member, or employer I think it is important at this stage to simply send a polite kind reminder.
I have been in many of these situations and did not know how to handle it properly. I found it worked best for me to send a reminder 1 week afterwards your conversation; best timing: first thing in the morning, avoid weekends; so you catch his/her attention without pushing/forcing the person. Send two/three reminders max (one per week) if there are answers at that stage drop it.
That would be a short template of this form (short is important there)

Dear XXX,

I hope you are having a pleasant day.
I was wondering if you had the opportunity to review my email sent out on xx.xx. I know you are particularly busy at the moment but I would be really grateful if you can please spare a few minutes of your time to read it through.
Have a great day ahead.

Best regards,

First name Name

Regarding the formality, it depends, some people like to be called Prof. or Dr., other prefer to be informal after the first contact.
Whenever in doubt, use the polite form.
For the first sentence you can be more specific: winter, summer, vacations, back from a conference, etc.

For the salutation, it will depends on the first exchange of emails, again some people prefer to be more formal other less. You will often find "Best regards" "Sincerely Yours" "Yours sincerely" "Kind regards" "Best" "Cheers" etc

For the signature, also full name (first name + name) or simply your first name.


Health aspects of White board vs black board I am wondering about the health aspects of black boards and white boards.

Black boards have now been around for centuries. Their only detrimental health effect is the chalk dust. Some senior colleagues tell me that they are having breathing issues after several years of teaching. Then again, it's just chalk, which is chemically fairly well-understood.

White boards are a rather recent fad in academia. They do not -seem- to produce dust as much as blackboards, but nevertheless there is a mess over time with ink dripping down onto the floor, and you need replace the erasers regularly. Last but not least, I have no clue about the ink used in those pens and their health effects.

Do you have practical advice how to handle black boards and white boards, and do you know about medical research about them?

The only type of board that doesn't affect the air in the classroom is a digital whiteboard (aka a smartboard). If you're using an actual white board or black board be sure that your room is well ventilated and cleaned often. For chalk boards specifically some sources recommend chalk holders and even face masks.

Here are the papers I found on the subject of white/black boards and health:

Blackboards

Effects of Chalk Use on Dust Exposure and Classroom Air Quality

  Although using chalkboards in the
  classroom is a traditional and effective teaching method,
  chalk generates a large amount of airborne dust, and
  particularly submicrometer dust and nanoparticles that can
  penetrate into the respiratory system.

Investigation of Lecturer's Chalk by X-Ray Florescence and Fast Neutron Activation Techniques

  The presence of Ca and small traces of Al, Fe, Mg and Si elements in the different lecturer's chalk samples were confirmed utilizing Fast Neutron Activation Analysis (FNAA), lifetime, and X-ray florescence (XRF) techniques. [...] It is highly recommended that Chalk dust is
  considered an irritant and an occupational hazard as shown in this investigation.

Assessment of Airborne Fine Particulate Matter and Particle Size Distribution in Settled Chalk Dust during Writing and Dusting Exercises in a Classroom

  Though real-time airborne chalk dust generation was found to be low in this study and chalk dust contained only calcium carbonate or calcium sulphate predominantly and did not contain toxic materials, chalk dust could be harmful to allergic persons and may cause lacrimation and breathing troubles in the long run and certainly is a constant nuisance in classrooms as it may soil clothes, body parts, audio visual aids and study materials. The issue of allergy, lacrimation and breathing problem is certainly critical, considering that classroom teaching involves predominantly children and also in many cases teachers who might have crossed the middle age, thus becoming more susceptible. Exposure to low concentrations of fine particles for longer durations can be a matter of concern for children.

Trace elemental profile of School Chalk from a few Companies in Punjab
areas by WDXRF Technique

  The results of this study confirmed the presence of the elements like Ca, Al, Fe,
  Si, Ni, and Cr are in significant concentrations. The exposure to elements like Ca, Al, Si, Fe, Ni and
  Cr causes irritation to eyes and skin, cough, potential health symptoms includes accumulation to
  lungs. The study confirmed that black board chalk is an irritant and occupational hazard.

"Dust free" chalks

Investigation of particulate matter performances in relation to chalk selection in classroom environment

  Surprisingly, dustless chalk made from Gypsum cannot be called really as dustless because of more [particulate matter] emissions.

Allergenicity of casein containing chalk in milk allergic schoolchildren

Dust free chalk often contains casein, which can cause asthma if someone is allergic to milk (typically it's infants and children who have this allergy).

Whiteboards

I didn't find as much research on whiteboards, unfortunately.

Solvent Exposure during use of Solvent-Based Whiteboard Markers

  It does not appear that heavy use of
  solvent-based whiteboard markers by students in a classroom situation would likely result in
  excessive acute solvent exposures.

Analysis of the indoor air quality in greek primary schools

  [C]lassrooms using chalk in blackboard are characterized with significant concentrations of large  sized  particles  (PM2.5 &  PM10),  while  classrooms  using  marker  in  whiteboards  from increased VOCs and CO concentrations

Volatile organic compound emissions from markers used in preschools, schools, and homes

I couldn't read enough of this paper to reach any conclusions, but it seems relevant nonetheless


The best way to refer readers to other paper(s) for more details Sometimes you need to refer readers to a reference for more details about a subject. I wonder what is the best way to accomplish this. Or if there is a specific way to do it for scientific papers that target journals in the field of computer science and engineering.

I use something similar to this "For more details about flying monkeys see [1,2,3].", but I feel there's something wrong about it (other than the flying monkeys).

I would try to work the references into your text and include why you're referring  the reader to them. I might write something like:

  Smith et al. [1] provides additional background on flying monkeys and their use in underwater basket making.

Or

  Several recent articles review flying monkey [1, 2, 3].

Or

  Recent tutorials and overviews of flying moneys exist for readers unfamiliar with the their background and use [1, 2, 3].

As a style note, I would not simply refer to the number inline (e.g. see [1, 2, 3])).

For more inspiration, I would skim and read recent articles in your target journals.
I find reading to be a one method for improving my own writing style.

Here's an example from my own publication:

  For readers who are unfamiliar with IPMs, recent overviews, introductions, and tutorials of integral projection models exist (e.g., Ellner and Rees, 2006, Ramula et al., 2009, Ellner et al., 2010, Merow et al., 2014).


What are the flaws of working in a research center department led by young principal investigators? In few months I will join a new research center department of an excellent university in Northern America. My field is computer science and bioinformatics.
This new department has mainly hired young principal investigators and scientists, all 35-40 years old.

I have visited the labs and clearly have seen the advantages of this new young environment: flow of new ideas, enthusiasm, friendly relationships, opening of mind.
But I am sure there are also some flaws of this situation.

So I am asking you all: what are the main flaws, defeats, disadvantages of being part of a department lead by young principal investigators?

Some of the disadvantages of young professors vs. more senior staff may be:

Less established in their field. One advantage of a very senior professor for a PhD student is that the senior professor often knows all or at least most of the important players in the area. Hence, he can put the student in contact with interesting collaborators, and open up doors for internships or postdocs. A younger professor may not yet have a network that broad.
Less experienced. This one is obvious, but more senior professors are typically more experienced. They have advised many students before, and make less "beginner's mistakes" (e.g., expecting too much from a student, and then getting angry because the student did not live up to those expectations).
Less laid-back. Non-tenured professors need their students to perform, as their own career is very tightly coupled with their students (mis-)fortunes. Many a high-potential assistant professor will not take an unsuccessful research project lightly. This can be an advantage or a disadvantage - an ambitious student and a non-tenured professor may push each other to achieve great results, but the same
professor and a more average student may lead to some friction and bad feelings.
Less money. Younger professors tend to have less research grants (yet). This has implications for you even if you personally have a stipend from another source, as it means there is less money for travel, less money to fund research students, etc.
Less pull in the faculty. This may be more relevant in some places than in others, but I have certainly seen faculties where working with an assistant professor had the disadvantage that your group was at a disadvantage whenever any sort of global resources were distributed. The senior professors were often able to acquire resources (they did not actually need) basically by appealing to their seniority.
Higher chance that your advisor moves. Non-tenured professors are much more likely to change university (voluntarily or due to not getting tenure) than ones that are already tenured. Especially take this into account if the tenure review of your professor is planned for the next years.

These things just came from the top of my head, I will edit the answer if I can think of anything else.

Sidenote: yes, these are all stark simplifications. No, none of those points has to be true for any given young professor.


Literature review in thesis and research paper What are the major differences between a thesis and research paper literature review? Despite the volume of literature citations between thesis and research article what are the  other major differences?

A literature review in a thesis is there to put your own work into context. It should make it clear that you are familiar with what has been done in the field before, that there is a gap that your work will address, and that you have chosen your approach to the problem carefully in light of previous work.

A literature review section in an original research paper has a similar purpose, but should be much shorter. It should focus on making clear why your work is needed.

A stand-alone review paper has a very different purpose. A review paper should help readers to understand the state of the art in the field with respect to the review topic. It should cover important recent contributions to the field (and make clear why they are important). It should document recent trends and changes (for instance, if one theory or method seems to be falling out of favour while others are emerging). It should document important open challenges and problems.

In all types of literature review, it is important to show critical thinking: not just covering what has been done before, but thinking about how appropriate or successful that work was, or how relevant to current circumstances.


Recommended course weight for online quizzes outside of class In many of my classes (mainly with undergraduate students), I begin every class session with a reading quiz, that is, a short, simple multiple-choice quiz on their assigned reading, to make sure that the students have read before class so that I can spend class time on more challenging and interesting topics than merely regurgitating the textbook for them. This counts for around 5% of the course grade. This technique has transformed my teaching, so I want to retain it in principle. However, there are many logistic challenges to administering these quizzes when I occasionally teach large lecture classes of over 100 students (especially Internet connection problems). So, I want to try to move these quizzes to the course learning management system (LMS), due the night before the class session.

My challenge is that I am afraid that many students might cheat and answer questions by looking up the reading material or sharing answers. When I do reading quizzes in class, I invigilate to restrict cheating, but I would not be present during the online quiz. I have researched and plan to implement multiple techniques to limit cheating in online quizzes (e.g. limited answer time; rotating questions for different students; etc.), cheating cannot be completely eliminated. My main concern with cheating (other than students hurting their conscience) is that if they don't read the assignment, then their learning during class next day would be severly limited.

With that background, my specific question here is: what is an appropriate amount of course weight to assign online quizzes that are given before every course session, considering the risk that student cheating might be quite high? For me, giving no course weight at all for these quizzes is not an option--a reading quiz that carries no weight is virtually useless.

My favorite way of incorporating out-of-class online quizzes is rather unconventional.

Rather than worrying about cheating, we encouraged students to work together and even to keep redoing the quiz until they got everything right. Then we incorporated their scores into their overall class grade as a multiplier.

In other words, the grade for the class was: grade = weighted_tests * f(online_quizzes)

We played some fancy curving games with that f function to mean that students wouldn't get hurt by being a little off, but that they'd suffer badly if they didn't take the online quizzes seriously.  The net effect was to use the online quizzes as self-grading practice work, with a grading "stick" to enforce that the students were actually expected to do them.


Collaborator has shared a draft paper with a significant amount of self-plagiarism. Should I say something? I am a theoretical physics postdoc. A while ago I began collaborating with a certain group of experimentalists on a joint project. This group has a good reputation in the field and I regarded the collaboration as a good opportunity. They work at a different institution from me and I am the only person from my institution involved in the project. My boss knows about the project but was happy to let me pursue it without being involved.

I sent my collaborators some calculations a while ago, which I believed should more or less wrap up the project and bring us to a point where we could write it up. They were a long time getting back to me - so long in fact that I began to assume they had lost interest in the project - but then out of the blue they sent me a draft paper and asked for my comments.

On first reading the draft seemed good. It gives an accurate description of both the experimental and theoretical results from the project. But then I went back and read another recent paper from the same group (which I was not involved with). I then realised that several paragraphs from the draft paper were copied verbatim from this other recent paper.

The paragraphs in question are from the introduction and methods sections of the paper. The draft paper and the recently published one are closely related in subject matter and the experimental part of the work uses a lot of the same methods, so to some extent I can understand why they may have regarded it as efficient to simply copy certain parts of the text over. On the other hand, I feel uncomfortable about this degree of self-plagiarism.

Is it worth making a fuss about this? I am very much the junior partner in this collaboration and getting this paper in collaboration with this group would be helpful on my CV, at a time when I really need to find a job. So I have incentives not to rock the boat too much. On the other hand, I know some people regard self-plagiarism very badly and if my name is on the paper I will be as much to blame for it as anyone else.

You do not need to make a fuss, or mention "plagiarism". All you need to do is to recommend adding a reference to the copied paper for each paragraph in question. That is a legitimate review comment, proposing an improvement in the draft paper.

Andreas Blass, in a valuable comment, suggests something along the lines of "The following description of our methodology is taken from [17]" or "Our methodology is the same as in [17], described there as follows" is adequate, without needing to also put quotation marks around the quoted description.


Should I include proof of my extenuating circumstances when applying for a PhD? My performance in my bachelor's degree was adversely affected by some medical extenuating circumstances (related to physical injuries). I am currently in a master's program and my performance is much better. Should I mention these extenuating circumstances in my PhD applications and should I include the relevant documents (doctors' statement, diagnostic report, etc)?

You might mention extenuating circumstances if:

They significantly decreased your past performance.
You explain why your performance will not be reduced in the future for the same reason.

Do not include any evidence unless it is requested, or perhaps if the circumstances were something very unlikely.  Having been imprisoned for a crime and later exonerated might be an example where evidence would be a good idea.


How long should a book proposal review be? What are the expectations, primarily in terms of length but also along other relevant dimensions, for a review of a book proposal? The book itself will be as long as 5-10 papers but the proposal itself usually only includes a sample chapter and some overview material. What will editors at academic presses expect back from proposal reviewers?

The editor of the press should have given you guidelines -- or even a response form to fill out. If they didn't, it'd be simple enough to e-mail the editor back and ask him/her how detailed of a response is required.

I personally vary the response length depending on how promising the book proposal is. If the proposal has a lot of merit but is undercooked in some areas, I may spend a considerable amount of time discussing what needs to be done. If the book is stellar and ready to leap onto the presses, then not much needs to be said.

If the book is terrible because of severe methodological or analytical flaws, my review might be less than a page. If the ms is in severe need of proofreading or editing, I may respond with a just a paragraph noting this and suggesting that I'll re-read when the ms is actually ready to be reviewed.


Asked to perform task I lack skills in I am a undergrad student of biology, I was a computer science major but flunked out. One of my professors teaches/is learning genomics and wanted me to help him with a project since he assumed I had coding experience/skills. I told him that I lacked such skills and would not be a great fit to help him. Even as he described the project and his goals, I found myself stressed due to all the things he expected that I could assist with / do, so I am not really self-deprecating.

I am interested in genomics, but I was going to build my coding skill set slowly through following books and the like. My professor expects him and I  to tie up all of his research during the next spring, and I doubt I could learn how to work with big data and all the possible languages required in such a short amount of time(for me).

Should I try and "bite the bullet" and learn the task(s) he has at hand to finish the project or should I decline his offer on the basis of not being skillful enough to be of use?

Think for yourself. If you're very much interested in Genomics, then working with this Professor would be beneficial for you in the long run. But you're not at all interested in learning those programming languages, then it would be better if you decline his offer. Please keep in mind that you won't always get such an opportunity. So, think we'll and decide. All the best!


What do Grad Schools think about Pass/No Pass courses? I am a physics major at UCLA with a busy schedule. I am currently taking 3 upper division physics courses every quarter while balancing 10-20 hours of research per week. I would like to learn more computer science, so I wanted to take a couple of CS classes for a Pass/No Pass grade without stressing about my GPA. Would Grad Schools frown upon the idea of taking CS classes for P/NP grades? I feel like my reason is justified, and the CS courses are not a part of my major, but they could potentially relate to it as a needed skill.

I don't think you have anything to worry about. You seem to be doing the right thing in your major and that will be the important consideration for grad school. But anything you do to increase supplementary skills is a positive thing, not negative. For example, even an online no-credit course can increase your skills and would have a small positive effect. If you were doing this in physics courses it would be viewed differently.

You have a good explanation to give for your choices. If asked, just present that. No one should think less of you or your abilities.


Is it normal for good PhD advisors to micromanage early PhD students? I am a first year PhD student in science. I have a good advisor, the kind that will spend time with you (he is busy not emeritus), read what you send him, reply emails, give good advice for future, good project management. I've googled for what are traits of good advisors and what to avoid in bad advisors (e.g. here) and he fits all of good advisors and none of bad advisors.
However the problem is I feel that he has micromanagement style. He is very detail oriented and tries to understand every step you do. I meet him twice a week, and it is basically a do this, show me this next time. He will tell me exactly what to do.
Granted however I am not a very strong student who is capable of independent research right away, but I still like to be able to do explore my own ideas, or at least be able to do things independently, as I think that is the point of the PhD. Hence my question is whether it is normal for advisors to micromanage early PhD students, and whether I should be concerned, because I definitely do not want to spend my whole PhD working like that. Maybe he will turn into a hands off advisor later?

Some PhD students need micromanagement.  Some are harmed by it.
Some supervisors know how to customise things to the needs of the student.  Some supervisors do not know how to micromanage.  Some some do not know how to not micromanage.
Tell your supervisor what you want.  Listen to your supervisor's feedback - what you want might not be possible.  If you have tried this several times and the relationship is failing spectacularly, get a new supervisor.
What you are experiencing is within the range of "normal."  There's no way for us to know if it is "good."


Should referees assume that authors will see the full report if their paper is rejected? I have now more than once had the following series of experiences as a referee of mathematics papers:

Elite Journal A sends me a paper.  I find some problems with it, some small and some large, and describe them in a carefully- and thoughtfully-written report, but also tell the editor that even if the problems were fixed I do not think that the results are sufficiently interesting to rise to the august standards of EJA, though the results would deserve publication somewhere.
Several months later, Mediocre Journal B sends me the same paper.  The author has clearly not incorporated anything from my earlier report: typos that I pointed out have not been fixed even though it would have been trivial to do so, and the more serious problems that I found have not been addressed at all.

The first time that this happened I was quite upset with the author: based on my earlier report he had been made aware of fundamental flaws in the proof of his main result, yet he had the nerve to try to publish it anyway.  But since it has happened again (with a different author), it has occurred to me that maybe what is happening here is that the author simply is not getting a chance to see the report, because the editor isn't sending it with the rejection email.

Is there a consistent practice in this regard?  When I have had papers rejected I suppose I often haven't gotten a detailed report with line-by-line corrections, but I usually assumed that one had not been written (most of my rejections have happened fairly quickly and on grounds of significance as opposed to correctness).  If I want the author to see my report even if the paper is rejected, do I need to specifically tell the editor this?  Or have I just happened to stumble across some unscrupulous authors?

I do not believe journals would withhold the reviews from an author, because they generally want to make the reasons for rejection as transparent as possible.

Most of the cases I have seen have fallen under the first scenario–the authors don't want to fix the paper, they just want to get it published somewhere. I once had the unfortunate experience of having to go through four versions of the same manuscript because the authors were refusing to provide a key plot to demonstrate the accuracy of their results. After they finally provided it (and showed the results were not accurate), I promptly rejected the manuscript. Unfortunately, the same manuscript was published in a much lower-profile journal a few months later, completely unchanged.


Letters of recommendation: what information to give to a recommender The head of our department is writing a letter of recommendation for me for MD-PhD (MSTP) programs. I have two graduate level classes with him. He is very busy and writes letters regularly for students. I want to make sure that he does not end up using a canned letter.

I will be sending him my C.V., Cover Letter, and letter of intention. What else should I provided? He knows me in a classroom setting--I have not done research in his lab.

You won't find a better or more complete answer to this question than the one given here, by Professor David E. Keyes.  Here is the key paragraph:

Likely reference writers (for instance, well-known professors of core courses) are sought out by many well-qualified candidates. To ensure that such a writer is well primed to execute your reference efficiently, you should create a self-contained packet containing all the information the author will need to dispatch the reference in one sitting: (1) contact information for the recipient of the letter, (2) a description of the position and application closing date, (3) your own application essays and cover letter, (4) a resume, (5) relevant transcripts and scores, and (6) an explanation of the niche of the writer! It is very useful, as a reference writer, to receive a reminder along the following lines: "Professor Keyes, your letter will be the one that comments most authoritatively about my analytical ability, my promptness in completing projects, and my reasons for wanting to pursue X next fall. Remember that you gave me an A– in partial differential equations two years ago and it was your suggestion that led to my summer at Los Alamos with Y." You should provide this packet in both hard and soft copy. Writers of lots of references maintain files that may be hard or soft, or both, and you should make it easy for those writers to locate your files quickly for subsequent updating and future requests.
Some faculty write many dozens of letters of reference during peak months, and they may even ask candidates for sample text to be incorporated into letters, to ensure that they capture their niches. You should not be flustered at such a request, and should not be modest in complying. You should be aware, though, that your words will not pass directly into the delivered product; they will be used simply to get the author's juices flowing following the formulaic paragraphs of the letter.


GRE scores per section and their importance for PhD admissions in CS/E.Engineering What scores are generally expected per section (AW/quantitative/verbal) to get my applications evaluated in top/good grad schools?
Also, would achieving even better scores be a "plus" or it won't matter at all/that much?

My top-10 CS department does not require GRE scores at all.

For applicants that send them in anyway, the only scores that provide useful information are low scores.  Anything below about the 50th percentile is a red flag.

You are aiming at the wrong target.  Top grad schools are looking for strong evidence of promise as an independent researcher.  Test scores do not provide that evidence.


Alphabetical Order for Authors in Computer Science I was wondering, in the field of Computer Science, if there is a convention for acknowledging that author ordering for an academic paper is by alphabetical order, not contribution.

I know that in CS, alphabetical ordering, isn't all that common, however due to a lack of internal consensus, alphabetical ordering would be preferred in my situation.

Even in fields outside of CS, is there a convention for perhaps indicating in a footnote that the author list is alphabetical and NOT by contribution?

EDIT: To elaborate a bit more, after examining the question posted here, our field would likely be considered 'computer systems' (rather than theoretical computer science) where it is stated that the first author is usually the team lead. However in our situation, as I said, we are having internal disagreement over which person would be considered 'leader', and I was wondering what the best way to indicate equal contribution, or perhaps use alphabetical ordering to avoid the issue all together. We weren't really expecting to submit our work for publication (we're undergraduates), so this all has been rather unexpected.

In theoretical CS, alphabetical order is the norm - see the relevant wikipedia entry.


Age limit rules for postdoc position in China I got a postdoc position at age 34 years in China. My documents are verified and I got the invitation letter. My employer applied for a work permit which is in process. I am waiting for that to apply for Z visa. But it is delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and travel ban. If it is delayed further I will be more than 35 years which is supposed to be maximum age limit for postdoc. Can I still get the position?

In general Chinese universities are rather ageist, and treat age restrictions very seriously. It is likely that you would not get the position due to your age. However, there are many workarounds you can discuss with your potential advisor, such as getting a position as a 研究员 or 副研究员 (like a staff researcher or staff scientist) that don't have age limits, but also might not have the federal government salary support that foreign postdocs are eligible for in China. You would have to discuss with your potential advisor to see if such an option is available to you.

Having said that, the pandemic changes the rules for everything, so there is a possibility that in this special circumstance an exception might be made, you'd have to discuss with your advisor and see how willing they would be to spend political capital to secure the exception for you.


What questions should I ask to find out originality of students’ work? As a TA, I should review undergraduate students’ works, containing reports and computer codes in order to find out whether plagiarism or cheating occurred or not. I tried to use online and offline plagiarism tools without success. Finally, I decided to ask them a couple of questions about their works.

I was wondering if anyone suggests a couple of questions which can help me to find out whether they did their project by themselves or borrowed from a “friend”. In addition, I would like to weight their knowledge. How can I do that?

UPDATE: The course is "computer programming".

Asking alot of questions can generally rack out the ones who did the projects themselves and ones who didn’t.

Questions can be just simple ones like “how did you this?” or you can ask further questions based on their replies, e.g., if they answer with “Using technique A”, you reply with, "Oh I see, how do you use technique A?” or “How does it work?”


The meaning of "paper" in the context of undergraduate students The word "paper" on this site seems to be extensively used to refer to serious scientific publications/articles by PhD students and other researchers.

Now I am coming across its use by students completing a diploma in legal executive studies — which is not even bachelor's degree level. Here are real examples:

I live in ... and will be continuing on with my Legal Exec papers from home, having completed two papers last year.
I have finished 3 papers and I hope to complete 3 papers this year.
Only 2 more papers towards completion!
I am hoping to complete my two final papers this semester (Business and  Estate Law).

Never having been a student in an English-speaking country before, I am now struggling to perceive what exactly those "papers" are. Can someone please explain? The examples above are from New Zealand.

In this New Zealand context, a paper is a course and the terms are used interchangeably, usually with one or other being the formal label at any given institution and the other in common use as well. In either case, it is a single class that can be enrolled in individually, with its own final grade, that can be credited towards a degree, diploma, or certificate.

For reference, we can see this guide from Victoria University of Wellington:

  Courses are blocks of work that are taught over one or sometimes two trimesters—they’re often referred to as ‘papers’ by other universities.

or this glossary from the University of Canterbury:

  Courses are 'classes' or 'papers' that involve blocks of lectures usually taught over one semester.

as well as the University of Waikato's Catalogue of Papers, which lists all the courses they offer, or the similar "Search for a paper" page from the University of Otago, and similar items for the other universities.

It does not refer to an exam or to a term paper. "Exam paper" does refer to the physical document given in an exam and the set of questions on it, but never "paper" alone. All of these terms are often used differently elsewhere.


Is it normal that a PhD supervisor requires a student to apply for a grant? I'm a 1st year computer science PhD student in Poland, who started about 6 months ago. I'm working on a nice project towards a publication. My supervisor recently made an ultimatum: either I will apply for a research grant or we stop working together. This came as a surprise and sadness to me, because in the beginning I had no idea that this would be a requirement.

I'm not keen on signing for a grant, because it's binding for a couple of years (if you abort a grant you need to give the money back), you need to have a plan, write reports, it's a lot of work to even write the proposal down (and it can also be not accepted) and the money to my pocket is almost nothing. Most of grant could be spent on computing resources and conferences. But I could pay for conferences even from my own pocket (I work part time to cover my costs). For computing, there are some resources our group has access to that would be sufficient for my research.

I was thinking for a couple of days about this situation. Is it normal that a supervisor would force me to apply for grants? Can he do that? Should I talk to somebody? I'm feeling down and lost. I'm close to giving up the whole PhD. I mean, I give my time for no money. I was hoping that at least I could get an access to the computing resources. He doesn't have time to meet in person, although I have ask several times before. We talk via email. Before PhD studies I moved to live closer to the university, to have more interactions, but that turned out to be futile.

So, first of all, in Europe the relation PhD sutudent–supervisor can be detached from the relation employee–employer.

While it is possible to obtain a PhD sitting on a different job all the time, I can only support the urge to move to a grant-funded position. You would have much more time for your research when compared to part-timing for money. I am speaking out of experience.

So, the first conclusion is: you probably need a grant.

Now, for application. Typical funding bodies I know, require the applicant to hold a PhD already. So, it's your supervisor, who needs to apply. Contrarily, a stipend can be granted for a student. I heavily suggest talking in person about this issue.

The second conclusion is: you need to clarify, what kind of funding it is and who would do most of the writing. Talk with your supervisor.

The general rule of thumb is: agree with your supervisor, as he/she has much more experience in the academic questions than you do. There are some common pitfalls and non-obvious issues. For example: where to publish, what kind of a position is better, etc.


What is research misconduct of Xuetao Cao about? Recently on social media, news broke that Xuetao Cao duplicated or manipulated images in more than 50 papers of his. These accusations were brought to the public by Elisabeth Bik and explained in great details in following article

using social media and pubpeer website they notice duplication in images.

as someone who finished MSc in Immunology I can't understand what is wrong with images, they look credible to me, although there might be some software that can tell difference. How is possible that so many figures got duplicated and no-one from peer reviewers noticed? What is this scientific misconduct about? If it is really one after all.

Without considering the actual case. A referee is not an investigator/detective.  This is why figures/tables/photographs might be composed or manipulated without being noticed at first.

It is right what you say: they look credible and likely make sense in the context of the work. Though, some entries look copied and pasted. This is a recurrent case. Sometimes the authors take a pace in which even ex-novo fabrication of data is time and energy consuming.

An example of how things can go is this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schön_scandal


How do you enforce handwriting standards for homework assignments as a TA? I am a TA who is helping to grade student homework assignments for an undergrad engineering course which involves a lot of mathematics. The homeworks all together count for miserly 5% and is only graded based on completeness. One of my biggest petpeeves is poor hand writing for written work. I don't exactly have good hand writing, but for things that are turned in or show other people (i.e. for communication purposes), I always ensure that the quality of work is top notch quality.

However, most students in my class have terrible handwriting to the point I cannot even decipher what they are trying to communicate. Wherever there is supposed to be a straight line, I see a curve, not even a well drawn curve. If students run out of space on their piece of paper, many resorts to cramming massive amount of calculation in the margins rather than starting a new page or even flipping the sheet over to the other side. Even worse is that most students write in pen, and when there seems to be an error, they have no qualm of scratching it out using a scribble. I am not a pen person so this is something I have difficulty in understanding. Homeworks are rarely stapled. Let's not even talk about the diagrams, I have no idea why they even bother drawing one. Most people just don't seem to care.

(a picture I found online just to give you an idea what it looks like, sometimes the entire page is crossed out because of some mistakes in the calculation)

I have been telling them to write neatly since homework 1. Yet this problem persists. The main problem is that the homework grades counts for so little, and there is nothing to enforce quality of homework. If a homework is completely done, even if the hand writing is so poor that I could not decipher exactly who handed in the assignment, I am still required to give full grade. I have talked to the professor who is running the course, and he basically gave me a "I don't want students whining over grades" sort of reply. I am powerless to change the policies of the course, and at maximum all I can do now is giving out recommendations to the students on expected, but not enforced, handwriting standards.

Is there anything I can do in my situation? I had hoped I could see a reflection of myself in this pool of students but I have yet to see that person which makes me a bit disappointed to be honest. Whether if these people go directly into the workforce, or remain in academia, clarity in communicating is very important and I fear if they do not change their habits quickly it could lead to some very negative consequences in their professional life.

Am I overreacting?

Should I tell them a white lie that I am going to give zeroes for unclear, poorly written homework but in actuality I will still give full grade for completeness?

My approach is simple- homework is submitted as a typed .pdf file, no exceptions.  Homework is submitted online through the course management system (Instructure's Canvas in our case), which enforces the required file extension.

Yes, this means that my students need to learn how to produce typed mathematical equations.  They're welcome to use LaTeX (probably the best choice in the long term), Google Docs (which has a pretty intuitive system for math formulas that's adequate for most purposes), MS Word (which has an awfully complicated and hard to use equation editor), Apple Pages, or whatever software they like, but they have to convert the output to pdf so that I don't have to deal with all of these different word processing software packages.


First time being in an applied math lab - what are some tips to overcome shyness? This will be my first semester in an applied math lab.  After spending a couple of years taking all theoretical math courses, essentially working in isolation the entire time, and finishing a thesis, essentially only interacting in person with my advisor, I will now be part of a group doing some experimental work for a semester.  We are expected to write journal-style papers (not too long, less than 10 pages), following a journal of the professor's choice.

I found this setting to be extremely uncomfortable.  I felt that I was the only one who had to ask things such as, "what is viscosity?."

What are some tips to overcome this feeling of holding myself back from having an active dialogue with my lab professor?  How did you guys do it, when you first started at a lab?  I feel utterly inept with interacting in a group setting.

The professor is super cool and very informal and speaks very intuitively, so as not to scare off the first-timers, I think.

Since you are asking about viscosity, there must be some kind of fluid dynamics in your lab. Schaum's Outline of Fluid Dynamics is quite useful as it has worked out problems.

If you have actively avoided all social situations, never asked a question in class, or even had lunch with a fellow student, then perhaps you need to investigate resources at your institution to help overcome your extreme shyness. This will be a significant problem for you in the future - regardless of whether you stay in academia - if you don't take care of it now. Don't wait until you get older.


What should I do as a reader if a paper misrepresented earlier papers? I was reading a paper from a reputable journal and found that the authors misrepresented earlier papers that they cited, by saying something like

  Theory X was developed in [A, B, and C], but the underlying assumption was not general enough, and therefore it is insufficient to address our problem, which warrants a more general approach.

The fact is that A, B, and C (which are well-known papers in the field) actually presented a general theory, which is applicable also to the problem considered in their paper. The rest of the paper sounds like an argument against something that was not there in the first place.

I think it is a serious misrepresentation if they did it intentionally. Otherwise, they should have been more familiar with the papers they cited. The fact that such misrepresentation slipped past the peer-reviewing stage also suggests that the review was questionable.

As a reader of the paper, what should I do if I find such misrepresentation?

In my case, the first author of the paper is someone I personally know.

In general, there is not much you can do. If a misrepresentation leads to erroneous results, one way is to write a "letter to the editor" straightening out the error. Such an approach does not seem right in your case since the error is to state that someone has not reached conclusions they really have. I do not mean to say that this is ok but it is harder to get a comment published when the problem, for example, does not affect future research by introducing errors. One also has to bear in mind that the error apparently escaped both reviewers and editors on the way to publication. It may also well be that the author actually see it the way they write it which means the misrepresentation is not intentional (as you seem to imply). So in the way I read the particular case, I cannot see an immediate way forward. If one writes about a problem where the conclusion you refer to is cited, it is of course possible to point out who was first and thereby contribute to setting the record straight.

So, if a misrepresentation leads to errors, it can usually be pointed out in a published letter. If the misrepresentation concerns a non-critical issue, it is still just as bad, but the possibility of publishing a clarification is much smaller. Now, clearly, these issues are on a sliding scale, so it may be difficult to see where a correction may be reasonable. In such cases, the editor of the journal where the paper was published should be able to provide some feedback on how to proceed.


How can one know if some of the content presented by a paper is protected by a patent? How can one know if some of the content (e.g., an algorithm) presented by a paper is protected by a patent?

Papers rarely mentioned that a patent has been filed for it.

Patent law varies a lot by place, of course. But patents are specifically not secret information. Nothing in US law, I'm pretty certain, would prevent anyone from talking about a patent or its contents. You can't implement it, of course, without a license, but words are free.

Don't confuse patent with copyright. The latter protects words, the former protects inventions. You can't operationalize the algorithm in a software patent, but some representation of the algorithm is actually part of the patent.

For that reason, you aren't abetting the breaking of a law by writing about it. Anyone who reads the patent can see the descriptions.

However, if you are actually building things then you can run afoul of patent law since it isn't words, then. You are implementing the "invention" described in the patent. This is why patent lawyers earn more than you or I do.

Depending on your location, that may be different.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_infringement


Why bother publishing papers in journals? Read this: Why publication in an academic journal matters

It says:

  It is through publication that the research, including its scientific
  and practical contributions, is disseminated to others in a particular
  field.

Ironically, how can you disseminate research when they put a high paywall right between you and the paper?

And in today's Internet world, can't anyone just publish anywhere?

There are a number of reasons to do so, never mind the existence of self-publishing on the internet.

Some of the reasons are institutional. If you don't publish in reputable journals you probably don't have any future in most of academia. You will be judged, at least in part, and largely in some situations, on your journal/conference output. Some of this is just inertia, of course, but much of it is really valid.

Your answer to another question on this site expressed skepticism of the review process. I think that view was too dim. People, even if unpaid, consider it their professional duty to contribute to the community by making a good faith effort in reviewing. Journals normally use several reviewers for a given paper so that the occasional poor job can be discarded. One person reviews papers so that other people will be willing to review their own papers fairly and honestly. The review process does two things. First it helps authors improve papers even if they are already pretty good. Second, it keeps junk papers out of the mainstream.

So, authors and the community at large get a benefit from the publishing process that wouldn't be in place if everyone just self published.

But there are other reasons as well, some of them going back to fair and independent review. In a world in which there were no gatekeepers on publishing (and there really aren't now - since you can publish on your own) every reader of every paper has to work hard to validate everything that is said. The effect of this varies by field.

In mathematics it is fairly easy to write a paper that doesn't hold up, but "sounds good" due to the use of specialized mathematical symbols and terms (jargon). If I find a paper online, I have to work pretty hard to determine if it has value. If I find it in a good journal, I have some assurance that others, with skills like mine, have already done this and have found it worthy. So my task is eased and I can be more productive myself. Errors occur, of course, so mathematical skeptics are welcome.

In some other fields, especially those relating to health and public policy, a lot of garbage gets published in the "popular" press. The anti-vax community, for example, has caused a lot of harm. Without the vetting process that occurs in reputable publishing, where people independent of the author have an important judgement, the garbage will start to obscure the gems. Enough of that happens already.

And comments on self published work are just about worthless as a judgement. The reader of a bunch of comments has few ways to judge the veracity of the commenter. And bots and trolls are rampant in flooding the space with mis-information on some topics.

A third issue is that if you only publish yourself, then it will be hard to find you. And even harder for people to make a judgement about whether what you say has value or not. An internet search on most topics will turn up a lot of things, of course, but it is, again difficult to sort the treasures from the trash. If I already know and respect some individual, then it is easy to find their work online. But not so easy to find the work of a recent PhD who doesn't yet have a body of respected work (probably in journals and conference proceedings).

Publishing is a public good. It isn't paid for with public money, however. This is both good and bad. Having it be a private undertaking keeps the possibility of governmental interference (censorship) out of the game, but also requires that the money come from other sources: subscriptions, author fees, etc.

So, publishing is an effective and sufficiently efficient (for now) way to make one's work known to a community who might need to see it and may use it to advance the state of the art.

And, for most researchers the "high paywall" doesn't really exist. Many people use grant funds to obtain the materials they need, as well as to pay page fees required by some journals. But even a poor student can obtain free access to nearly everything just by going to a decent library and asking for a copy. You don't even need to go physically anymore. An email to the librarian may be enough if you are an enrolled student. The libraries pay the fees if needed, sometimes using public funds. This avenue may be open to nearly everyone, actually, provided that you have access to a library that, itself, has academic connections.


Publish few papers on good or many papers in worse conferences - reputation-wise? A similar question was asked in Having a lot of papers published in unimportant conferences VS very few in good ones?, but my question is only about reputation, so the answers there do not fit my question.

Background

I am working in the field of Machine Learning and for my PhD I need to publish about 3 papers. Before I started my PhD I have been working in industry and am still working in industry half-time (just to earn money, it has nothing to do with my PhD). I do not plan to stay in academia after I finished, but plan to still have connections with academia/research and plan to continue to publish. For my PhD I am only allowed to publish on A1 or A2 conferences (according to Qualis). So for example "SIGKDD" or "NIPS" would be a A1 conference and "ECML-PKDD" or "SIAM DM" is an A2 conference - so they all need to be pretty good, I guess.

Main Question

I would like to know whether what is better regarding reputation: Publish fewer papers on better conferences or more paper on worse conferences. How about better/worse journals?

If you can, please answer for a) the academic world, and b) for the business world.

Clarification

I suspect that publishing on a conference that is worse than A2 is a waste of research time and one might be better of just putting a bit more extra work into the research to publish in at least on a A2 conference.

Additional Question 1: Is that assumption right?

I have only submitted to A2 conferences, so, I do not know how much more work it would be to be able to be accepted to an A1 conference. I guess in both cases you need to do a similar amount of base research work and then some more work which depends on whether it will be A1 or A2 worthy. I would suspect that one might be able to publish twice as many papers (as in "would need half as much research and writing time") if one would only submit to A2 if one would only submit to A1 conferences.

Additional Question 2: Does this rough estimate make sense?

Regarding conference vs journal: We publish mostly in conferences because of the shorter review process. However, after my PhD this might be not so important to me, but instead it will be more important how much work I have to put into it in total (not the length of time from start to completion). It takes me quite a lot of work to shorten all my texts so it fits the page limit. Also, a lot of the negative feedback I get from reviewers is that something was missing, that I had to leave out, because of the page limit. Rejections, of course, cost work (because you need to rewrite text for a different format - we are not counting time I need to additionally spend, because my research not good enough, of course). I think that it might actually less work to write for a journal because of these two points, but I am not sure.

Additional Question 3: Does this makes sense?

I'll suggest that trying to game this out in advance is a mistake. You will miss opportunities and focus on the wrong thing. Do the research. Write the papers and only then decide on an appropriate venue. If you think that a bit of extra effort on a certain paper might help it be accepted in a better conference, then do that. But otherwise send it to an appropriate conference. If you wait a year, trying to improve it, you will get scooped in a hot field.

You don't want to be the person that only ever did one significant thing and was otherwise unknown in academia.

First the research, then the papers, then decisions. That is different from not  having a goal, of course.

But being present in lots of conferences also lets you build your circle of collaborators.


How to create reference list with maths in title on Mendeley for Latex I have been using Mendeley for a while to create my bibtex files and use them in Latex. However, recently I came accross some papers such as this one, which have math symbols in their titles and when I try to create an entry in Mendeley and use it in my Latex document the title gets messed up. How can I create a Bibtex file containing papers with math symbols in their titles via Mendeley?

I've tried to type the code on the title section on Mendeley but it doesn't seem to work. Thanks!

Mendeley defaults seem to be to automatically escape LaTeX special characters, which can mean math mode text gets mangled. In my version (1.19.4), this can be changed by going: Mendeley Desktop -> Preferences -> BibTeX and unchecking Escape LaTeX special characters (#{}%& etc.)
Edit: once you've done that you can include math mode markup in your titles, as suggested by @Federico Poloni, e.g. {$2^2$}, and it will not be mangled by Mendeley.
This will mean that all special characters will not be escaped, so you'll have to do it by hand otherwise your compile will likely throw errors. For instance titles including & will need to escaped manually (e.g. \&) in Mendeley.


Saying that you will do something in the near future in CV and statement of purpose when applying for grad school. I am applying for PhD and In my statement of purpose I said that I have submitted a paper for a certain conference and that I will submit another one to a top conference once I have completed doing certain measurements.

I also said that by the end of my degree I will have done this and that. I mention these things in my CV too which I will submit to that school.

Is it OK to say such things ? These are near future plans and show how I progress and what I plan to do and I believe that they will improve my chances of getting admissions. How will professors and admission committees look at such a CV ?

In CVs, it's not unusual to write "planned" or "expected" next to certain lines on a CV that are not yet realized but where there is a very strong reason to expect the event will happen. Although I don't think there's a hard and fast rule about when you should or shouldn't do this, the most important thing is to be honest and unambiguously clear about what stage and state a particular piece of work is. If things fall through and something doesn't happen according to the plan, nobody who read your CV before should feel like you misled them.

The most common example of this is a listing of a degree with an expected or planned date that it will be awarded. This is common enough that I might even find it unusual surprising if a student in a degree program did not list a degree in this way. Because less of this is within an author's control, I'd be very hesitant to list dates next to any unpublished papers on my CV.

That said, it's not uncommon to list papers or projects at different points along a process — especially for more junior scholars who don't have a lot on their CV otherwise. For example, it's normal to list papers as: in preparation (i.e., unfinished), under review (i.e., submitted but without a decision), in press (i.e., accepted but unpublished), etc. Again, managing expectations is key here. On my CV, I list working papers in a section that is entirely separate from my list of publications.

In terms of your personal statement, I think you absolutely should list papers in preparation and make it clear where and when you plan to submit them. Again, just explain things clearly in a way that will honestly communicate the state of your research.


GRE score submission I wish to apply for M.Sc studies in Computer Science to 3-4 universities. Only one of them requires the applicants to take a GRE (general test), and my question is as follows: is it a good idea to send the scores to the rest of the universities even though they do not specifically require it? Will it affect my chances?

FYI: I did one practice test and didn't get a good Quantitative Score (only 145), although I took the test without preparation, without paper (soon after taking the practice test I've read that is allowed scraps of paper) and after 4-5 years after finishing undergraduate studies.  I think with 2 months or so of moderate studies I can get about 160. What do you think I should do?

A good GRE score can help your chances at admissions; a poor GRE score does not do anything to help your chances, but they can hurt you, particularly if you're already a somewhat "borderline" case.

However, if a school does not require GRE scores, then I would only submit them if they are strong (well above average). Otherwise, you're introducing at best a neutral "fact" into the conversation.


How to change path from field of IT to field of Space sciences? I'm now at the final (4th) year of completing my bachelor's degree in IT. Four years back I haven't had any idea about what I'm choosing and in my country there were no space related degrees, therefore I enrolled in an IT degree. But I always had the passion for space and now I really need to chase that dream. I thought of applying for Masters' in space related programs but I'm afraid I'm lacking that university level engineering basis. And I don't know if I can afford to enroll another four year degree from scratch in a space related program, possibly in United States/Canada.

It's not that I don't love the field of IT, I'm having good grades and all but my passion lies in space industry. I had to make a wrong choice four years back and I want to make it right. The problem is affording to start from scratch. I'm 23 years old now.
So how can I still do this?
Thanks everyone for taking your time to read and reply :)

Getting in any neighboring field is not always a matter of basic education. Space agencies indeed need engineers, but they for sure have a huge demand on IT specialists as any modern tech company. But you need to first search what kind of ITs are engaged in space industry (automation, simulation, modeling, integrated systems etc.). Then if you would like to do a master degree, choose one which will give you necessary skills. Furthermore, you can try searching internship/practice in a space-related company during your study. It is very probable they would hire you, if you did well.
Having an IT degree gives you pretty a lot of perspectives, but nowadays it is really about skills and what you learn by yourself. Google, visit career days, make personal contacts, learn and prosper.


Is it okay to add a lecturer on LinkedIn I'm a graduate student and I recently attended a course by a very inspiring lecturer (associate professor).
Do you think it is okay add him on LinkedIn? Do I push him into an uncomfortable situation by doing that?

I do not believe an educator would feel they were put in an uncomfortable position by a student sending a LinkedIn request.

You should not, however, expect that the lecturer will accept your request. Some lecturers like to be very close to their students. Personally, I like to keep a professional distance from my students, even after they graduate. Of course, if a student happens to share a common area of research as me and wants to work together, that would be different but I certainly do not accept many requests to "connect" to students, even after they graduate.

What you should avoid is sending multiple requests or following up in person "Hey, did you get my 'quest? It would be super-kul if you'd add me." If they want to connect they will. If not, they will just consider you a student who is interested in having a closer connection than they want and they will ignore it.

Either way, I do not believe any lecturer would be made uncomfortable by your gesture of interest.


How do I make sure I get strong recommendation letters for faculty positions? I would like to ask Prof. X, a distinguished scholar at a top school, for a recommendation for a tenure-track academic position. However, I only want him to write me a recommendation if he is going to write a good one. If he will write me a mediocre or just insufficiently positive recommendation, I would prefer to have someone less famous than X but more positive about me write the letter.

If I simply ask Prof. X for a letter, there is the possibility that he will agree and  then  write something that is not as positive as I would like. I want to avoid this.

One way to solve this problem would be for me to ask Prof. X if he is sufficiently familiar with my work to write me a strong letter. If he does not wish to write me a strong letter, he can simply reply that he is not that familiar with the whole body of my work. By giving him an easy way to decline, this makes it more likely that he will write a strong letter if he accepts.

Unfortunately, in this case this little strategem will not work, as Prof. X and I have been working on the same questions for years, so there is little question of him being unfamiliar with my results.

Another possible solution would be to have someone else approach him to ask whether he can write me a strong letter. Sadly I have no one who could do this for me.

What would be a good strategy to use in this situation? More broadly, what are some general tips for asking people for recommendation letters which ensure you only get strong letters, besides the two I mentioned above?

Edited: Maybe I should mention a couple of other strategies that crossed my mind:

A. Mention to Prof. X that I'm going on the job market in unrelated conversation and see if he volunteers to write me a letter.

B. Ask him for a letter in an email and see how he responds. If he responds enthusiastically, e.g., "It would be my pleasure to write you a letter..." or "I'd be extremely happy to..." this is good. If he only responds neutrally, e.g., "Sure, I can write you a letter" then simply neglect to follow up with him and ask someone else for the letter.

Both of these strategies are decent, but they are not perfect. They might work, but they also might cause me to miss out on a good letter from a well-known scholar. Anyway, I'd welcome thoughts, corrections, additional strategies to use that I haven't thought of, etc.

One way to solve this problem would be for me to ask Prof. X if he is sufficiently familiar with my work to write me a strong letter.

No.  Do not play mind games.  The best approach is to be completely straightforward.

If you already know that he is familiar with your work, suggesting otherwise is dishonest and potentially insulting.  What you really want to know is whether he's impressed by your work.  The only way to find out is to ask directly.  If possible, ask in person, preferably over coffee/beer or in some other informal neutral setting; conferences are really good for this.  Be straightforward about your desire for a strong letter, but use the opportunity to develop a stronger collaborative relationship.  Ask for honest feedback on your work.  Ask about future opportunities to work together.  Ask where he thinks you should apply.  Be sincere in asking whether he can write you a strong recommendation letter; he knows what that means.  Be sincerely ready to be turned down.  Listen.

If you're not comfortable asking him directly, or you think that he might not be comfortable answering you, ask your advisor to informally sound out Prof X's opinion of you first.  (Ideally, your advisor already has some idea what Prof X will say.)  But the actual letter request must come directly from you.

  If he only responds neutrally, e.g., "Sure, I can write you a letter" then simply neglect to follow up with him and ask someone else for the letter.

No.  Do not play mind games.

First, unless you already know Prof X extremely well, you should not attempt to read his mind through email.  "Sure, I can write you a letter" says nothing about his level of enthusiasm.  If his response to your request makes you hesitant to use his letter, ask him again.  Second, if you decide, for whatever reason, that you don't need his letter after you've asked for it, you must tell him directly, so that he doesn't waste his time.


Do most professors in North America eventually have to give up directly doing research for a purely managerial role in research? I enjoy doing research directly and this was my motivation for seeking an academic job in the first place. I am aware that many professors at some point cease directly doing research and transition to purely guiding the research of postdocs and graduate students. My PhD advisor, for instance, did not set up and run simulations himself during most of the time that I worked for him. However, I had the impression that this was due to his personal tastes (I saw him as valuing prestige and advancement rather than gaining joy from science itself, which might have been unfair). However, I just spoke to a recently tenured professor in my field who seemed to have a lot of passion for the details of the work (as I do) and was quite shocked when he told me that he hadn't run a simulation himself in several years.

As a tenure-track professor at a North American university with a few years of experience, I am quite aware that the demands of writing proposals, teaching and administrative tasks make it difficult to spend a lot of time "with your hands in the dirt" directly performing research tasks. However, I would like to know: Is it common for successful professors to still directly do significant research themselves? Must I give up all day-to-day research tasks to be a successful professor? Is moving toward a purely managerial role inevitable? Will I grow to gain more satisfaction from directing my students in research than doing it myself? Do many professors miss directly performing research, but feel that they can no longer do it due to other demands?

In my field, doing research directly involves setting up and running simulations, as well as writing code to analyze the results. However, I'd like to also hear about people's experience in experimental fields, where the analog of running simulations would be going into the lab and directly running samples on laboratory equipment.

The following thread covers the reasons why professors don't spend a majority of their time directly doing research, but I'd like to know if successful professors can spend some of their time directly doing research or how they feel about no longer being immersed in the details of their research.

Why professors spend most of their time to write proposals than doing research?

Only give up research if you can't do anything your students can't. Until then, if you continue to do research, you'll do things your students can't.


Is it bad to update a job application after the due date? I am graduating from a math PhD program next May, so I am on the job market now. I have already submitted some applications (via mathjobs.org). But most applications are due in the next week or so and I have been working on my research statement quite a lot. Now I've made many changes since the version that I submitted.

So my question is: would it be bad to upload a new version of my research statement to jobs that I already applied to and whose first deadline has past?
Most job ads say that applications submitted before the first deadline will receive full consideration. I don't want to risk begin omitted from that group by updating my application.

Thanks for any replies or comments!

It's not "bad" to update your application after the deadline, but based on all the committees I've been on, the odds are low that your revised version will be looked at. What most of us do is download the full set of applications shortly after the deadline, and then start to read them. We don't go back and look to see if the applications have changed, and even if we wanted to spend time doing this, I don't think it would be fair to all applicants. (And please don't email that your application has changed, unless it's something amazingly important, like your recent Nobel prize!) All that said, it won't hurt anything to update your application, but your time is likely better spent doing other things.


Is it appropriate to e-mail a researcher asking about progress on a follow-up paper? Recently, I saw an online presentation by a researcher and professor regarding a series of recently published papers. At the end, she mentioned she was working on a follow-up paper, regarding such and such... I have checked for it, and it has still not been published.

Perhaps it was a dead-end, and abandoned. Would it be appropriate to ask the professor about the progess made, and whether it has been abandoned, or when it will be published?

Certainly this is appropriate, especially if you indicate who you are and why you are interested. Researchers are interested in spreading their results far and wide to get citations.

The worst that can happen is that the research is not yet quite publication-ready, and the author prefers not to share it yet, to avoid academic claim-jumping. If so, you may get exactly this explanation, or no answer at all.

The best, conversely, would be that this could actually lead to a fruitful discussion and/or even collaboration.