Datasets:

ola13

/

small-roots_en

like 0

Q: How does a suspended student deal with an unprofessional university counselor? I am a suspended student and I have been getting counseling for three months. During those three months, I have noticed extremely unprofessional behavior from my counselor. When I started counseling, he was late each time. The first time he was late 10 minutes, the next 20 minutes and the third time 30 minutes. Last week I had a counseling appointment and I drove 35 minutes to get on campus only to find out that the counselor was absent. He didn't email me or tell me not to come, nothing. After my suspension period ends, the counselor has to decide whether I am fit to come back to the university or not, and many times I get literally threatened with not coming back - if for example I do this or that behavior. I literally get told "then, you're not coming back to the university". Often, I see the counselor is eating while with me and he has no respect for the appointments for other students as well. Phone calls aren't answered. Emails aren't often answered except some few after three or four days. There was couple of times when our counseling session was about literally 5 minutes. I came in, he asked me what I did in the week, then he said "Okay, I'll see you next time". And, he went on to work on the computer. Additional Information: My counseling session was in the morning around 9:00AM every Tuesday. Suddenly, once day, without even taking my opinion, he says that someone else took the appointment at 9:00AM. He switched my appointment till 5:00PM. I objected. He said he had an emergency and it was more important than me. He said he had no other time than this time, at 5:00PM. I found out later that the person who took my appoitment was a customer for him, who is not a student. What should I do? On one side, I can't ditch the counselor since that would jeopardize my coming to the university. On another side, I do not want a counselor to help me deal with another counselor. For those who are asking, my suspension is behavioral suspension and not academic suspension, and the counselor stated that I suffer from depression based on tests that I took. A: I suggest getting another counselor, not to help you cope with the first one, but to help you with the issues that got you suspended in the first place. The combination of counselor and gatekeeper for your return to the university seems to me to be an inherent problem. It would be difficult to be really frank with the gatekeeper. A: To be completely honest, the most productive tip you can likely get in this situation is to, well, suck it up. On the one hand, you say that the counselor is ultimately responsible for deciding whether you can go back or remain suspended. On the other hand, while his behavior is certainly annoying and unprofessional, is it really damaging enough to you that you would want to get into a fight with him about it that can very easily end with you remaining suspended? Is the counselor's unprofessional behavior really a hill that you wish to (academically) die on? Considering these two points, it seems to me that the rational answer to would be to hold still and wait until your suspension is over, and then being happy to (presumably) never having to deal with the obnoxious counselor again. A: His behaviour does seem to be unprofessional. However, like some of the other answers, I would advise you to just keep your head down. Why? If you are on suspension, you must have done something wrong. Therefore, whatever you say now - especially if it is criticising an university employee's work ethic - will have, at best, very little value to whomever you talk to. At worst, this might work against you ("This student even has trouble getting along with his counselor"). Again, I'm not saying you are wrong but with your current status, it is more likely than someone with authority will side with a fellow university employee than a suspended student.

Q: Is it ethical/ correct to cite a confidential document/ paper (under NDA)? Each paper should be able to provide enough evidence that its claims are correct. Nowadays, where the number of joint industry-university projects grows exponentially, many confidential documents produced by private companies become available to researchers in academia under Non Disclosure Agreements (NDA). My question is the following: is it ethical to cite a confidential work in a scientific paper and use it to make some statements, while the rest of the scientific community cannot evaluate the accuracy of the claims in that source? In my personal opinion, this type of reference should be prohibited, since it hinders the progress of science, but I would be glad to hear other opinions on this topic and especially how they believe that such a case should be treated. A: If the information you want to disclose is contained in a document that is covered under a non-disclosure agreement with the industry partner, you will need to get their written permission to disclose the content that you're referencing at the very least. If I were reviewing your article, and this reference were key, and the company had never published this document, I would be inclined to make negative comments in my review about the lack of publication of a key reference which might lead to the rejection of your article. You might have to work hard to convince your industry partner to either publish the information from the confidential document in a separate, smaller format, or to publish the confidential document in its entirety in order to get your article published. Either way, if you rely on NDA materials, you still have to cite them. It'll be best for your publication chances if the company discloses this information itself before you try to publish. Otherwise, even submitting your work to a journal or conference will require permission from the company since submission will count as disclosure. A: What's the alternative? To not cite the source, and fail to credit it when you've built on it? To not publish your own paper since you've built on confidential work, thereby hindering the progress of science? (Assuming your work would have furthered the progress of science, of course.) When you cite confidential sources with enough information, other researchers can at least ask the source about the claims you have made based on it. This seems better (ethically) than any of the alternatives mentioned above. If there's also a non-confidential source that supports your claim you can cite that, but that isn't always an option. A: I think the first step in this situation is for someone from the research project to speak to the company to see if there's a way to publish part of the data with their consent. Here's why: Mary from Acme company wants to work with Local University. Mary knows that some of the information he gives Local will be confidential, so she asks the legal department what to do. Legal doesn't know (or care) much about the project, so they send Mary a standard NDA. Without giving it any more though, Mary asks Local to sign it. However, there may be a way to publish the information in some form that would satisfy Acme, Mary, and the legal department. For example, suppose Acme is a telecomms company, and you are studying their mobile network. Acme doesn't want the public to know where all their network equipment is, the traffic patterns on their network, or the network failures they've had. However, if you topologically transform the network diagram so that no one can tell where the real network was, and don't mention Acme in the paper, they may be fine with that. Or maybe Acme is a hospital that shared patient records with you for research. Naturally they are concerned about patient confidentiality. But perhaps the data can be anonymised (removing names, addresses, etc.) to Acme's satisfaction. So depending on your relationship with Mary and Acme, it may be no harm to ask if there's a way to publish. If you've done good research for Mary, she may be willing to explain the situation to her legal department and get approval for the publication.

Q: Alma mater (USA) refuses to remove my name from public search The professor of a US university where I graduated from with a master's degree maintains a website that he makes available for public search. He lists students that attended one of his courses, including the groups they were in and the topics they chose for presentation. When someone does a public search with my name using google or yahoo, this information comes up. This has been published for many years and I recently requested the IT department and the professor to block my name from public search. I do not provide such information myself online and it is more than annoying for me that this information is available on the internet. So far, the university has refused to remove my name. Which department of a university handles complaints of such a nature? Is there any law that entitles me to get a removal? Do I need to hire a lawyer for such a silly issue? What course of action do you recommend? A: In the United States, educational records - including the fact of your enrollment in this particular course - are protected by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). FERPA prohibits disclosure of personally identifiable information from education records without the student's consent (except for directory information, which class enrollment is not - and you also have the right to limit disclosure of directory information, on request). You can contact the professor and insist that he remove your information from his site, as he is illegally disclosing course enrollment without your consent. You can also find out who fields FERPA complaints and questions at that university (typically the registrar's office) and ask them for help in limiting disclosure of your education records. If this doesn't help, you may file a FERPA complaint here.

Q: Citing newspaper articles (primary vs secondary? no references) I have come across a few infamous newspaper articles and I'd like to cite them to support some of my ideas and to take a few thoughts from them. However, I cannot seem to distinguish whether such articles are primary or secondary. What worsens things further is the fact that the authors do not cite their words and, usually, reference lists do not exist. Do I treat a newspaper article like a primary source and cite it as such? If not, how can I track back the information given the fact that there are no references? A: Whether a newspaper article is good to cite or not depends on the purpose for which you are citing it. If you are writing about a factual topic, then newspaper articles are highly unreliable secondary sources, with a well-known tendency to be blatantly incorrect. If you are writing about newspaper articles, however, then the newspaper is a primary source and can be cited directly. So what should you do if you find a really juicy fact in a newspaper article with no reference? The same thing that you do if you hear something with no reference anywhere else: spend some quality time searching the literature and other sources to see if you can track down an actually reliable reference. And if you can't find one? Then you should reluctantly conclude that this "fact" is probably made up, whether intenationally or by accident.

Q: “Areas” vs. “Themes” in the classification of a university’s topics I am applying for a university, and on their website they have divided topics in “Areas” and “Themes”. For example, Areas contains Information Systems and Computer Science and Themes contains Big Data and Cybersecurity. As the heading says, what is the difference between areas and themes in this context? In my opinion, there is a great many that overlaps making the margins fuzzy between the terms. A: Many departments will organize themselves internally in multiple various different ways, base on how they've organized their program. For example, where I went the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department was organized in at least the following (partially independent) ways: Three different degree tracks (EE, CS, and EECS): which one you chose dictated your graduation requirements. Seven focus areas (devices, signal processing, electrodynamics, AI, algorithms, systems, biomedical): these were used in organizing graduation requirements. Several major "laboratories" comprising up to 100 faculty or more, which were primarily EECS but also overlapped with other departments: these were the primary organizations of research and graduate life (beyond one's own supervisor, of course) A number of "themes" within the focus areas, that were used for determining aspects of Ph.D. qualification. Other departments are likely to have similar degrees of intricacy, as the result of the evolution of complex negotiations between different people and organizations over many decades. Moreover, they are likely to use the same words differently, because there are only so many ways to say things like "area" and "theme" and lots of different odd organizational specifics that one might be mapping them to. In your own case, it sounds like the "areas" are more durable aspects of study, where the "themes" are current hot topics. The only way to know for certain what they mean to that organization, however, is to read the university's documentation online (if they are well organized) or to contact the people there directly.

Q: How should I address a potential FERPA violation by a professor? In the United States, federal law prohibits professors from releasing any student's grades to any party other than the student and any party whom the student authorizes to receive the grades. One of my professors appears to be violating this law by uploading each student's lab grades in one file, which is accessible to anyone who is enrolled in the class. Here is my proposed plan of action: Ask the professor - in private - to post the grades using the online management system the professor already uses for other things. If the professor doesn't fix this privacy violation, inform the professor that the method by which he/she post grades is a violation of federal law. As a last resort, contact the department dean. A: Go with option number 1. See what happens. 1) Ask the professor - in private - If you're just worried about your grade being posted, may be you can ask him to at least remove your grade from there and leave the rest for the students that want to know their grades as soon as possible. Either that, or may be he could just post people's student ids next to each grade. Or assign a random id himself once, and use that id to communicate future grade reports. Do note that some online management systems are not all that user-friendly, especially compared to an excel spreadsheet. So do not mandate the way he should solve the problem, mention the problem, and discuss the kind of solutions that may be acceptable to you. Also note that some grades only affect a tiny percentage of the entire course grade. So that is why some Professors are less worried about the privacy implications of releasing those grades publicly. And yes, option 2 and 3 would work too, if option 1 doesn't work, but hopefully you won't need to escalate. As you can see from this Supreme Court decision regarding peer-grading, FERPA is not as absolute as you might believe. Furthermore, very few students would have the motivation or the tenacity to pursue this issue in a court of law.

Q: NIH F31 sponsor has not graduated students or post-docs I am currently applying for an NIH F31 (PA 14-147). The application instructions, my university's instructions, and literally everyone I've talked to about this has advised that my sponsor needs to have a record of mentoring and graduating students, or else I need a more experienced co-sponsor. I am my advisor's first student, and none of the post-docs have finished, so effectively my sponsor has no faculty record of successful mentorship. I have gently brought this up to my advisor, but he seems to think a co-sponsor is unnecessary. How big of a hit to my review score is it if my sponsor has no record of faculty-level mentorship? Is this a deal breaker, and is it even worth applying without a more experienced co-sponsor? I would appreciate advise from people who have personally sat on review committees for this or other mentored NIH grants (even post-doc level), but any informed opinions are appreciated. A: I think the NIH sums it up well in their FAQs Q20: My sponsor has little or no experience training postdocs. How should s/he address that situation when s/he writes my training plan? A: Your sponsor should consider asking a more experienced faculty colleague to serve as a co-sponsor. S/he should provide a detailed, well-thought-out training plan, in which the roles of sponsor and co-sponsor are clearly delineated. In addition, a sponsor who has not previously trained postdocs should describe any other training experience that might be relevant, e.g., supervision of graduate students or mentoring of a collaborator's postdocs. The NIH policy also says: Sponsor(s), Collaborator(s), and Consultant(s). Are the sponsor(s) research qualifications (including successful competition for research support) and track record of mentoring appropriate for the proposed fellowship? While the exact "penalty" to your score is not stated, the fellowships are competitive enough that any hit will be enough to make you unsuccessful.

Q: Motivation to write the dreaded dissertation Ok... so I have hated graduate school since day one but have slogged through because I couldn't find anything else to do (I have applied for hundreds of jobs as an escape route with no success). It has been an enormous amount of ungratifying work, especially because I am not interested in the subject I am studying and am not interested in the obtuse contributions of the study. But I am only a dissertation away from completing my PhD and being finished with my poor decision, but I am having enormous difficulty finding motivation to write it. I sit down every day and nothing comes out. I can't find the energy to read any more boring articles I need to cite or find the energy to write a complete sentence. Every time I start I find an excuse to distract myself and I don't know how to find external motivation since I lack internal motivation. Exacerbating my lack of motivation is that I am skeptical that this degree will lead to employment (if I would want it in this field of study anyway): as I haven't been interested in my subject I haven't made the connections and done all of the networking I think is necessary to get a job with this degree, so I feel it is pretty useless to finish because I will likely have to reinvent myself after I am finished anyway. But leaving without a degree seems wrong somehow, given all this wasted effort (aren't we all subject to the sunk cost fallacy?). Any ideas on how to find the final burst of energy to finally finish? I should add, I have already written 3 chapters and am about half through the fourth. I only need to finish the fourth, revise the 3 earlier and then write an intro and a conclusion. Plus I will need to find the energy to defend something I don't care about to my committee and the public before I can call it over. But even after all of this work it seems impossible to find the energy to write another sentence. Update: I wanted to thank those who chimed in and offered me kind and sincere advice. Thank you for taking time to help me, a stranger, with my life's problems. I think your suggestions were solid, practical and generally useful. I have been thinking about your advice for the month since I first posted this, and I unfortunately have to admit these strategies haven't helped me find any motivation to make much progress on my dissertation. I thought I would respond to a few of your suggestions and see if anyone has additional thoughts or considerations. There was the suggestion that I should go visit a counselor and to be screened for depression. I had been seeing a counselor using the services provided by the school. It is a very nice service and I have had access to what I felt was a high quality counselor, they screened me for depression and gave me the all clear. I am not depressed, although disappointed at my decisions (or lack thereof). I like the suggestion to talk about my work with an interested person but do not think that my work is interesting in anyway, and have no pretense that the work is contributing to make the world a better place. I don't feel the need for the work to make a difference is required to get it done and think trying to convince someone it is interesting is wasting my time and theirs. I think Paul Garrett hit a nerve with his comment that is at the root of my conundrum. I know continuing with something that I don't care about is a waste of my time, but the social (personal) obligation looms large and quitting this close to the finish line seems so foolish (and ire provoking for my program and committee). But despite these social pressures finding motivation to complete the daily tasks has eluded me. I know I need to finish, but the only motivation I have is to Be Finished and that isn't helping me with the daily drudgery. To Wolfgangs comment: part of me fully agrees with you (that I should finish because of the unknown channels that may open if I complete the phd) but part of me feels the same logic applies if I quit. I will never know the future and perhaps not completing will open up doors that wouldn't exist had I completed... and anyway because of the lack of success in getting job interviews my career counselor has suggested that I leave the phd off my resume for the jobs that are outside of academia (which are the bulk of the positions I have been applying for and don't require the phd as a qualification). This is again another factor that has sapped at my motivation to complete the degree. And this brings up a side question of how I am supposed to spin the 4 years as a phd student on my resume without saying I was a phd student (but I will ask that as a separate question at a later date). Given my current degree is so poorly valued by the market (or maybe it is myself) I have set a deadline of 400 job applications and if I haven't gotten an offer by that time I am going to reinvent myself (such as a job in customer service, which will have the benefit of paying more than my graduate stipend). I am at 290 now, and I only got one interview. It went well but they cancelled the position (the grant fell through). My tails of the job market is winding away from the original question of this post and I need to return to that. And I need to comment on the solid advice from Peter. I think is is exceptional advice and I should implement all of these practices into my life, but unfortunately I don't feel this advice pertains to this situation as doesn't help me with the core underlying issue: that I lack any interest in my work and do not have any internal motivation that comes from connection and passion about the research I am doing. All of these practices, in my estimation, would help one to train and develop ones internal motivation, but I have little internal motivation (only guilt) for completing my work, and think it is late in the game to try and find personal connection and interest in the work and think that external pressure should be good enough (although it hasn't been enough). I am very happy for the people in this world who have developed a personal connection to their work and to their jobs, but I don't think that everyone is so lucky as to be personally connected to their work. I think it would be wonderful if it were the case but Peter's reason #3 is an example of the disconnect between ideal and reality. Many people in this unequal world would be ecstatic to be earning $10K a year for the chance to write papers and do research for a professor, but no amount of counting my blessings (and I am very thankful I was born into a world that allowed for the luxury of higher education) gives me the belief that the dissertation is anything but wasted time and paper. I may have felt that way in a different project, program, school, country, etc. But that isn't my luck to care about my work. And now I am not looking to find internal motivation to channel my passions to create my life's master work but to finish writing something that is good enough to pass the defense and can be forgotten about on the back-shelves of the library. I haven't been interested in what I have studied since day one and now is beyond the time to expect it to get interesting now. Of course I regret I chose this field of study and my decision to continue but I am too deep now not finish. Again, I don't want anyone to think I didn't appreciate their advice. I do, and think it applies to other parts of my life that I am proud of and want to develop. I am very thankful you took your valuable time to console a stranger. So I am elaborating my post today hoping I can distill the question a bit more and tap the expertise of this community, because the comments on the earlier iteration of this question were earnest and insightful. So now I ask for more help because what I think I need is a strategy to help me do something I do not want to do and hopefully there are strategies that do not require convincing myself I want to do it. So, my question for all the thinkers and experienced sages of the forum: how do you convince yourself to do something that is enormous amount of work that you don't like to do, you don't want to do, and don't think will help you but to do it anyway? A: Ok, so here are some things that worked for me. Attempting to strongly connect what you are doing to avoiding negative outcomes and achieving positive outcomes. Here are some examples. If you have ever experienced unemployment (and the resultant sense of worthlessness) then make sure that you make the connection between not finishing the PhD and being unemployed clear in your mind. Similarly, if you can see ways in which the PhD will enable you to achieve goals in life then fixate on how happy those goals will make you. For me, it helped that I could connect the boring irrelevant stuff I did to the social impacts I wanted to make - I watched documentaries to help me to keep these things at the forefront of my mind. Use cognitive behavioral therapy. This involves identifying ineffective/sub-optimal thought processes and cutting them out. For example, when I was about to start academic work, I would often spend a lot of time thinking about how pointless it was. I would think "what is the point of this" or "why do it this way when that way is so much more effective". This didn't get me anywhere - I often didn't even start the work or stopped very quickly. later, I started to cut out that thought process. Funnily, enough my technique was to imagine that I was a medieval peasant and that I had no option other than to do the work assigned. Eventually, I overcame my counterproductive habit and managed to start working whenever I needed to rather than putting things off until the last moment. Stop making upward comparisons with ideal situations. As related to the above I used to always compare what I was doing to what I could be doing in some perfect world where it would be the most relevant essay, or research, or whatever. That was really not a good idea as it was not a productive comparison to make. Instead it is much better to remind yourself of how lucky you are to have the opportunities you have when so much of the world does not. Sadly their are geniuses who killed themselves for want of making greater contributions when people with equal intelligence but more unfortunate circumstances were denied any chance to achieve anything at all due to no fault of their own. Develop and maintain a positive association with your work (where possible). Basically this involves making your work something you like rather than hate (to the extent that this is possible). When I was younger I saw work as something that took me away from what made me happy. I wanted to party, play computer games, socialise etc., and work was the reason I couldn't. As a result I worked badly and did badly in academics. In turn this ensured that I got bad marks and felt bad about myself. Now things are quite different for me. I changed my perspective so that I treat my work as my personal interest - a form of personal expression and journey of learning that I treat as a priority. Partially due to this and other changes I start all tasks early and work hard on them. Inevitably I stress less than I used to and do better, which gives me more positive reinforcement. Additionally, you should try things like avoiding work when you are stressed (don't want to associate work with stress), working in places where you are calm and relaxed (I tried moving out of my office near the end of my PhD and it was a tremendous help to work in other places). Having a comfortable seat, and a quiet room at the right temperature are also very important. Do lots of exercise. This is crucial - most people have too much energy to spend a lot of time sitting in front of computers. I work out every day (even if it is just a short workout) so that I get to burn off excess energy. Speaking from my experience, I think that a lot of my problems in the past were due to having too much energy to relax and focus on what I was doing. Additionally exercise makes me happier and more relaxed which really helped throughout my PhD where I was occasionally too unhappy and stressed to work well. Meet your bodies needs. A happy person works better than a stressed person in the long term. If you are not getting what you need then you will struggle to focus on other things (like work). Maybe you need to talk more with people? Maybe your brain needs novel information or situations, time in nature or whatever. You need to figure this out. For me, I need all of these things and if I don't get enough of them then I won't be working well until I do. Have a prioritised to-do list that breaks down the tasks you need to do. I used an Eisenhower grid on evernote. One advantage of a to-do list is that it will give you a sense of productivity and success when you get things done. It is much easier to find the motivation to do something small as part of a larger goal, than to feel like you achieve nothing at the end of a day. A second advantage is that a to-do list will free you from having to remember things and keep you on track. If you can wake up and see a list of things you need to do today then you don't need to think through the "what should I do today process" - you get straight to work. A third advantage of the to-do list is that it can give you direction and clarity. Often people don't know which task to do first therefore they switch between them. However with a good to-do list and discipline you have a clear list of things to do, and an order to do them in. If the going is really tough, and you need to get something that you hate done, then manipulate your hormones to make it easier . Your motivation and energy to act, is based on your levels of dopamine {1}. Accordingly, if, for whatever reason, these levels are extremely low, then you likely won't be act. Based on your recent update it seems that you may very well have reached a point where your levels of dopamine are too low to enable you to work. Consequently, you should consider doing things to increase them. Here are a few things that should work. First, you can take substances to increase dopamine, such as St. Johns wort, rhodilia rosea, and nicotine (gum works with few health risks). Second, you can do more exercise {2}. Third, you can listen to music while you work {3}. All of these were useful for me at the very end of my PhD where I was very depressed at times. That is all for now - I will add more if I think of it :). Happy also to dig up references where they might reasonably be needed. References: {1} Hoebel, B. G., Rada, P. V., Mark, G. P. and Pothos, E. N. (1999) 'Neural systems for reinforcement and inhibition of behavior: Relevance to eating, addiction, and depression'. {2} Young, S. N. (2007). "How to increase serotonin in the human brain without drugs." Journal of Psychiatry & Neuroscience : JPN 32(6): 394-399. {3} Salimpoor, V. N., Benovoy, M., Larcher, K., Dagher, A. and Zatorre, R. J. (2011) 'Anatomically distinct dopamine release during anticipation and experience of peak emotion to music', Nat Neurosci, 14(2), 257-262. A: Peter Slattery already answers the immediate question of how to motivate yourself. I'd just like to add one more thought about why finishing up your degree is worth it. If you look around you and start asking how many people in their 40s or 50s are still doing the work their college degree qualified them for, you'll realize that the fraction is not actually all that large. Having a degree in one field does not lock you into employment in this field for life. What it does is open doors: you will be considered for some jobs and career steps simply because you have a degree at the required level, oftentimes regardless of the field where that degree was earned. For example, in many "traditional" companies, non-PhDs will rarely become heads of units that have a significant fraction of PhDs. You can often see this in job ads that say "expected qualification: MSc in a relevant field" or similar, where "relevant" is often broadly interpreted as long as your qualifications (not your degree) matters to those seeking to hire you. Maybe seeing that your PhD will allow you to do things in life you wouldn't be able to do if you didn't finish it, provides you with the impulse to actually go finish it, regardless of the level of (dis)engagement you feel with the subject.

Q: PI wants to add a new author who I think doesn't deserve to be added I have worked with a professor on a project where I produced some results from running experiments and analysing the data, now the professor is asking a new student to redo my experiments with the promise of adding the student's name to the publication we already submitted to a conference and is currently under review. I wasn't told of the reason why a new student was brought to the project but if I have to guess it would be to validate the results. I feel that the new student shouldn't be added as an author as he is repeating what I have already done. Is my feeling correct/justified? Should I approach the professor with this concern? Or should I keep it to myself? A: I understand what you are going through. Your best shot is to discuss this with your advisor! But, you need to consider the following; I do not know your field (although you have used computer-scinece as a tag), but in some fields, conference papers are not that important. I'm not saying that adding a new author should be fine! All what I'm saying that as long as your name is 1st, or 2nd author, you should be fine. (Personally, I would not be fine if the new guy's name came before mine in this specific scenario). If conference papers are weighted heavily in your field (i.e., computer science), that is a different story and you may need to talk to your advisor for clarifications. It also depends on the topic, if the topic is specific (i.e., cutting edge technology) rather than general (i.e., literature review), then adding an additional author may cause irritation on your part and this need to be addressed with the advisor (again). You do not know the whole story! What is the point of adding a new guy? Why redo your experiments? If it is due to funding/proposal/politics, you need to consider the bigger picture. In general, you need to learn to cooperate! The sooner the better. You do not end up working with the people you like or the same people over and over again! My advisor would make two students work on a topic that is remotely related to both of them just to teach them how to cooperate. Then, he publishes two papers (where he switches the students names between 1st and 2nd). For instance, one paper would be on an experimental approach to solve a problem where student A is the first author. the 2nd paper will be on analytical/numerical approach to be validated against the experimental work where student B is the first author. P.S. When I discussed collaboration in point 4, I do not mean that your advisor should add somebody in a paper you have been working on for sometime (or has an outcome of your direct research/thesis). But, rather for "networking", "motivation", "learning" and "brainstorming" aspects.

Q: Can I include images licensed CC BY-NC 4.0 in a conference paper? I'm writing an academic paper, which hopefully will be accepted and published in the conference proceeding. In order to explain my idea, I'm also drawing a figure including a free image licensed by Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0). The license states that I cannot use the material for commercial purpose. I know that publishing activity performed by academic people for academic publishing is usually considered as non-commercial activity even though they receives salary from their university. However, I have noticed that the conference committee will publish a set of papers including mine as the proceedings with price. Therefore, it might be considered as commercial activity. Also I'm worry that I will have to sign a contract to the publisher about the copyright transfer. So, as a conclusion, is it OK for me to include images with CC BY-NC 4.0 license in my paper? A: Summary: Is it ok for you to include the CC By-NC 4.0 image in your paper? Yes. Is it ok for the paper to go through a particular process at the conference? Maybe (see below). The answer to this question is not clear-cut. There is no general agreement as to what constitutes "commercial purpose" with CC licenses. There has been much discussion on the CC pages which has resulted in guidelines, but they are still not black and white. The best approach is to contact the person who owns the copyright for the image and ask them for permission. That is the non-ambiguous approach. If that is not possible, the next best approach would be to discuss the issue with the conference in question. Depending on how aware they are about licensing issues, they may already have an option in place to address your situation. A separate issue is the one of copyright transfer. You are free to transfer your own copyrighted content to another body, such as the conference. But you cannot assign another person's copyright to them. Usually there is a line in the copyright transfer agreement that requires you to specify that you own all of the material being assigned to the new owner. Regardless of the outcome above, you do not own the copyright on the image, even if you have permission to use it. These are separate issues. Once again, you should discuss this issue with the conference organizers. My personal experience has been that many conferences request copyright transfer as a blanket process without realizing that it's often not necessary. When I have contacted such conferences and told them that my work is published under a CC license and that I will NOT assign the copyright to them but WILL give them permission to use it as they see fit, they usually accept and have no problem with it. Sometimes, however, the conferences get stuck on procedure and try to force a single process that doesn't fit modern publishing constraints such as the ones you describe.

Q: When publication A cites B, should I cite A or B? Let's say publication A has a nice overview of a topic and cites B and C sources to back up a few important points. Should I cite A, since it provided me with B and C? Or do I have a responsibility to read these citations? What if B is a 40-page, esoteric paper that I am unlikely to read. This seems like a rabbit hole, and I'm not sure how far down my due diligence should take me. A: Whenever possible, you should try and cite the original source to make sure proper credit is attributed, especially if the original work is not well known enough to constitute "textbook material". For example, you can probably skip citing Einstein's original paper on special relativity and cite a newer textbook instead, where current standard notation and more context to the theory is provided. Some times citing the derivative work can add to the discussion in the way of a simplified treatment over the original, further clarifications, notes on implications, and so on. Keep in mind that original work is often obscure, may not yet incorporate terminology or concepts that became mainstream after it was published, etc. In these cases I would recommend citing both the original and the derivative work. In my own papers I have used sentences such as "... our treatment is based on the theory presented by Doe and collaborators in their seminal paper [1], later reviewed more pedagogically by Smith [2]." Some journal editors will ask you to remove citations if they think they are redundant. This usually applies to obvious cases such as "... according to literature sources [1-25]..", but I guess an occasional picky editor might ask you to remove some of the references even if you're using them reasonably. In that case you need to judge by yourself if its worth insisting on keeping all the citations. To summarize, when it doubt, I think it's best to err on the side of inclusion and make sure 1) that due credit is given to all the authors that deserve it and 2) that previous work you rely on for your study can be traced back following the items provided in the list of references.

Q: Is it a good practise to involve a child in a statement of purpose? Is it a good practise to involve a child in a statement of purpose to say how my point of view has changed since the birth? A: No, the statement is about your motivation in doing research and about your research goals, not about your private life goals. Having a child is undoubtedly a joyful event which can definitely change your perspective on work-life balance, but now that it's changed, simply state what your current research goals and motivations are. A: In the US, doing so may imperil your candidacy in at least two ways: Some academics will assume right away that since your children are so important to you that they appear in your statement of purpose, they will automatically take precedence over your degree-related responsibilities. (This is not a hazard specific to academe, but neither is academe free of it.) Academe is a greedy pursuit; it does not typically favor those with competing priorities. Some academics, especially those conditioned to industry, will be made uncomfortable by including children a statement of purpose, possibly considering it unprofessional. Children are typically don't-ask-don't-tell in the US; asking is sometimes legally dubious (as it may open a workplace to charges of unequal-opportunity hiring), so telling is unwelcome. I would strongly recommend against this. Record the epiphany if you like; bypass its source. A: The other two answers (as I write this) are useful and (so far as I know, in U.S.) are accurate about facts. Further, I'd argue against including your epiphany, in part because it is possible to argue that it ought not to have been such a great epiphany, since, after all, many people do work + have families (without playing any gender-biased or other-biased games about whose responsibility the kids are...) That is, even if you don't mean it that way, there is also a large possibility of interpreting remarks about this as though you'd surprised yourself that you were able to do work and have kids, etc, ... Indeed, most of us probably are! But it is a common state... So, as with other life-epiphanies, I think it does not need to be aired publicly. Even if it doesn't harm your applications, I'd think that it'd make you appear naive about adult responsibilities...

Q: The overwhelming silence in shy classes I have been part of several classes where no-one wants to answer questions or actively take much part in the discussions. I am sure this must be frustrating for the lecturers, who try really hard to get us to answer and get an interesting discussion going. Obviously, one answer to fix this is to suck it up and just answer the question and explain your opinion. However, as I am sure some of you know, such silences are overwhelming; it is as if the air forces you to not do anything, just sit there and wait for the one person who saves the class every time. However, what can the lecturer do? Once the lecturer knows they are dealing with such a class, surely something should be done? In my opinion, the lecturer needs to stop asking questions to the entire class, but point at students and make them answer in that way. "What do you think, Pat?", is what I mean. If Pat does not know, that is fine; then move on to another one. As a student myself, I think this is the best way for a lecturer to approach this. Often the students are friends, or loosely know each other, so there is no rational reason for why the students don't dare to say anything. As I said, it is as if there is something in the air. So, I know there are lecturers out there. What at your strategies for fixing this? Or perhaps other students have experienced lectures that cured this problem? I am talking mostly of small classrooms, not 100+ lecture halls. A: I think the best way to deal with this as an instructor is to set the tone right from the first day. Make it clear you want an interactive class room, and that includes the students asking questions and even challenging you as well as having the students answer your questions. Make sure your questions are worth answering. No one wants to answer an obvious question that was in the book they read for the day ("How may valence electrons does an oxygen atom have?"). Students like questions where they have to think a bit or interpret a bit. Conversely, make sure your questions are not too hard, and that they are not unclear. If all else fails -- and it often does the first time you ask an interesting question on the first day of class -- this is what I do. I wait a moment, then smile and acknowledge the awkward silence. And then I let the class know that I want an interactive class and that I'm perfectly happy to stand at the front the room through the awkward silence for as long as it takes. From my tone, I make it very clear that this not me being strict and judgemental, but that I want to work with them and that's why I am doing this. A: I have observed a class which was taught alternately by two different instructors. One of the instructors (G) almost always immediately got interaction and involvement from many members of the class. The other instructor (B) would often be faced with silence. Same students, same time of day, similar subject material, very different behaviour. I think the major differences in instructor behaviour I observed were: B would phrase his questions as a request for a fact. "What are the consequences of idea X?" G would usually ask for experiences or opinions. "What happened when you tried to apply idea X to the situation in the tutorial question?", "Has anyone tried to apply idea X in any other situation? What happened?" B would sometimes indicate that he though an answer was poor. B's comments seemed to deter people from speaking. G would usually just ask a follow up question, or ask if anyone else had anything to add. G's process typically resulted in discussion and an improved answer from the same or another student. B would try to force the students to answer if no one did "I will just wait until someone answers" or "I will pick on someone if you don't answer". G would remember the students from the tutorial/coursework/previous lectures/etc, and ask someone by name "Lucy, I think you encountered something related to this, can you tell us about it?". B would make jokes during his lecture indicating that he though some particular approach or idea was inferior to another e.g "idea Y is really good, some people use idea Z but they probably haven't heard of the internet". I suspect these jokes put off students, "what if he also thinks the thing I am going to mention is stupid". G would stick to precise statements, "in situation X, idea Y works like ... whereas idea Z works like ...". A: One strategy is for a professor to ask questions that are easier to answer. This is not the same as asking easier questions. One of the more often used sample teaching pedagogy techniques (at least in America) is to teach a class how to make a peanut butter & jelly sandwich. This is done because most American teachers are well aware of how to make a peanut butter & jelly sandwich, so teaching technique can better be focused on in the absence of other thought. In this scenario: If a question's answer is vague, then students are less likely to answer. E.G. "Can anyone tell me why that is?" The student might think: What is "why" and "that"? Is (s)he talking about the last step we just did? Are we talking about the entire process? Is she talking about a particular element that was shown but not verbalized? A better question from the professor might be "Why might I put peanut butter on both sides of a sandwich?" [If no answer, lead to that answer]: "Okay, what happens to the jelly side of a sandwich?" Student: The bread gets soggy. Teacher: "Does the peanutbutter side of the sandwich get soggy?" Student: "No." Teacher: "So one side of the sandwich gets soggy while the other does not. What do we think might happen if we put peanut butter on both sides of the sandwich?" You can do all sorts of tricks and play psychological games with students, but until questions are asked that are easy to answer (again, not the same as an easier question), students will hesitate to answer when asked.

Q: What's the impact of PhD Advisor on your faculty job? Are there people out there who can provide first hand account or refer me to literature that discusses the influence of PhD advisor on your chances of getting a faculty job? A: Well, there is the less direct answer to your question, which is that between providing funding, data, infrastructure, reaching out to colleagues, etc. your PhD advisor will have a profound amount of impact on your work, which will then have an impact on your faculty job search. For example, my project really took off when my advisor told me to email someone who had data, and to make sure to mention I was his student. But I expect what you mean is the more direct question of how does one's advisor impact the actual job search. And, as with many things in academia, the answer is "It depends." At the profoundly influential side of the spectrum, I have known people who have called in favors for their students and essentially conjured up jobs, or at the very least prompted a search that might have been a long time down the line. At the same time, I have also known advisors who have been reasonably hands off about the entire thing beyond writing letters, positive advice, and providing a supportive research environment. It all depends on how much they're willing to throw their weight around, how receptive their audience is to that, and whether they have favors in the right "place" (for example, if you're headed to a slightly different field, someone with a lot of clout might not be able to carry it as far).

Q: Do professors work through all the homework problems they assign to students? I'm wondering if this is case especially for time-consuming work like programming problems in computer science spanning several thousand lines of code. Or when a professor teaches a new course they are not intimately familiar with e.g. did not take it during undergrad. For professors that don't do this, how (if at all possible) do they address homework concerns during office hours? Is it recommended for professors to know the ins and outs of all problems they assign? A: For many professors, undergraduate courses are simple enough that when they go over 1-2 problems, they can grasp them quickly. For others, they go over solution manuals and previous notes to recall and remember how to do them. Some assign office hours to TAs, where the TA deals with students and their homework. Keep in mind that many schools do tell the professors which courses they will teach next semester/year, so they have plenty of time to prepare and develop their notes and slides. I would be more worried about professors teaching graduate level courses that are not familiar with. It seems that many issues/inconsistencies occur at this level. A: Short answer: Yes and No All your cases do apply. Dutiful professors actually work problems before they are assigned as homework problems to students. Such instructors may even go through the trouble to frame their own problems for homework. There are many who provide a set of problems from standard solutions and web references. They may not have worked out all of them, but rather a small subset of them. There are, however, some who are fairly (or entirely) new to the subject and are experimenting with questions that are available as exercises in the syllabus with the students. They actually learn along with the students as they teach the topics progressively. An instructor, in general, would be actually a mix of the above. There may be some topics that are the same as the previous syllabus that the instructor knows well enough to frame own questions, and some others where she/he might prefer to use textbook exercises. There may as well be a few other topics which are new in the updated syllabus which she/he may wish to experiment on. A: I teach at a small all-undergrad department. No TAs here, so yeah, if I'm not using some kind of on-line homework system (which I have only ever done in service classes, and I'm trying to give it up) then I have to do all the problems at some point to produce a key. Now, that doesn't mean that I've worked them out in fine detail, nor that I have done them before I assign them. In my upper division classes I just chose a few that look like they go to my learning goals and might be interesting. If several students complain that problem X is too hard I look again and then maybe post some hints to the LMS or give them a less ambitious goal for the problem; or maybe not: tackling the occasional hard problem is a skill that they should be exercising. As for how I help students when I haven't done the homework first myself, well, mostly it's a cakewalk. For one thing I never work the problem for the students: I just keep asking them related questions and suggesting concepts they might try to apply. For another, I've been doing this subject for longer than a "traditional" student (i.e. 18-24ish years old with little real-world experience between the end of secondary school and the start of college) has been alive. I choose problems on the basis of the concepts they exercise and I can usually tell that at a cursory reading, which means I can decide on a strategy (or several strategies) that will work when the student shows me the problem that has them stuck.

Q: Are professors not allowed to work on what they want to work on without a grant? In this video on mathematician Maria Chudnovsky, she says "with the MacArthur Fellowship, I'll be able to work exactly on the problems I want to work on." Are professors not able to work on what they wish to work on without some sort of grant? Do professors need a grant before starting research? A: No, a professor doesn't strictly need grant funding to start work on an idea (and it's common to do some preliminary work on an idea to help get grant funding for that idea). However, grant funding helps professors to support graduate students and/or postdocs, pay his/her own summer salary, if the university only pays 9 months of salary a year, be promoted/get tenure in departments where there is an expectation of bringing in funding, sometimes buy out of teaching obligations Thus a researcher who wants those things, needs grant funding. Having no-strings-attached grant funding that comes with no obligation to research a particular area gives a professor freedom to do those things, and still spend their research time and effort on whatever they want. A: I am not merely allowed, but encouraged to work on whatever research I fancy. It's just that the school won't throw resources at me willy-nilly to do it. Worse, I have to deal with my contracted teaching load first and do the research on the side. If I was at a prestigious, research institution that teaching load might be half-time or so, but I'm at a small, state university and the teaching load is 12 credit hours per semester. So I am encouraged to do all the research I can with no money, no space1, no equipment2, no assistants3 and no release time. Thus the need for grant money.4 What the fellowship in question gives the recipient is not permission, but the resources to spend their time working on their project 1 Actually, with the remodel the state has recently funded this will soon be "very little space", yahoo! 2 Well, IT has been willing to give me an obsolete computer to use as a platform for the programming task that is stage one of a student project. But when a single-core, 4GB RAM, 500 GB storage computer with keyboard, mouse and monitor is a big step in equipping your corner of a shared lab you know things are tight. 3 I do have a number of in-major students who are interested in working with me, but that is more of a teaching obligation than a load off my shoulders because they still have so much to learn. But they can do a little bit of tedious stuff without close supervisions. And of course, they get more independent the longer we work together. And then they get a industry job or into grad school and I send them on their way and start looking for a new prospect. 4 So far this has really meant guiding the students through applying for the school's student research grant process and turned up a few hundred dollars a couple of times. A: No, but subject to other time constraints. She can probably use the grant money to pay off the need for teaching any classes for a few semesters, and focus on nothing but her chosen research area. Perhaps the comment would be clearer replacing "exactly" with "exclusively".

Q: Does there exist Top 50 rankings of applied math phd programs? For example, if one were to apply to Top 50 business schools for a full-time MBA program, one could get rankings from the NYTimes, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, U.S. News and World Report, and the Economist, just to name a few sources - I bet there are plenty more. I plan to apply to Top 50 applied math phd programs, however I cannot find any sort of rankings other than the one from the U.S. News and World Report, which only ranks up to Top 14 -- schools that I wouldn't realistically have a shot at getting into. So, I am looking to aim a bit lower but am not sure where to even start. How should I go about figuring out which applied math departments are generally regarded as "Top 50 applied math departments"? Why aren't there a ton of different sources where I can get rankings from -- like in the business school world (and probably law school world too)? A: Why aren't there a ton of different sources where I can get rankings from -- like in the business school world (and probably law school world too)? One issue is that I think you are comparing apples to oranges. Applied math is generally considered a part of mathematics--it is often not a separate department: the AMS only lists 30 graduate applied math departments. What you are asking seems to me more akin to "what are the top 50 schools in environmental law"? (I don't know whether such lists exist or not.) Second, what is considered "applied mathematics" varies from department to department, and perhaps from person to person. Last, neither overall rankings nor specialized rankings should be regarded with too much seriousness. There aren't meaningful, natural orderings on departments which measure "how good" a department is, largely because "good" is a nebulous concept. As for how to choose schools, here are a couple suggestions: Ask some of your professors in applied math for ideas. Where I went to grad school was a place suggested by an undergrad professor. Use general math rankings to get an idea of reputation (and thus selectiveness) of departments, and look at department websites to see which have active applied math groups. Note: many students won't know going into math grad school won't know whether they want to do applied math, stats, probability, analysis, algebra etc etc, so in terms of selectivity, looking at the general reputation of the department may be more helpful anyway.

Q: How do I cite a webpage with no author but a possible corporate author? In Harvard style, for links such as: http://corporate.wwe.com/news/2002/wwe-corporate-world-wrestling-federation-entertainment-drops-the-f, since there's no clear author, I am usually citing it as (title of the webpage year) and then in the reference list as (title of the webpage year, available from URL, viewed...). However, in this particular case, there is a corporate author which is, simply, the WWE. How do I cite the above link and, in general, almost all websites have corporate authors, how do I distinguish between a corporate author and between a simple page which I can cite as above? A: In Harvard style the Author is a Key to the bibliography, just as the index number (like [1] is a key in Chicago style). One has to disconnect this from the concept of a name. In particular, when citing a web page with no clear author name one has to find a similar keyword to use. The corporate name makes a good keyword. It better to remember it is only a keyword and not start to use full sentences. The full details of the reference will be shown in the bibliography. So the Title of web pages should almost never be used. Thus for your example I would cite like this: (WWE, 2002). The bibliographic entry would be: WWE (2002), "World Wrestling Federation Entertainment Drops the ‘F’", World Wresting Federation Corporate News, 6 May 2002. [Online] Available at: http://corporate.wwe.com/news/2002/wwe-corporate-world-wrestling-federation-entertainment-drops-the-f [Accessed: 12 Apr 2016]

Q: What can I do to convince my advisor of my ideas? I started my PhD within the last one year in a STEM field in the US ,and I cannot seem to convince my advisor about any of my ideas. I usually don't get concrete research directions from my advisor, ie. a direction of research that might be valuable to look more into. I am completely free, which can be good and bad. I only get one out of two types of feedback: (1): Lets find a project together, so generate more ideas so I can grasp what you are interested in or (2): When I suggested some ideas, all of them don't satisfy my advisor, and I should "look for more ideas". My advisor might be right with the arguments, but I didn't get any advice yet on how to improve my "research". The more senior students of my advisor seem to have the same/similar problem, so I don't feel like I want to make the same mistakes as they did and get stuck at this stage. But I cannot get beyond this point and so I can't really start a project. I could ignore the advice and work on my own without letting my advisor know, but wouldn't then the point of the "advising" role be gone? How can I get my advisor to be convinced of one of my ideas, and ideally get more "useful" feedback? At this point I really feel like its somehow a communication problem. Maybe judging about the "quality" of my advisor is not the question I look to answer (I assume there are "pro's" and "con's" to have hands-off advisors), but rather if you have any tips on how to overcome this "infinite idea finding loop" and get more in-depth with one specific project in this situation. And, to be more general, how can I establish a better communication? A: First step is to have good ideas. :) But wait, you are starting your phd, by definition, you wouldn't know what a good idea is, you do not have the experience (usually, let's leave the genius outliers aside for now). When I have a crazy idea, I develop it a bit, to see where it leads. If leads somewhere interesting, I prepare a nice, informative presentation, and schedule a meeting with the boss. Sometimes I get shot down, sometimes the idea is accepted, but "preparing the field" is important. You need to present your ideas properly, in a well prepared manner, to increase the chances he would understand it. And clearly presenting ideas is the bread and butter of research. With that said, have you tried an honest conversation with him on this aspect? Nothing wrong with an student telling me he is lost and he needs a concrete direction. Even better if that direction has specific, detailed objectives, including some easily attainable ones to keep the morale high. Be honest, be polite, be patient, and be clear. A: Ideas alone will not be sufficient in some cases. You need to provide supporting evidence and if possible, proof. For example, let's say you are analyzing the data emerged out of an experiment and find something that doesn't match with the expected outcome. If you come up with an idea in your mind which you think might explain the phenomena, don't just jump up from your seat and run to your adviser, rather you must check and verify the details with care. You may follow the usual research methodology like a background check for the published articles at first, eliminating the obvious experimental pitfalls, errors in analysis and so on. If your idea still stands, then you may create a detailed report with everything you have done to prove your claim(a LaTex PDF?) and submit it to your supervisor. From my experience this is an effective way to communicate novel ideas.

Q: Is it okay to open up the thesis file during the defense? During the follow-up discussion during the PhD defense, would it be okay if I open up the thesis pdf file to answer some questions, for example to refer to a figure or equations? or should everything be already on the slides and prepared before? A: While I agree that it would be OK to open a pdf of the thesis to show a specific part as an answer to a question I would like to add: Opening up the thesis and show something in addition to the slides in the middle of the talk would show that the talk was not well prepared. So don't do that and prepare your talk such that this will not be necessary. Having answers and arguments to questions ready without going to the thesis would appear better. Of course, nobody expects you to know every word from your thesis but it is expected that you know all results of your thesis and also all your arguments. Opening the thesis when a question like "on page X in Theorem Y you state that…" comes is totally OK. Especially, since this gives the rest of the audience the chance to follow the discussion. But finally: It's a thesis defense. It usually not an event where anybody fails terribly. If you know what you have written about and know what you are talking about nothing bad will happen. A: My committee members all showed up to my defense with the printed copies of my thesis that I had left for them for their comments, so if we needed to look something up, there were 5 hardcopies already in the room. It's fine.

Q: How to find funding for your PhD? (Canadian university) I am considering pursuing my Phd in Canada. However, I see that I will have to secure funding to cater for my tuition and accomomdation costs, unlike in the UK where we are treated as University employees and given a monthly pay. I have done some online research into scholarships and funding, but still need some assistance on how the Canadian systems work on funding. A: The best option is to contact prospective supervisors as the scholarships available and rules that apply will depend on the province, university, discipline etc. There are situations where you will receive monthly pay during the PhD from your supervisor as a Research Assistantship, or the University as a Graduate Teaching Assistantship. Generally, the less funding available from supervisors and scholarships, the more Graduate Teaching Assistantships you need to do. In Ontario, there is a competitive scholarship called 'Ontario Trillium Award' for international students. But you need to have a supervisor in mind who will suggest you as a candidate, which is often the case for scholarships at the PhD level. A big funding body for science in Canada is NSERC (equivalent to NERC in the UK). There are scholarships available for internationals, but they are very competitive/very few. I suggest you think about what it is you want to study and contact professors who have a similar focus. Also keep looking online for funded PhD's on specific topics. If you find one, contact the Principle Investigator to find out your options.

Q: Referring a paper which is still under publication My domain is Image Processing and Computer Vision. I've written a follow-up paper for my previous paper which is still not available in IEEE Xplore. I am submitting the new paper in a conference. I want to ask what is the best approach for making the previous paper available to reviewers? Upload the previous paper in arXiv Submit the previous paper as a supplementary material A: I would make a distinction between whether your paper has been presented at a conference and whether it has appeared in IEEE Xplore. If it has already been presented, then it's out there in the community and, in my opinion, it is entirely reasonable to take advantage of IEEE's self-archiving options and post it on a personal or institutional website where it can be readily found by search engines. There is no reason to wait for the (sometimes painfully slow) updating of the IEEE Xplore database. If it has yet to appear, however, then I would recommend instead attaching it as supplementary material, if possible.

Q: Conference fee and travel costs for invited speaker I am invited as a speaker to a international conference to present a published paper. I want to ask if is it usual to not pay the conference fee and the hotel? Should I ask them via email? A: The larger and more prestigious the venue, the higher the probability that your conference fee and travel costs will be paid by the venue. Certain invited speakers (particularly keynote speakers) will also be given a speaking fee, but "invited speaker" means different things in different venues. You should, therefore, explicitly ask. First, if it's a small and not well-funded venue, they may be asking for you to volunteer rather than offering to pay. Second, many predatory / scam conferences send out official "invited speaker" invitations that attempt to stroke your ego and get you to give them money. If you don't already know the people and the venue, be careful because it is quite likely to be a predatory / scam invitation. The "invited to present a published paper" is a particular red flag, as these venues seem to have a semi-automated method of scraping publication databases and inviting authors to give them money to talk to a half-empty room of others who have been similarly scammed. Once you've published a few papers, you'll get a lot of these---I get several per day. A: "Invited speaker" is sometimes overused, misused or misunderstood. While key note speakers (also called plenary speakers) usually get funding (no fee, travel and housing support...) the same is not true for people who are invited to take part in a minisymposium at a conference. Also there are conferences who send some "invitation letter" to anybody who submitted a contribution and got accepted (this true for some real but also for fake conferences). And then there are fake/bogus conferences who send spam emails and invite anybody as a speaker.

Q: What's the best way to share my presentation slides online? I'm thinking of posting slides from some of my technical presentations online. One option I've used in the past is just posting the PDFs. But I've seen some sites that offer nice interfaces for others to view and share your slides without downloading them, such as SpeakerDeck Slideshare Present.me I am primarily interested in advertising my research to other researchers who might be interested in using it or collaborating. Which site should I use, and why? Or are raw PDFs the way to go? In case it matters, I'm a computational mathematician and my slides are a mixture of text, equations, plots, short videos, and diagrams. A: I typically post my slides on my website as pdfs. On the title page of my slides, I have started adding a line that says something like "slides available on my preprint page", and sometimes I'll mention this at the start of my talk. On my website, I have a page for all my slides and I also link to the relevant slides on my preprints page. Personally, I prefer when speakers make their slides available as pdfs, because I like being able to download them and file them away, rather than needing to bookmark a website. Similar to my preprints, I'm excited to have folks download my slides (so I don't see any reason to control their distribution). A: From what I can see, some key issues to think about are: Social media integration and analytics. These sites will help you advertise your presentation and gather data on who views it. Downloading. You can make it inconvenient or impossible to download the slides. That's an advantage if you want to control the presentation and keep anyone from archiving a copy or extracting figures (you can't stop someone determined and knowledgeable, but you can stop casual users). Accessibility on devices. My smartphone cannot view Present.me presentations at all, and it has a little trouble with SpeakerDeck and Slideshare presentations. (I can view them, but they are awfully small and I cannot zoom in.) I don't usually view slides on my phone, but I do every so often. A: I agree with Anonymous Mathematician, but I want to add an additional key issue: Rendering Compatibility: Can whichever method you choose properly render all of your content? I have had trouble converting PowerPoint files containing chemical structures drawn in ChemDraw (which are vector graphic objects). Creating PDFs seems to be hit or miss depending on the method I use. Notably, Office is better at it than Adobe software. Slideshare will not render these objects at all. I do not have experience with Present.me or SpeakerDeck.

Q: Listing Research Universities (Highest research activity) Universities' rankings are misleading, because various institutes publish their ranking results by taking various factors. I have found a classification of research universities as R1 , R2 adn R3 here. How reliable is the listing? A: The Carnegie Classification ranking system that you link to is fairly reliable. The details of how the rankings are calculated are here and include: research & development (R&D) expenditures in science and engineering R&D expenditures in non-S&E fields S&E research staff (postdoctoral appointees and other non-faculty research staff with doctorates) doctoral conferrals in humanities fields, in social science fields, in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields, and in other fields (e.g., business, education, public policy, social work) They then do a series of statistical manipulations on the numbers to get a final ranking. It seems that the weightings of the factors are less malleable than other rankings (e.g., US News and World Reports). The data seem to be collected from reliable sources (e.g., http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/). The choice of factors seems malleable and potentially unreliable. It seems like it is likely that if you were to replicate the process with the same factors, you would come up with a similar answer. The real question, at least in my mind, is if the factors considered, are at all informative for your needs.

Q: How common is it to outsource tedious research tasks to undergrads? How ethical or common is it for grad students to actively hire undergrads into their lab for the sole purpose of outsourcing tedious labour? Is this frowned upon and is it really any different than a typical undergrad research opportunity. A: I am a graduate student, and I often hire undergraduate research assistants. My primary motivation in hiring undergraduate research assistants is to create opportunities for these students to get a sense of what research is about, gain some experience that can help them get a job or admission to graduate school, and help them figure out what they want to do next. Sometimes my undergraduate students do work that is tedious, because research can sometimes be tedious. This is especially true when they are inexperienced, because it can be hard to see the bigger picture behind what you're doing. (They may not even have the necessary background to understand the bigger picture, at least not until they've taken some more advanced coursework and read a few dozen research articles.) A good supervisor tries to help students see the big picture, but it's hard. Supervising undergraduate students is a lot of work for me. I don't do it because it somehow helps me progress in my research by offloading tasks that I really need to get done (if anything, it slows down my research). Usually the work I give to undergrads is work that isn't on the critical path for my own personal research, because I can't trust that it will get done quickly/correctly. And in most cases, by the time my undergrads have learned enough to really be useful to me, they're graduating. I hire these students because I remember how meaningful my undergraduate research experience was to me, and I want to pay it forward. To directly answer your question, How ethical or common is it for grad students to actively hire undergrads into their lab for the sole purpose of outsourcing tedious labour? It's probably much less common than you think, for the reasons described above. It can happen sometimes in the context of a research effort in which someone has to collect a lot of data, and it doesn't require any knowledge or skill to do so. But even then, it's often quicker for the graduate student to do it himself. When it does happen, I see no ethical problem as long as the nature of the work is disclosed to the undergrad before he/she accepts the job. Compared to many other student jobs (working the phones and calling alumni for donations, for example), being a pipette monkey is actually probably one of the better jobs. A: It is very common in my field (structural engineering) especially if the research involves testing of multiple material specimens (or samples), casting and curing concrete, preparing and installing sensors (strain gauges, LVDTs). We do it for many reasons, "If you do not see it or touch it (get your hands dirty), you won't understand it." You can't expect a structural engineering student not to be able to work with construction materials! Especially if this student is looking for going to graduate school. It cuts down on the time needed from graduate students to do "basic" labor work. Although this can be a double edge sword, the undergraduate student can miss up! We make sure that there is a graduate student or lab technician around the undergraduate students to supervise them and provide direction. We only use the top 1-3 undergraduate students. Those who we know are interested in going to graduate school. This has many advantages as you can expect. They don't work for free! We pay them too (since generally we don't include them in papers, maybe acknowledge them), this motivates them in a way. They don't do all the "dirty" work, the graduate student still has to do his part! A: I have a fair amount of experience with this - this was how I originally got into research, as an undergraduate, I've been the lab manager for a lab with a large undergraduate component in it, and as a professor I often include undergraduate research assistants in my budget. Lets address the parts of your question one at a time, paraphrasing a bit for the sake of clarity: Is it common? Yes, it's reasonably common to hire an undergraduate assistant to handle boring tasks. Is it ethical? This line of questioning seems to have become popular on this site of late: "There is a thing I don't like, is it ethical?" without really articulating why it wouldn't be ethical. Lets say I hire a undergraduate to do the most boring job in my lab. Is that less ethical than if I was the manager at the local Arby's? Or the university library? There is no ethical obligation to keep an undergraduate entertained and engaged. I have exchanged money for their time and effort. That's all. Is this frowned upon and is it really any different than a typical undergrad research opportunity. It's certainly not frowned upon, see above. As to whether or not it's different from a typical undergrad research opportunity, that very much depends on what you mean by "typical". But I will say this: Research is often tedious. Undergraduate research is often especially tedious because it's often a small chunk of a larger process, and one that can be "safely" given to someone with relatively little expertise and experience. That is not to say it is not essential work - what's given to undergrads is often "Someone has to do this, and it will take lots of time." If a graduate student or professor does it, they can't be doing other things. If an undergrad does it, they can work on advancing the project in other ways in parallel. Consider some examples from my field: Abstracting Data: Much of the data for outbreaks of infectious diseases doesn't come in nice, machine readable forms. Instead, it comes in nice, human readable weekly reports, describing what happened that week. Wading through those is tedious and boring - find a number, update some rows on a spreadsheet, rinse, repeat. But someone has to do it. Similarly, one of my first research jobs was taking meteorological reports that were in old hard copies and transcribing them. Citation tracking: Find a number in the published literature - see where they got it from. See where they got it from got it from. Follow that rabbit hole as far as it goes. Again, this is pretty mindless. Yes, these are boring. They also have to be done. And in my experience, they're valuable research experience. Wading through references looking for something is how I ended up writing my first review paper. A student (admittedly a graduate student) in a lab I worked in ended up being quite prominent for maintaining some data that was largely just tedious abstraction and making it public. As @ff524 has said however, this is not without effort, especially if you're also trying to make sure the student is learning and engaging in research. Undergraduates are likely slower, more prone to make mistakes, and need more supervision. It's a lot of investment in time and energy for someone who - if all goes according to plan - won't actually be around for very long.

Q: What are the challenges to publishing a paper when you have a huge number of collaborators? Following on from this question, I'm really curious to know about the logistics of large scale collaborations when it comes to publishing a paper that everyone has some contribution to. To summarise, the recently published paper on the detection of gravitational waves had an author list with over 1000 names and 133 institutions. The sheer number of people involved would make publishing a single paper somewhat less straightforward than, say, a small research group based at a single institution. So, to my questions: What were the logistical challenges of having over 1000 authors/collaborators when it came to publishing a single paper? How were these challenges overcome? I want to make this question as specific and answerable as possible, so please edit this question as appropriate. A: I have recently been the primary organizer and lead author on a large-scale collaboration, in my case an inter-laboratory study that took place over two years and with more than 100 contributing teams. The paper has been accepted and is currently in press, and my experience so far has been actually a remarkably low amount of pain. The way in which we organized the study and the subsequent writeup had very clear roles, so there was never any question of having 600+ people trying to collaboratively write up a document. Instead, I led the writing with help from the other core authors; once we were satisfied with the draft, we circulated it to the whole community of authors for review, consent, and corrections, with a one-week deadline for responses. Lots of small corrections came back: we integrated them and submitted the paper as planned. With all of those eyes on the paper, it is perhaps unsurprising that the reviewers requested only truly minor revisions, which meant there was no need to involve the entire community in the revision, just the core authors. A live-updated draft has always been available to the full community, however (Overleaf is great for this purpose), and additional small corrections have continued to trickle in, up to the very final revision. In short, then, we simply short-circuited the challenge of many authors by using the project organization to divide into a small group that managed the actual writing of the paper and a much larger group that gave advice and consent. There was one very busy week while the bulk of the feedback was coming in, but other than that it has not been very difficult to manage the paper-writing process in the least, and it appears to have been a good experience for all involved. A: An article on Retraction Watch today directly addresses this question. Here's a quote from When it takes a village to write a paper, what does it mean to be an author?: [A]uthorship is determined by a set of criteria based on time in the collaboration and/or ‘service work’ – jobs like hardware upgrades, detector calibration, data-taking shifts, and the like, overseen by a hierarchy of institutional leads and, for the largest collaborations, national leads. People join the author list after meeting these criteria, and usually stay on until a certain amount of time (typically six months or one year) after they leave the collaboration. Authors are listed in alphabetical order; G. Aad is a prolific first author. Everyone is an author on every paper, whether or not their specialized work contributed to that paper. Someone who worked on muon detection, for example, would be listed as an author even on papers that do not involve muons. There is no requirement that the individual authors have even read the paper, much less contributed to the writing. Papers are actually written by a small group of authors or a committee, and internally reviewed by multiple committees. Individual authors typically have one opportunity to comment on the manuscript before submission to a journal. In some collaborations, individual comments are common; in others they are not encouraged. This is all governed by a collaboration governing document – a kind of membership agreement between the participating institutions. This is very different from authorship in a small group.

Q: What is a legal and allowed method of getting a picture from Internet to be used in the cover of my thesis? I need a picture from the Internet of micro bacterium which I want to use on my Thesis cover. Now just coping the picture and using it will be like stealing someone else's property. Hence I want to know if there is any proper and legal method by which I can get the picture. This is the picture that I need, I wrote them a mail too but no reply yet. A: You can ask the author of the image, or the owner of the exclusive licence if that is a different person, for permission to use the image. He may or may not grant it. If he grants you permission for free then it is courtesy to write an acknowledgement to that effect somewhere in the thesis. If the image is in the public domain then of course you are free to do with it as you will. (By "public domain", I mean, free of copyright restrictions by the explicit choice of the author or because the image is so old it can no longer be subject to copyright. I do not mean, simply the image was found in public.) However many institutions have precise binding requirements for theses which would not allow you to place artwork on the cover (even if you already had licence to do so from the author). You should confirm with your institution whether this would be allowed.

Q: Why is discrimination based on citizenship allowed in PhD funding in the UK? This question is specifically aiming at the UK PhD admission system. Having spent roughly 6 years in the UK - 2 years A-Level and 4 years undergraduate, I am now moving forward into applying for PhD programs. To my surprise, I discovered that I would have to face a lot of difficulties regarding my eligibility for funding. Most of the funding I applied for were strictly 'UK/EU citizens only', and it is rare to have full funding for international students. I have applied to a lot of places, and received a lot of responses in the form of "... you are a good match, but I don't have funding for overseas students...". Having chosen the UK to study with the belief that 'as long as I am competent I should be qualified for the job', the reality has really slapped back at me. Why such discriminations are allowed in a developed country like the UK? I made this claim knowing little to nothing about the US or other countries' systems, but lots of my friends having applied to EU PhDs received their offers without being asked whether they are 'caucasians' or not. A: I wrote a pretty extensive response on this a little while ago: here and also this may be slightly relevant. The short version is: Because they can be, and because they have to be. UK universities make money off international students; their funding is limited, and it is designed to go to domestic or European students. The funding bodies will only fund domestics because a) they're probably not allowed to fund anyone else; b) it's in their best interests to fund domestics; c) one international PhD scholarship would be equal to 2 or 3 domestic ones. There is also the over-arching idea in the UK governmental system that students are supposed to bring in money, not take it. This idea has spiked in magnitude in the past few years. The UK government limits the funding given to universities, and universities make up for that with international fees. We are essentially cash cows, outside the rare scholarships that are extremely competitive (Rhodes, Fullbright - the second of which neither of us is eligible for). You also can't go for the option of naturalisation based on the time you've been in the country because -- you guessed it -- time as a student doesn't count. Source: Same situation as you, left friends, home, and partner to do PhD in France after 5 years in Britain. I had many PhD acceptances, but none of the universities could fund me and we spent months looking at every option. Unless you're rich and you can self-fund (or you're happy to take out loans), it's unfortunately not very doable right now. You should also keep in mind that, as a student at the end of your education, you are unfortunately likely to be targeted by the immigration police. I would advise you to not do anything like overstay, but also to not leave the UK once you have graduated until you're ready to move away before the expiry of your tier 4 visa -- because you will not be allowed back in even if your visa has months of validity on it. It happened to me. This is unrelated to your question, but it's a warning I think not enough people in our situation get. A: In addition to the other answer, I think a big problem you are facing is that you and the UK government do not having matching expectations of what a PhD student position is. You say: Having chosen the UK to study with the belief that 'as long as I am competent I should be qualified for the job', the reality has really slapped back at me. In terms of UK education policy, and as I understand it, a position as a PhD student is not a "job" like being a lawyer or gardener. It's a funded educational program, where the country partially or wholly pays for your training. As the UK is spending this money, they want this benefit to go primarily or exclusively to UK citizens (and EU citizens, arguably mostly because they have to). Whether this is a good policy or a bad one is really not a question that is easy to answer, but this is fundamentally the reason for the hardship you are facing. That being said, you are not out of options. You can: Find a position in the UK that is funded via European money (e.g., H2020 or ERC) or industry funding, rather than UK funds. Those should pretty much always be freely assignable even to PhD students. Move to any other country in the European Union. No other major country that I am aware of (including Germany, Switzerland, France, and Sweden) has similar restrictions, and a master from a good UK university should open up this possibility for you. A: Here's an alternative way of looking at it: Education is one of the UK's main exports. The aim is to sell education to those from other countries, not to give them money and education. You might not agree with that, but it's the current situation.

Q: Student taking a make-up exam sees exam she would've taken: Unethical? Suppose we have a Psychology class of 20 people. They have an exam scheduled on, say, Tuesday April 12 2016. One of them, Shion, is sick and so takes a make up exam on Tuesday April 19 2016. Edit: The make-up exam is different from the original exam. It is also significantly more difficult. Edit: Shion has an advantage of seeing the original exam which is nothing like a random sample of homework questions. Is it cheating for Shion to see the exam taken on Tuesday April 12 2016? I have a feeling the answer might depend on the university, department or professor (which seems weird: If professors can compel students to not see or discuss original exams why not extend this to exams since the beginning of time? Why is the most recent exam any different?). If not, ignore what follows. If so, another question: How can the answer depend on the university, department or professor? One university could allow it while another can't? Can some universities really leave the decision up to the departments or professors? Can two professors in the same department have different decisions about this? I understand if people have their own opinions so two professors could have their own personal opinions, but I don't think their personal opinions should matter. A: You are asking two related but distinct questions here. First: Is it cheating for Shion to see the exam taken on Tuesday April 12 2016? No, unless she promised that she would not see the exam (for example by signing a form to that effect as mentioned in The Fire Guy's answer). And it is not clear that there is any reasonable basis for the professor to ask her to make such a promise, unless the professor is giving her the make-up exam as a special favor that he/she is not required to do. And second: Student taking a make-up exam sees exam she would've taken: Unethical? Yes, this could very well be unethical, but it is the professor who may be behaving unethically, not the student. I see several issues here: first, the professor allowed all the students to keep their copy of the exam, which makes it easier for them to share that information with Shion. Second, the professor is planning to give Shion a make-up exam in which knowledge of which questions were on the original exam could give her an unfair advantage (at least I'm assuming that's the case, otherwise the question wouldn't really make sense). And third, the professor is planning to give Shion a make-up exam which is "significantly more difficult" (note that although this goes in the opposite direction from the first two items, it is still unfair and the three sources of unfairness do not necessarily cancel each other out). All of those things point to the professor not really thinking through very carefully his or her approach to fairly assessing Shion's performance. At the very least it seems like sloppiness on the professor's part, and depending on the level of negligence involved could potentially rise to the level of unethical behavior. Summary: It is the professor's responsibility to design a make-up exam that assesses Shion's performance and knowledge as fairly as possible compared to the other students. Different professors may take different approaches to doing so. Some would find a way to ensure that Shion cannot look at the original exam; others would write a make-up exam that is of the same level of difficulty as, but different enough from, the original exam. Creating a situation in which Shion can easily have access to the original exam and benefit from this information is a recipe for trouble and probably means the professor is not doing his/her job as well as he/she should be. In any case, Shion could only reasonably be accused of cheating if she made an explicit promise that she would not look at the original exam and then did so anyway.

Q: Invitation to visit a colleague's university, who usually provides support for this? In the past year, colleagues or collaborators have informally extended an invitation to visit their University, maybe to meet potential collaborators and give a talk. In general, is it normal for the "host" institution to provide any support? Does one's "home" institution normally provide support to do so? Note: I'm currently a graduate student and am primarily asking for potential opportunities. A: If you have been invited to visit, the default assumption in my realm is that the inviter will cover expenses unless they tell you up front that they don't/may not have money to fund all or any of your visit. Usually the thing to do when you want to take an advantage of an open, informal invitation is contact the person, reminding them of your conversation, and ask about or suggest times to visit. If their reply does not make it clear if they intend to fund your visit, just ask them. A: informally extended an invitation ... is it normal for the "host" institution to provide any support The keyword here is "informally". For a formal invitation (to give a colloquium, to interview, ...) it is indeed customary that the host institution pays unless agreed otherwise. For an informal invitation among colleagues, you should not assume anything. Just ask, but be prepared that the answer may easily be that they don't have money or are not willing to pay for your visit. Does one's "home" institution normally provide support to do so? This depends entirely on your home institution, its budget situation, and as how valuable your visit is perceived by your home institution. Here in Switzerland, many institutions would pretty much auto-approve any such business visits as long as they are not horrendously expensive. In Austria, it was sometimes hard to get visits approved.

Q: UK: Must my PhD research related to my MPhil research? Is this generally expected? It seems to me that most people develop something in their MPhil and then continue working on this field for the PhD. What would I do if I had a change of interest, and work on sub-field A for the MPhil, but then want to do subfield B for my PhD. Is this generally o.k. ? A: Based on my experience as an MPhil student and PhD applicant, I would say there is no requirement for the PhD research to be related to the MPhil research. What you are probably seeing amongst current or past PhD students is that the topics were related not for any official requirement but because: If someone was interested in a topic for their MPhil then it is quite likely that they were still interested in it for a PhD. During their MPhil research, they built a rapport with their supervisor (and co-workers) and this made it easier to discuss possible topics for a PhD. Working on a topic for their MPhil made it relatively easy to write a sensible research proposal for something in that area. Writing a proposal for something that they were interested in, but don't have a solid background for, would have been more challenging.

Q: No response from journal editors I'm not so sure what to do in this situation. I'm a final year PhD student who submitted a manuscript for publication in a clinical journal (paediatrics) about 5 months ago. I've been tracking the online status of the manuscript and as of February 2016 it indicated "all reviews complete". Its been over 1 month now and I've tried calling, sending e-mails, no reply whatsoever. The phone keeps ringing and I've also left messages (Its based in the US-I'm in the UK). There's only one e-mail address provided on their website and I've struggled to get contact details of any of the other academics on the editorial board. I'm just getting a little concerned by the lack of feedback or update regarding the manuscript-has anyone experienced this before? What would you do apart from keep waiting? Edit: Just to let you all know that I heard from them a day after this post! A: Over a month seems normal to me. The editor will need time to consolidate the reviewers' comments and decide on whether to accept, reject, or return the paper to you for revision. It might take longer if the recommendations from the reviewers are conflicting. Bear in mind that the editor has other responsibilities and might handle a number of papers at the same time. Usually in the online submission system there will be an option to send a message to the editor handling the paper. You can try it if there is one. I would not suggest contacting other editors in the editorial board as they may not be involved with the review of your paper.

Q: Will I be penalised if my economics job market paper is coauthored with my supervisor? I read once before that the job market paper should not be coauthored with my supervisor because other universities will assume that my supervisor did all the work. I will apply for an academic role after my PhD, is it true I will be penalised for this? If my other two papers are relatively strong will that eliminate the risk? But what if my supervisor coauthors on more than one paper? A: Economics is not my field, so my answer is based on what I've heard from other people. Generally, it is preferable if the job market paper has a sole authorship or at least if it is co-authored by other graduate students. However, I have heard of people getting jobs even with a job market paper coauthored with their advisor. Since you have two other papers, and one with sole authorship, that will to some extent work towards eliminating any negative impression that the job market paper may create. However, ultimately it will depend on your potential employers and the practices that they follow. Keep your fingers crossed and hope for the best.

Q: Is it possible to write a proposal to get a junior professor position in Germany, when existing openings seem far from my research interests? It has been several months that I am looking for a juniorprofessor position in German institutes. Basically there are just a few opening which are far from my research interests. I have a good publication record and I was involved in writing funding proposals. Is it possible to write a proposal to ask for a professorship position? P.S. My research lies in computer science and electrical engineering. A: Stephan's answer is generally correct, but I get the feeling that this is not what the OP has in mind: Is it possible to write a proposal to ask for a professorship position? I take this to mean whether it makes sense to essentially do a "blind application" for a professor position (i.e., send to a university that is not currently conducting a suitable search an application to the extend of "here are my credentials and a research proposal, please create me a position"). The answer to this question is a pretty resounding no. This will only make you seem out of touch with how academia works. A: Such positions are sometimes created and attached to full W3 professors, essentially as a temporary Assistent in the old parlance (compare C1). Whether this is actually done may depend on your field, your Bundesland (you are in Baden-Württemberg, where this is possible in general) and even your university. You may want to talk to your supervisor, who may have the most vested interest in having you continue on board, especially if you have a proven track record and/or specialized knowledge. However, it would probably be better for your CV to get a "normal" Juniorprofessur to show that you can stand on your own feet, rather than continue in your supervisor's working group. Alternatively, there are ways of getting funding for a few years that may not be a Juniorprofessur in name, but in effect. For instance, the DFG's Emmy Noether Program. After a few years funded through this program, you will be considered berufbar. You will need to apply with your own research proposal. The advantage is that this is very competitive, and if you snag one of these, it is a true mark of excellence. In addition, you will be independent of senior professors, and it offers quite a number of networking opportunities. If you can manage to get one of these, it would be ideal.

Q: In astronomy, would it be possible to continue doing postdocs for up to 15 years to increase your chance of getting a permanent position? I heard that in astronomy most people do only one or two postdocs. If they haven't found a permanent position after this, they quit astronomy and find a job in a different field like physics, economics, or information technology. And the vast majority of people who get a PhD in astronomy will end up quitting astronomy because the astronomy is one of the hardest field to get into. But suppose that your parents were rich and provided you with more than enough money to live for as long as you wanted, which means that you have no pressure to quit your postdocs to get a job in a different field than astronomy in order to earn more money. Would it be possible to continue doing postdocs after postdocs for up to 15 years (so up to 6 postdocs) to increase your chance of getting a permanent position compared to those who only do one or two postdocs? Or would doing more than 2 postdocs not increase your chance of getting a permanent position anymore? Maybe all employers reject people who do more than 2 postdocs because they all see them as failures, no-good, incompetent and unskillful? A: This question to some extent revolves around a purely semantic issue, namely what is a postdoc? Many areas in academia have a small number of "soft money" research positions that a researcher can hold, sometimes for many years. When a researcher has an independent source of funds and doesn't need to be paid, I imagine that can only improve his/her ability to obtain such positions. The questions that need to be discussed in connection to your question are therefore: (a) Do such positions qualify as "postdocs"? (b) Is there a chance for a researcher holding such a position for up to 15 years to eventually transfer to a tenure track position? I'm not in astronomy, but from a general STEM perspective I would argue that the answer to (a) is no, and the answer to (b) is yes. Specifically, with regards to (a), the point is that "postdoc" is not a technical term (at least not one whose definition is universally agreed upon), but an informal label we apply to an interim position a researcher holds for a few years after finishing their PhD and before finding a permanent/tenure-track position. Talking about someone being a postdoc for 15 years is an oxymoron, as it stretches the term way past its conventionally understood meaning. Linguistically it would be like talking about a "50 year old child." With regards to (b), I think it is indeed very possible for a researcher to transition to a faculty position from any other type of position, provided they have been doing high quality work. An extreme case (but not necessarily the only case) would be a researcher who makes a single very important scientific discovery that propels them to scientific stardom. I would imagine that it is absolutely possible for this to happen to a non-faculty researcher in astronomy. Whether it's likely to happen is a completely different story of course, but given that the premise of OP's question is that landing a faculty position in astronomy is already highly unlikely even in the normal way, I don't see why this approach is any less likely to work than the more conventional one. To summarize, my (non-astronomy-specific, as I said) opinion is that although a soft money researcher may suffer from a certain minor stigma when it comes to applying for faculty positions, this by itself will almost certainly not be a deal-breaker, and when it comes to being evaluated for such positions, to a good degree of approximation everything would depend on the work they have published. A: I'm not in astronomy, but as far as I know, it's true across all of academia that your body of work is weighed against the amount of time you've had a PhD. If you don't get a permanent job after your second postdoc (say), you can't simply do more work at the same rate as before. The expectations will be higher, in terms of quantity and quality, if you apply for jobs again 2-3 years later. A: The answer may, to an extent, depend on the country. I believe there was a short period of time where Germany limited the number of years that one could be a postdoc. Assuming that you can legally move into a tenure track/permanent position in the country of your choosing, then there are two types of long term post docs. The first type is an individual who stays in the same "postdoc" position for a long period of time. These individuals can demostate that during the prolonged postdoc that they grew from a junior researcher into an independent researcher through sole author and/or senior author papers and being PI/CI on grants sufficent to cover their salary, the salary of their team, and research costs. These are the type of people who could at any point get a tenure track position someplace, but for whatever reason (e.g., family or an aversion to teaching) chose to work where they are. The second type is the individual who bounces between 1-3 year postdocs (or potentialy stays in the same group for a long time) and never demonstrates independence. Their funding comes predominately through grants to their supervisor and they rarely are sole or senior author on papers. These people stand little chance of getting a TT/permanent position. Hiring committees are looking for someone who when the tenure clock runs out is going to be an established independent investigator. If you have not done it during a 15 year postdoctoral period, it is unlikely you will convince a hiring committee that you will during the pre-tenure period.

Q: How to refer to myself as a subject of study in a research paper? Okay so I have collected personal spending data of myself and significant other over a period of 6 months. I'm quite happy with the data and would like to present it and write it up as a research paper. I'm not going to be publishing it but would like to do it for fun (and a bit of practice can't hurt). The dilemma I am facing at the moment is that I cannot figure out how to refer to myself or my significant other as participants in the study. I have been trying to figure this out for a few days now and google is really giving me a hard time. I cannot find a single thing relevant to what I am trying to do. My first issue I have come to is that I am captioning a figure that reads similar to this. Figure 1: Average daily spending vs time for myself (solid line) and significant other (dotted line). Is this the correct way to refer to myself and significant other? It feels much too informal for my liking. I have considered making a small statement that states that myself will be referred to as "participant A" and my significant other will be referred to as "participant B", but this might add unnecessary confusion. Is there a standard on this? This has been driving me absolutely crazy over the past few days and would really appreciate any insight or suggestions. A: Use the names "Participant 1" and "Participant 2" in figure captions and throughout the text. You can then, if you want, explain at one point, who these participants are (if it actually matters), but at least you don't have to repeatedly refer to yourself and your s.o..

Q: Computer Science vs Computer Graphics Masters I am an undergraduate student who wants to do research in computer graphics field. I would like to know how a computer science masters degree and a computer graphics and Game Technology (goes with similar names at different universities) would affect my future Ph.D. applications and career, upon graduating from the masters program. At this point I should also mention that some of the "Computer Graphics and ..." master programs are 1 year long. (No thesis I assume?) Thank you A: I'd look at this a little like a wager on where you want to go in the future. If you'd like to do a PhD in the future, then focus on the fundamentals will pay off. I can't think of a single PhD that wouldn't benefit from stronger research and math skills. Especially if you want to go on to a PhD, ensure that you're getting the background in research --- typically this will mean a focus on thesis based programs. If you're unsure of where you want to go afterwards, be aware, that a good master's program in Computer Science, is unlikely to close any doors for you, whereas a focus on Computer Graphics may mean that it's more difficult to make the transition into a different field later should you decide it's not for you. A: If you think you might pursue a PhD later, it's a very bad idea to pursue a one-year master's degree without a thesis, no matter what it's called. PhD admissions committees tend to consider all applicants with master's degrees together as one equivalence class (because it's difficult to remember the exact details of hundreds of different master's degrees). You will be directly competing with other applicants who took more time doing and publishing research during the first full year master's program, before applying at in their third semester. Students in one-year master's programs would apply after only two or three months in their program, which (for most mortals) is not enough time to do any significant research, much less publish it. A: It really depends on what sort of research you want to do. I know people who I work with in scientific visualization that have Computer Science degrees and that's probably the best thing for their kind of work. They use computer graphics, but most of their work is more related to computer science. If you're going to go the route of Computer Science but are interested in graphics, make sure you pick a program that offers enough education in that area (good coursework, professor interested in the research, etc.) and take plenty of Math, possibly even another Master's degree. I'm not sure what kind of PhD work you would do in Computer Graphics outside of scientific visualization (though I'm sure there's some of which I'm unaware), but it sounds like the kinds of programs at which you're looking are more focused on people who are using the Master's program as an end goal to go into the computer games industry. I'd be wary of those programs if you're trying to move into a Ph. D. later as they may not be relevant to the kind of program where you'd be applying in another year or two.

Q: Online "database" for mathematical conferences? I am about to start applying for Ph.D programs (mathematics), and while compiling my CV, comparing it with many examples avaliable across the internet, I noticed that almost everyone attended one or two conferences during his bachelor/master years. Now, I just didn't do that. I don't know if this could be an issue or anything, anyway, that is not my question. Since I have at least four months until most programs start, I wanted to look for some conference that could be interesting. At my university there is a hallway where posters of such things are hanged, but I couldn't find anything online (apparently each university publishes its own conferences on its website, and that's it). I can't believe there isn't an online equivalent of the above mentioned hallway, my question is: is there? A: The American Mathematical Society has a calendar of conferences: http://www.ams.org//meetings/calendar/mathcal As does the Mathematical Association of America: http://www.maa.org/meetings And the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics: http://www.siam.org/meetings/

Q: What is the effect of choosing the wrong topic(s) during conference paper submission? My domain is Image processing. While submitting papers to conferences, authors are usually asked to select a primary and secondary topic for there paper. What is the actual purpose of this? What if authors by mistake select a wrong (not completely) topic instead of a more suitable topic? Does this get changed before/during the review process? What if this is not corrected and paper is assigned to a reviewer who thinks this is not the proper topic of the paper? Does this affect the paper review process or increase chances of rejection? A: Yes, this helps organize the papers for the reviewers and structure the conference. Ticking the wrong box can indeed cause a paper to be rejected, as not all reviewers read all of the papers and realize that it is just misplaces. Do choose these with care. A: Conferences often use some sort of semi-automated system for matching papers and reviewers, in which case keyword/topic selection will be very important. Even when it is done by hand or by bidding, keyword/topic selection will typically guide who the paper gets assigned to. Moreover, some conferences also have special reviewing procedures or criteria for certain tracks. Thus, what you select determines the audience you are claiming will best appreciate your paper, and thus which reviewers will be looking at it. If you pick the wrong ones, you'll get unappreciative reviewers, and have a much higher chance of getting rejected. If might get noticed and corrected on your behalf, but in my experience it is more likely that you will simply have a mismatch and get poorly reviewed.

Q: Is it unethical to edit the text of my undergraduate thesis prior to sharing online? My undergraduate thesis was completed almost a decade ago and is not available online, nor was any publication made from the findings. I would like to share it online, but looking back on it I notice many grammatical errors and conclusions that make less sense to me after gaining research experience. Is it unethical to make considerable changes to the text, or should I produce the document as it is to provide an honest representation of my early work? A: IMHO it depends on why you want to make it available. If your primary reason is that you want to make information available more publicly, you could produce a "revised edition" of the thesis and add a preface stating that this is a substantially revised and edited version of your thesis - just like other books do. If you just correct typos and grammar, just say that. There is also the possibility to comment on the conclusions you don't see like that any more in a way (formatting, footnote) that makes clear that this is a point where your opinion now differs. (like a commented edition of some work). If your primary reason is to give the text your online CV refers to, then leave it unchanged. A: Is it unethical to make considerable changes to the text No, it's not unethical, but if you make changes it would be useful to include a note or a preface disclosing that that is an amended version of your original thesis, and if your conclusions have changed considerably after further experience, you can explain why. A: The important thing in such matters is to be honest. Releasing a revised version clearly marked as such is perfectly ethical. Releasing a revised version while leading people to belive it's the original thesis that you submitted to the university years ago would IMO be unethical.

Q: I don't know what to say when meeting the supervisor after he has suggested me to leave the research group I am a PhD student in Germany and my supervisor has suggested me to change the research group because he has told me I cannot write a good quality dissertation within the time framework of three years. He assumes that the maximum possible time for doing the PhD is three years and this time framework cannot be extended. Now I want to talk with him face to face, but I don't know what to say. Has anyone had a similar experience? Should I fight to keeping this position or I should find another position in another university? edit 1: I personally prefer to leave the group because I never felt I'm part of the research group even after one semester. I didn't get that feeling even from my supervisor. A: This adviser is doing you a favor. He is telling you at the very early stage of your PhD that you're not cut for it according to his standards. That sounds harsh and that's why I think the funding argument is merely a diplomatic excuse. Imagine if he had told you the same thing after 2.5 years, or failed you at the defense (if that still happens). I have no ways of knowing whether he is right or wrong, but that is irrelevant anyway: he doesn't want you to get a PhD under his supervision, hence you won't get it. Your only viable option is to leave. For your discussion, ask more details about what you could improve, or what other path he would suggest for you. He is in no way obligated to answer but it might be helpful to you. Based on what he tells you, you might get an idea of what can be next for you: switching group, taking additional education, switching field of research, looking for opportunities outside academia, etc. That is not something we can help with without knowing you and your work.

Q: Is scanning a chapter from a library book illegal? I love to visit the library and read a lot of books. However I am not particularly wealthy and consciously try to limit the number of books I buy for grad school. Besides the cost, there is a chance that the books may become obsolete to my area of work in a few years. Add to that, the space they occupy and the inconvenience caused during relocation. I generally make notes of whatever I study and like from particular books. Sometimes though, I take a scan or photocopy of some chapters that are interesting or important from exam perspective. However suddenly it occurred to me that I may be inadvertently committing a mistake here. Is it not such scans that make it to websites that make available books for illegal download? Don't universities have explicit policies that prohibit such scans or photocopying of books? Should I be more careful from now on with such photocopying? Is the info on whether a book can be photocopied available usually inside the book? Should I look into the university policy on this and the subsequent penalty for violators? A: I'm not a lawyer, but my impression is that if you are copying one or a small number of chapters, you're on very solid ground here, at least in the US. I cannot comment on the legality of copying an entire book. Let's start with US copyright law. This is an issue of fair use. The border between fair use and what is not fair use is notoriously vague and defined I think largely by case precedent. But making a single copy of a chapter for private use seems so far from that border that it must be allowed. From 17 U.S. Code § 107: Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. Second, this has been standard practice among academics for decades if not centuries. In the old days before online journals, we all had massive filing cabinets full of thousands of reprints, some obtained from authors but many photocopied from our libraries. These of course included chapters from books. No one EVER talked about this as some potential copyright violation. These filing cabinets have died away with the advent of online journals (not that I've been able to bring myself to get rid of mine), and instead people save huge numbers of pdfs on their computers. Most journal licenses explicitly allow for this, by the way. And it would difficult not to: one has to make a local copy to read it on one's machine, after all. To summarize, I can't imagine it ever being a problem if you copy one or a few chapters. I don't know the answer if you copy an entire book, though as far as actual risk is concerned I am unaware of a copyright police that comes and checks through one's personal filing cabinet for violations.

Q: Should I quit my PhD? This is a canonical question on this topic as per this Meta post. Due to its nature, it is rather broad and not exemplary for a regular question on this site. Please feel free to improve this question. By its very nature, a PhD is stressful. If you're coping with other issues at the same time, the stress can become unbearable. Suppose a student is experiencing some of the following while pursuing a PhD, and wondering if they should quit. What tools could help them make the best decision? worried they're not smart enough stressed and unhappy homesick haven't made any friends, feeling lonely suffering from a mental health issue such as depression, panic attacks, or bipolar worried about a family situation (e.g., a sick relative) worried about money disagreements with advisor A: It's difficult to think clearly and make good decisions when you're stressed. Obviously, we can't tell you whether or not you should leave the PhD programme, but here are some suggestions to help you through this difficult time. If you have a mental health issue, try to address it before making any big decisions. Your school will generally have a counsellor to help students. Contact them and make an appointment. Meditation can help with stress. There may be a meditation club, or free meditation lessons on offer at your school (this is particularly common near exam time). Think about YOUR goals rather than just trying to please parents/advisors. Realise that a PhD programme is very different than anything you've likely done before, so don't expect to feel comfortable in it for the first six months or even a year. Talk to your advisor about the problem. If you don't feel comfortable doing this yet, perhaps visit a counselor first. Try not to be overwhelmed by the number of problems you're facing. Try to think about each problem in isolation. Imagine all of the problems but one magically disappeared; what could you do to alleviate the remaining problem? You may be able to take a leave of absence from your studies. Try doing sports, it helps your focus and your health. In fact, this would be one on the first things to do no matter if you are at PhD or not. A: This is a very difficult and subjective question to answer but I hope I can at least point you in a direction to aid in your decision. I am working on a PhD in the biological sciences so I am answering from that perspective. What you are experiencing can be lumped into about three different categories: Normal/moderately normal for a PhD student worried they're not smart enough stressed and unhappy homesick feeling lonely It is relatively normal for PhD students in the biological science to feel these things to varying degrees of severity on and off throughout your 5-6 years in the field. You have a lot of pressure between classes, teaching, and research which can occupy a lot of your time and perhaps all of your evenings and weekends. Much of the work may require you to be alone or with little company. You will be isolated from your social life due to the pressures and demands of research. You may be in a new country or a new city. I would suggest finding one or two things you truly enjoy and carving out the time to do these activities once a week. You may find yourself more efficient because you will be working under less stress. If you have a niche interest, look online for meetups with others. It will be much easier to make friends when you already have major things in common. Normal for many jobs disagreements with advisor worried about a family situation (e.g., a sick relative) worried about money homesick worried they're not smart enough If you are not in your PhD program, these items will not necessarily just go away. Struggling with a boss or having disagreements with management can happen anytime groups of people have to work together. Monetary issues or family situations will not be guaranteed to go away just because you are working elsewhere. Worry over not being smart enough can still happen in any job where you will find yourself compared to the work of co-workers. I significantly downgraded my lifestyle when I began my PhD. You may have to find alternative ways to save money and not live as extravagantly. Remember, in many ways your PhD is an investment. This will not be forever. Of potential medical concern suffering from a mental health issue worried they're not smart enough stressed and unhappy haven't made any friends, feeling lonely You have to determine for yourself or through a doctor if the severity of what you feel is just due to the normal stress of graduate school or actually indicative of an underlying medical condition. While it is normal to feel stressed and lonely at times, persistent feelings may warrant medical intervention. There are counseling and medical services on many campus so I urge you to consider their opinion and suggestions before quitting your PhD. Conclusion Life will always be full of stress. You will face challenges in your career if not in graduate school. You will deal with financial stress, medical stress, deaths, and loneliness at various points in your life with or without your PhD program. What you need to determine is if the severity of these feelings is normal and something you have to learn to deal with or if it is the result of medical health problems. For me it was the former. And the experience I have had in my program, pushing through the stress and loneliness and coming out on top, has, more than anything else, made me feel like I have truly grown up. I hope this is also the case for you. A: I agree that PhD sometimes can get stressful! But, there can be a solution (or bunch of solutions) to each problem: Worried they're not smart enough => You are smart enough, stop doubting yourself and stop comparing yourself to others! Stress triggered due to doubt can be pretty much eliminated by self confidence. Take a step back, collect data and re-analyze why do you feel this way. If it grades-related, try to improve the way you study or meet the professor in office hours to figure out why are performing badly. If it is publication-related, talk to your advisor/senior PhD student and see what's going on. Most of time the solution to each problem can be found by breaking the issue down into its basics (i.e., go back to the basics/fundamentals). Stressed and unhappy, homesick, have not made any friends => I'm lumping these together because I feel they come from the same source (being lonely and an introvert). Most of the time, if you are lonely (no friends), you will be unhappy and homesick because you will naturally miss your family and friends!! Many PhD students are introverts that think all what they need to do is finish their thesis or research. To put it into prescriptive, it takes so much effort and time to schedule an event for 5-6 PhD students than for 50 undergraduate! Just because PhD students think its not worth it or have so much to do! Do not be like that. Engage in activities or academic clubs in your school, do some volunteering (even if it was in animal shelters), join a gym (my personal preference). Re-learn how to make friends. When you walk downtown, do you think people who walk by you knows that you are a PhD student?! No, nobody cares. So, social life is very important. We are humans, humans are made to interact with other humans (not phone apps). Start dating (if single) or traveling with your significant other (for a week or two). Suffering from a mental health issue such as depression, panic attacks, or bipolar => If it is related to being lonely (most likely), go back and read point 2 above. If not, join a support group, see a doctor, fix your problem. The sooner the better! Worried about a family situation (e.g., a sick relative) => That is a hard one to deal with. I lost many family members while I was being away for my studies. I did call them on regular basis. Let me tell you something, even if you were working a regular job (9-5) right next to them, that would not have changed anything! Get it out of your head, PhD did not cause that! You can not save everybody, no one can! Life is life. Worried about money => "If you choose Academia, you will always be broke, unless.." one of my advisors told me that. He did not say unless what, he just smiled. If you mean being worried about money while being a student, then, try not to. It is not something you can fix now (unless you win an award or fellowship, your salary will be the same throughout your schooling (especially is financially supported by your advisor)). What you can do is, finding a part-time job. Keep in mind that sometimes this can not be an option (if you are in the US on an F or J visa, if I'm not mistaken). Disagreements with advisor => Why? Do not be too stubborn, be professional and flexible. Many advisors are a pain to work with/for. Be smart, avoid arguments even if that would mean to work few minutes extra here and there. On cases where the advisor is very mean, moody, unrealistic, unprofessional, try to talk to him/her, discuss it with an academic advisor, department chair, consider changing your current advisor etc. At the end of the day, you made it this far. Problems will always occur, try to solve them. I understand that it can be way easier said than done! But, life is a journey!

Q: Etiquette: senior and junior professors co-advising I'd like to ask two professors who work at my university to be the co-advisors of my Masters thesis (mathematics). They work in the same research group on (almost) the same topic (which is well-aligned to my interests), although they actually never published together, and get along well. The first one (A) is an Emeritus professor who has been for over 40 years one of the world leaders in my research area and is still very active; the second one (B) is younger (mid-forties) tenured professor but has already established a very good research reputation; also, he is A's former student. In my opinion they complement each other very well and working with the two of them will be an extremely instructive experience. Who should I contact first to talk about my research proposal to avoid being disrespectful to either of them? A: The emeritus professor might not be allowed to advise any students officially because of his retired or semi-retired status, so talk to the Prof B first and discuss with him that you'd like Prof A to be involved. You can work with him to figure out how to approach A and in what role he can "legally" act under your university's regulations.

Q: How can I get my papers published formally? I have posted majority of my academic work from MA program on Academia.edu. This past week I had the time to look into the Analytics section and I have tons of followers, readers, downloads, student citing my work etc. Enough readers that I think I should try to get my work published. How do I get my work published formally? Who should I try to reach out to? My informally published work is getting a lot of traffic. Any suggestions on how to do that? A: Choose a target journal. A good first step is to see where the papers you cite are published.Some other suggestions are here and here. If you don't have a budget for publishing, look for one that has no author fees. Avoid predatory and low-quality journals; see how to judge the quality of a journal. Visit the target journal's website, and read about the scope of the journal and their instructions for authors. Read some papers in the latest issue of their journal. Make sure your paper is on topic, and is comparable to other recent papers in the journal in scope, writing quality, and rigor. If it's not a good fit, go back to step 1. Edit your paper to follow the instructions for authors from step 2 (formatting, length, anonymizing if the journal does double-blind review.) Submit the paper to the journal for review, following the instructions on the journal's website. Watch your paper go through the journal workflow.

Q: What is the Measure of an "Incomplete" Undergraduate Thesis? My undergraduate thesis was not what I would consider a complete product. I did due diligence in the background and theory of the topic, but while I have attained results, my output of validated analysis methods and observed trends was notably missing the data that motivated this work. It wasn't done. On the other hand, it was due. I received a general attitude from the chair of my department, that this is OK. My chair's thoughts could be summed up as "it's not a Master's or PhD thesis". This would be a public document with my name on it, and I wasn't fully happy, but my institution seemed to be. What are your thoughts on the expectations of an undergraduate thesis, and what you feel is an acceptable product from undergraduates? Does this significantly differ from a PhD or M.S. thesis in factors other than depth of work? A: Honestly, my expectations for undergraduate theses are very limited. Any well-written discussion that demonstrates significant understanding of the research area is probably satisfactory. A doctoral dissertation is supposed to demonstrate significant research skill and the ability to perform cutting-edge research. A master's thesis is supposed to demonstrate the ability to perform some useful research in the subject area. An undergraduate thesis is supposed to demonstrate that a student knows something worth knowing about a topic, and original results are not generally a requirement. In a way, it is good that you are unhappy with your undergraduate honors thesis. That demonstrates that you know what you have actually accomplished and also clearly understand the weaknesses of your work. It may be unfortunate that you have not had enough time to complete all the work you would have liked to complete, but if you continue along an academic career path, you will get ample opportunities to pursue more complete research projects. (As a personal note, I should add that as I am writing this comment, I really ought to be providing comments on the thesis draft that I received the other day from my own honors college student. This is a really good student, and he has already appeared as an author on a paper in a top journal, based on his work over the past year. On the other hand, his written thesis is lacking in both contextualization and descriptive detail. To bring his work up to the level where I would like it to be would be a significant undertaking, and it is probably not going to get to that level in the limited time we have. To some extent, that leaves me disappointed, but I do not want to lose track of the fact that this is a really first-rate student, and what he has produced---imperfect as it is---is quite remarkable for an twenty-one-year-old undergraduate.)

Q: How do I cite a paper that is not yet submitted for publication? I am revising a paper which is due to be submitted today. In it, I would like to cite another paper of mine which is not yet submitted as it is still reviewed by my coauthors. How do I cite this latter paper in the former? Is it ok to say '(submitted)' when it is actually not, although it may have been when the former paper is published? Or can I say '(to submit)', although I am not sure if such is formally recognised? A: You can call it a "preprint" if it is ready to circulate, or say that it is "in preparation" if you are working on it but it's not done yet. (The difference is whether you would be willing to give interested people a copy now, or whether you would ask them to wait until it's done.) Don't call it "submitted" if that's not actually true, even if you think it will be submitted by the time anyone sees the reference. Getting caught in even a minor lie can hurt your reputation for honesty, and there are any number of ways something could go wrong in the process of finishing and submitting the paper.

Q: Find article link by bibtex citation key I have a list of citation keys (entry names in bib file) but I don't have the name of article. How can I find the article link? For example, according to bib file of this article, the citation key is JagadeeshChandraBose2010. Suppose I only have JagadeeshChandraBose2010 and I need to find the link to article. How can I do it? I tried Google and all search engines listed here, but I didn't find a solution. A: The citation key in bibtex can be anything you want. What you call JagadeeshChandraBose2010, I can call 1234567 or abcdefg, as long as I call it the same thing in the tex file as in the bib file. Since that key can be any string you want, there is obviously no way to map between that arbitrary string and the article. Now, if the string follows a particular format - like JagadeeshChandraBose2010, which seems to be a name or names, followed by a year - then you can search for that article using that information. For example: Google Scholar search finds two papers authored by Jagadeesh Chandra Bose in 2010. A: Bibtex citation keys are in no-way unique, nor do they have to be meaningful. The sole purpose of the key is to use it as a reference link when citing the work. In latex you would do something like \cite{foobar} where foobar is a perfectly valid key. To add to the confusion, there is no unique convention on naming bibtex entries, and whether there should be one is up for discussion. Some people name their own keys, others let their citation manager do the job for them. I use Mendeley which uses a FirstAuthorSurname_Year schematic. If I have more than one paper by that same author published in that same year, Menedeley appends lower-caps letters after the main key. Zotero and Google seem to do something similar. What this means is that reverse searching an article from the bibtex key you have in your .bib file is a hard task, which might even be impossible if the keys used follow a random/meaningless scheme. If however, the key contains some data on the publication - Author, year, publication type, etc. - you can try entering those details in your favourite publication search engine in the hope of finding the paper.

Q: What are the responsibilities of the Publication Chair of a conference? I received an "offer" to become the publication chair of a high profile IEEE conference. Before accepting the "offer" I would like to know what are my responsibilities, and I would like to plan ahead as what portion of the available time such a commitment would eat up. I saw this description, but it is rather vague. It says: Publications Chair: Responsible for the coordination of production of conference content (e.g., papers from special tutorial sessions or colloquia, summaries of conference papers, programs, etc.) and serves as the point of contact for all Xplore submission-related inquiries before and after the conference. It tells nothing about the pitfalls, so I want some feedback from people who have really done this. EDIT: additional questions Does it have positive or negative impact on the student. In terms of workload vs. benefit? A: I've been publication chair of an IEEE conference before, and it's pretty straight-forward. IEEE has a well-arranged process for managing conference publications, and you basically just need to hold up your side of the deal and make sure that nothing falls through the cracks. In particular: you should have an IEEE CPS publications contact. You can get this from the current general chairs, since they're dealing with IEEE, or (since its usually the same from year to year) you can ask the previous publications chair. Set up a meeting with that person ASAP and they can walk you through the process and make plans with you; I've had very good experiences working with their publications personnel. The key responsibilities that you should expect to fulfill are: Set a schedule acceptable to IEEE and the conference chairs Work with the general chairs to fill out the required forms and get them to the IEEE on time, so that you can get the publications IEEE CPS contract signed. This will include setting the various different types of publications (e.g., main track, short papers, workshop papers, tutorial abstracts, etc), as well as pages sizes, expected number, delivery method (I recommend USB sticks) and budget. Send information about camera ready from IEEE to the various conference chairs that need it (general, program, workshops, tutorial, etc.). Work with chairs to get all of the front matter prepared in a timely fashion and within the schedule negotiated with IEEE (cover, index information, introductions, sponsored material, etc.). Immediately after the conference, report to IEEE whether there were any no-shows (who should have their papers removed). One month after reporting whether there were and no-shows, everything should appear online in IEEE Xplore. If it doesn't, then you need to keep pinging IEEE's representative to make sure things get into IEEE Xplore as promptly as possible.

Q: I've been admitted to multiple PhD programs, how should I choose between them? I've been admitted to more than one PhD program, and I'm having a very hard time making a decision. The programs I'm accepted to have advantages and disadvantages with respect to one another. How do I weigh the relative importance of difference aspects of the program in order to make an optimal decision? Ultimately, this is not a decision that anybody else can make for me, because everyone has different values and priorities, and the right decision for me may not be the right decision for somebody else. However, you can help by giving me more information about how different features of a program will affect my experience in graduate school and my future career. The offers under consideration differ in a variety of ways: Ranking Advisor Research group Funding I need to know more about what kinds of things are important and how these will affect me, so that I can make an informed decision about balancing competing criteria. Note to readers: These answers quote extensively from other answers on this site (and link to them). If you read something quoted here that you find helpful, please follow the link to the original source and vote it up! This is a special community wiki 'canonical' question that aggregates advice on a very broad topic - see more information in this meta post. Each answer here relates to a different metric that one might take under consideration. If you have a new "critical" metric not in the list above that you believe should be an important part of the decision, post a new answer. If you want to add something related a metric that's already represented in its own answer, edit that answer. A: Advisor Your advisor will be a really, really, really key part of your PhD experience, and can make all the difference between success and failure. There are many different advising styles, and you should learn more about potential advisors to find one whose style works for you. walkmanyi sums it up: Many don't speak about this too often, but with an advisor you are not only choosing a field of interest, but you are choosing a mentor. By all means, you want to "tick well" with him/her. There is not much good for a PhD student having a star researcher advisor whom they see once in a quarter and who is a sociopath on a personal level (this is a bit too extreme, but think about it as a continuum between extremes). Choose somebody with whom you will be able to work, whose example it is worth to follow, from whom you want to learn, not only the scientific stuff, but also workstyle, level of quality he/she strives for, etc. These soft reasons are often more important than anything else. Fomite has a fairly comprehensive answer on how to judge potential advisors by looking beyond their recent publications: There are a few things I would generally look at in a potential advisor beyond just their research/publications: Who were the co-authors on their papers? Are they actively collaborating with people in your field - people who could be potentially useful for post-doc posts, etc.? Do their students often show up as primary authors on publications, or are they invariably buried in the middle of a long list of authors? Personality. This goes beyond just do you like the person. Do they prefer frequent updates, meetings and the like, or is the occasional check-in enough? Are they a morning person and you prefer working nights, or the other way around? If you send a long email, would it get answered, or do they not often fail to answer emails? I've had some professors who I'm very fond of nevertheless would make poor advisors because of wildly disparate working styles. How are their students funded? Your funding stream can have serious impact on your completion time and productivity. If every semester, its a desperate Pick-N-Mix of funded side projects, TAships, etc. you're going to have a lot on your plate that, while potentially an interesting experience, will slow down your progress. Where do their students end up? Do they have decent career trajectories? Are they supportive of alternative paths like industry or government? Rank and age. A young professor might be more aggressive and eager, on the other hand they're less established, don't necessarily have the same level of institutional support, and if they're not yet tenured, its possible they'll disappear. An older professor may be more established and stable, but might not use "cutting edge" techniques, or feel less of an internal drive to publish. Henry adds that there may also be some benefits to having an advisor who is generally well-liked by his/her peers: I'd add to your list how your advisor is viewed in the rest of the field. Not just on the quality of research (though that's important too), but again, how much people like your advisor personally. Again, a small factor, but having other people in your field like your advisor can make a difference. But really, the best way to find out about a potential advisor is to talk to their current students, and we have plenty of questions for you to ask! Piotr Migdal says the most important question to ask is Are you happy with your PhD in general? It covers a lot of issues, but usually you don't want to do a PhD in a place where students are unhappy and frustrated. The good thing is that if students feel really bad, they rarely hide it. but he adds a few more, too: General contacts on the line student-advisor (How much contact and support can you expect, both for research and administrative stuff?). Funding (Is it a problem or a non-issue, e.g. for attending a conference?). Research (What the actual research looks like? What is the toughest part, biggest emphasis on, the most time-consuming part, etc?) How much time does it typically take to finish PhD? Does it happen often that someone drops out? Suresh suggests asking: does PA [potential advisor] have time to meet with you when you need help ? Or does PA [potential advisor] want too many meetings ? how much guidance are you given ? Too much ? Too little ? is the relationship "work only" ? Do you talk about non technical academic issues ? Theresa Liao has some more good questions to ask current students: Do/Did you (the current/former PhD) enjoy working in this supervisor's research group? Do research group members work with each other collaboratively and help each other? And ask the PhD student to elaborate. This question tries to get at what the research group dynamic is. This is fairly important in my opinion - the last thing you want to concern yourself with is politics in the research group. I have seen PhD friends frustrated by this. Ideally you should ask this question in a less formal setting (some grad school visits will have time for social events). And sometimes you meet grad students who are comfortable sharing their experience openly. If you are not comfortable asking this question, as it can be an awkward question for the supervisor's current PhD, you can simply observe the interaction between group members, and between group members and the supervisor. Is the supervisor generally available? Does it take a long time to arrange a meeting to meet with the supervisor (used to be the case with my supervisor because he was so busy)? Does the supervisor respond immediately and effectively (another friend's supervisor tend to leave questions to last minute)? Are group members expected to work 24/7 or 9-to-5? Some supervisors expect you to reply to emails immediately, and some work strictly business hours. Does the supervisor take a hands-on or hands-off approach? Are students expected to be really independent with lots of freedom, or are they guided/directed along the way with less freedom? Does the supervisor support his/her students to consider career paths outside of academia? Some supervisors only want their students to go into academia, and it will be harder to discuss options with such supervisors. For Q2-Q5, the right answer will depend on your own preference - what you want is a supervisor whom you will work well with. A: Funding On questions related to self-funding a PhD vs. accepting an offer with funding, most answers point out that lacking funding has broader implications for your experience in graduate school - it's not just about the debt. There is a strong consensus that it is not a good idea to accept an offer without funding in any field and country where funding is typical. In some areas, however, such as humanities studies in the United States, a funded Ph.D. is not typical. In some fields and locations (e.g. computer science in the United States), a standard PhD offer comes with funding. In situations like this, JeffE says: Do not accept a PhD admission offer without funding. If they really want you, they'll pay for you. and elaborates: A typical PhD offer from a strong department includes guaranteed funding in some form. My department promises five years of funding to every incoming PhD student, assuming they make steady progress toward their degree. (Do not accept a PhD admission offer without funding. If they really want you, they'll pay for you.) Most of our students take 6 years to finish, but in practice, (100-ε)% of our students are funded for their entire stay. A typical theory student in my department is a TA for 2-4 semesters and an RA of fellow for the rest. When a student is admitted, the department is making a contractual commitment to funding that student, assuming they make adequate progress toward their degree. This is echoed in an answer by ff524 on another question. vadim123 warns: Choosing the no-support program is a large gamble. You should take it if you're confident that the program made a mistake in not offering you funding -- you have tremendous talent that for some reason has not been revealed in your record. Absent such a situation you should take the support. On a similar question, L Platts points out that a program offering funding is likely to be more committed to your success, which has broader implications for your experience in the program (not just your debt): If option A is research council funded (or is funded by a high-profile UK body or another funder demanding results for their money), this would weigh heavily in my decision to take it, even if it is at a less prestigious university. There will be consequences for the group and department if a council-funded student fails to finish by the four-year deadline, and this means that both the supervisor and institution are absolutely committed to the student succeeding and solutions will have to be found if things start to go wrong. Paul points out that many programs won't even allow self-funded students, for good reason: In science-related graduate schools, it is quite often the case that students will not be accepted into the program unless they have some sort of support (i.e. department assistantship, scholarship/fellowship, etc...). Students who try to do it all on their own often find themselves under even more pressure than a funded student. On top of trying to pass extremely difficult courses and pursue original, cutting edge research, they may find themselves also working multiple unrelated jobs that barely make ends meet for rent, much less tuition and all other debts incurred along the way. Often, unfunded students succumbs to financial pressures and drop out to pursue more financially stable opportunities. and continues: I believe this is a major reason why self-funded students are often not even allowed in graduate programs: statistically speaking, their success rate is likely too low to merit taking a chance. ending with this bit of advice: My advice to you: If you're offered funding, take it!. If you are accepted into a graduate program and are not offered funding and don't have any other source of funding apart from yourself, then don't try to do it all on your own. The sheer cost of graduate school, combined with the uncertainty of you graduating from the program, along with the nightmare of trying to pay off student loan debt for the rest of your life (even bankruptcy will not save you from student loan debt); it's just not worth it to you. You may be wondering whether it's a good idea to rely on the possibility of getting funding after you enroll in the program. ff524 says that it's a gamble: It's not impossible to get funding after beginning the program (e.g., if you really hit it off with a potential PhD advisor who has grant money to spare). But this depends very much on luck and circumstance, not just on merit; so unless you like living dangerously, it's not an advisable strategy. Having said all that, if you do go the self-funded route, Paul has some reassurance for you: You need not worry about the existence of a caste-system among graduate students. You will not be treated any differently than any other student if you are accepted into a program and not funded. and Suresh says not to worry about how future hiring committees will perceive this: All a recruiting committee should (and does) care about post-PhD is the quality of your work (for faculty positions there are additional issues). No one cares about how you were paid to do that work. A: Research group This answer by JeffE is so perfect, I'm just going to quote it verbatim. He says that asking about the quality of a research group is the wrong question, What you should be asking is "How can I judge which research group will best support my educational and career goals?" And yes, this is a very different question. And while lab productivity may be correlated with the future career prospects of its members, the two are not identical. Some great researchers are terrible advisors. Do the lab's students have a consistent strong track record of publishing new results? Are the lab's students strongly represented at conferences, workshops, and the like? In particular: Are the lab's students given ample opportunity to present their research outside their home department? Are the lab's students given ample mentoring and support, both in developing their own research agendas and in applying for external fellowships, lab exchanges, internships, postdoctoral positions, faculty positions, and so on? Are the lab's students given ample opportunity for substantial intellectual contributions to the lab's published research, or are they just lab/code monkeys? Does the lab's research agenda closely match your own research interests and abilities? Most importantly: Where do the lab's former students work now? (The worst possible answer is "We don't know.") Almost none of these questions can be answered accurately without physically visiting the lab and talking directly to the students without the PI present. If travel is impractical, use Skype / Google hangout / Facetime / whatever. Or telephone. Or, if all else fails, email. Publishing is key in academia, so to get a sense of a research group, it's also a good idea to look at publications that have come out of the group, as suggested here: How many articles are published, particularly in high quality journals relevant to the field of interest Is there a consistent strong track record of publishing new results? Their history of representation and contributions to conferences, workshops and the like

Q: Recommendation letter sent from non-institutional email Would it hurt the student's evaluation, if I were to send their recommendation letter from my gmail account as opposed to the institutional? I use my gmail account for all my correspondence, it is listed on all my papers, university website, etc. A: I use my gmail, but gmail has the capability to manage the sender addresses. You should authenticate your gmail to send from your institutional address. The recipient will then have the confirmation that you are indeed who you say you are, as gmail will have already done the authentication. The authenticator in gmail has the ability to either use the SMTP server of your institution to send (if your systems team permits it), where gmail is then acting as the mail client, or it can use the From headers to indicate your authenticated affiliation. If you were doing it properly you could manage all your email through the gmail account and choose whichever outgoing account and sending method you choose. This is what I do, for the several academic institutional affiliations I possess. So in summary: you can have it both ways. You can use gmail for official institutional correspondence and you can use the options provided in gmail to choose which of your attributions any particular email uses. It is appropriate to badge emails for official correspondence, such as letters of recommendation, with your institutional addresses. I would suggest not using a personal email addresses for business purposes, but using the tools properly you can customise your environment in a professional manner. A: For other purpose, I recently try to confirm that some professor X was indeed employed by University Y. This search taught me that some universities do not have directories for their faculty member or any other way to confirm online that professor X is a real researcher. For this reason, I would strongly suggest to use your institutional email, in case there is doubt about your affiliation or existence. A: You don't say what the recommendation letter is for, but it's generally not a big deal for academic letters in my experience. For industry letters, many businesses also use gmail, so it will probably not be looked on too strangely there either. However, a plain text letter from gmail does look less professional than a one on official letterhead, so you might use your department letterhead. If you want to use gmail, you can also cc a copy of the letter to your instituional address to "certify" that you are who you claim to be.

Q: How to handle rude and distracting fellow graduate student who sits in the same office? In a nutshell, I hate one of my fellow PhD students. I am sitting in the office with that fellow graduate student who frequently interrupts me when I want to focus on my work. He also often is very insulting to me in front of other fellow graduate students. I general, I try to be nice and respectful to my fellow students, but I suspect this makes me a perfect target to him. Also he seems very nice to other people, just not to me. I wish I could change the department because its actually a major drawback and affects my whole PhD life, since I currently meet him every day all the time. I frequently miss lunch or some activities of my lab, since I know I couldn't handle his presence. But I don't want that my social life suffers because of him. Do you have any tips on how to overcome this situation successfully? A: A friend once told me that people take from you exactly what you choose to give them. In other words, this person manages to distract you because you let them. Similarly they manage to annoy you with their rude behaviour because you let their insults get to you. Therefore, I am going to suggest you a nice change of approach, rather than a change of office. IMHO the best way to tackle distractions is to ignore them. My experience shows that a large pair of noise-cancelling headphones coupled with a focused look that never leaves whatever it is you are doing, work miracles in this case. Whenever I need to focus and lock myself in the zone, I gear up and ignore everything that happens around me. If people ask me questions, and I actually manage to hear/see them, I tell them, swiftly and politely, that I'll be with them once I finish whatever it is I am doing. Your body language is extremely important while doing so. You want to make sure that you show that you won't be leaving what you are doing to deal with them, because you deem that what you are doing is more important. For example, I don't remove my headphones to answer, and go back to my task straight away. In addition, once you adopt this technique, be democratic and use it with anyone and not just this particular person who distracts you. Make sure that you show that you are actually focusing on work rather than on leisure. Human psychology 101 suggests that if someone sees that you appear super-concentrated whilst in reality you are browsing social media they will feel allowed to disturb since they will think that you're not actually working. You have the right to not be disturbed whilst you are on a break, however the fact that you are taking a break implicitly says that you are free and can be disturbed. Interestingly enough, the ignoring technique also works for rude behaviour and insults. Nothing clips one's wings more than instantly getting the feeling that one's behaviour has little or no effect. For your own sake, I'd suggest you begin by ignoring the rude comments that hurt you. This will not be easy at first, but you'll feel the benefits as you get better at it. Now, nobody should be forced to feel like you do. What you describe is prototypical bullying. Bullying should have no place in life, let alone academia. The steps I would follow would be to begin by talking to this person telling them you would like them to stop with their rude behaviour. Although they might be joking you can't seem to tell whether that is the case, and think that the problem will be solved if they stop whatever it is they are doing. After talking to them, wait some time. If the behaviour persists then escalate the complaint to your supervisor, the team/department head, or whomever you think has the authority to deal with this. The important thing is that you remain calm and polite during your interactions with your colleagues. Last thing you want is for others to accuse you of being rude. A: This is a professional problem, of a type that sadly can floor many students, because they have not been particularly exposed to formal institutional regulatory and political structures. This can be particularly true of older postgrads (in some senses more experienced), because those are the ones who have been most firmly focused on academic work all along. For me, the hinge of this problem seems to be, ‘He seems very nice to other people, just not to me.’ That statement stands out especially because it means that the situation therefore involves bullying and harassment (succinctly defined on this UK site). You are being singled-out for ill-treatment, by someone who is not simply ‘like that’ to everyone. It seems that that person is quite immature, deriving satisfaction from such behaviour, and is also consciously selective in where to apply it. The mature, professional solution will not be to fight back. That would simply resolve into immaturity on your part as well, and will not teach either you or the bully anything useful. Most likely, the bully would smoothly ridicule your behaviour, and use it as licence to continue his own. Pointless, and also unprofessional on your own part: do not go down that route. You can learn something much more useful for the future, by exploring the resources that I am sure already exist for you. In a strange way, this situation is not all bad. Of course it is horrible for you to experience, but it also means that the problem is well defined. In this day and age, I would bet quite a lot that your university will already have a policy in place concerning bullying and harassment, with established procedures for reporting and controlling such behaviour. Others here have suggested various ways of more or less taking this conflict on, on its own terms, and trying to win it. I think that that would be the worst possible thing to do. That would amount to you approving the bully’s behaviour as acceptable in your culture. In doing so, you would become as unprofessional and immature as he is. You would also waste a great deal of time and energy, while achieving absolutely zero. You need to end the conflict, not take part in it. As has also been said, the bully has infinite energy: he likes doing this. As we say in the UK, he is trying to get the rise out of you. If you respond on his terms, he will just keep doing it. What he cannot fight is you being calm and professional. I would say that your first stop should be talking to your Ph.D supervisor, if you have a confident and trusting relationship. They should be able to point you at the University’s policy on bullying and harassment, which will clearly tell you how to proceed within the University’s existing framework (politely negotiating, collecting evidence, building a case). Also, it would be sensible to alert your supervisor to any undue influences that might be negatively affecting your work. This probably won’t be the first time they have seen some kind of friction, and it definitely won’t be the last. If you don’t feel that comfortable (yet) with your supervisor, then that is fine. The University almost certainly has some kind of confidential Counselling service[s] for students and/or staff (you might count as both), which would be able to guide you towards the same formal resources, and discuss how to use them. If it offers no such dedicated service, then the University must have some kind of health centre, which could set you on the same path. Another route could involve directly approaching the University’s HR office. They will probably be the guardians of the institution’s policy on respectful professional conduct, and will have an interest in seeing it applied consistently across the institution. There is a good chance that this is where you will end up anyway, if you start off with your supervisor or a counsellor... but I would recommend calmly and quietly going through those steps first. Those people are there for a reason. Both you and the University can benefit from making full use of their knowledge. In any case, the likely first suggestion would be politely to make your colleague clearly aware that he is distressing you, telling him why, and asking him to stop. Of course that is a stressful step to take, in itself. The up-side of that is that occurs within a framework (the broader policy) that will provide routes for you if he responds unsympathetically or even aggressively. More likely, the bully (immature as he seems to be) would seek to continue targeting you in ever-more-obscure ways. The great thing about that would be that by that stage he is on record as the aggressor. It is up to him to show that he is taking the University and its policies seriously. He might even argue angrily that you are being oversensitive and thus damaging his work, but by that stage the point is that he still has to be the one to show that he is taking steps to make things better. He has to grow up a bit and start really being professional, otherwise he will just keep getting warnings, drift into the University’s disciplinary system, and eventually get thrown out. By the sound of it, he might not last long as a research student anyway. In the UK, the term ‘tosser’ would quickly be applied to someone who was that concerned to satisfy his own ego problems by spending time and energy picking on someone else, rather than excelling in his own work and collaborating with others. Basically, keep calm and explore formal routes. They will exist. A: First and most importantly, if you feel you're in the best department for you, then don't try changing departments. Something like this will not be the last time you experience it -- I guarantee it. It's a fact of life. Learn how to deal with it. My answer seems to have gotten downvoted and criticized a bit, but honestly, in your best interests, I refuse to sugarcoat the answer for you, and I stand by what I have to say to you. Here are some things I can think of: 1) Tell your advisor immediately. "Hate" is a strong word to describe your current feelings. Your advisor has surely dealt with these types of situations before. 2) You sound passive-aggressive and are suppressing your anger. Why do that to yourself? That is harmful to you. Just tell this person directly what is bothering you, but in the nicest way possible. It'll be good experience for you to learn how to resolve conflicts, and you'll grow from this experience. An email would be a good choice to go with.

Q: Transfer from a U.S. PhD program to a UK university (Good standing student and only two courses (6 credits) left to complete) I am currently a Ph.D. student at a U.S. university (oe of the top 10 public universities) I am taking my final modules to complete my program, (after this semester, only two courses left) after which based on the U.S. PhD system I would have taken my complementary exams and submitted my dissertation proposal in Fall 2016. Then, I would have to carry out my dissertation project for about 6 months (part of my data collection has already started in U.S, my study is a comparative analysis of U.S and UK) and finally I would have had my dissertation oral defense in Spring 2017. However, my husband and I will be moving back to the UK soon due to recent circumstances beyond our control, (as we are both EU Citizens, we are here in the United States on a VISA which in my husband’s case is due to expire soon along with his Post-Doctoral contract). We had hoped for my husband to find another temporary position here in U.S. so that I could complete my PhD program, however, being Europeans here in the States implies the need for any company or university to sponsor or cover our permanence in the U.S. thus making it harder to find a position. Currently, I need know if UK universities accept PhD graduate credit transfers and the possibility of any UK professor/advisor willing to support me towards the PhD program completion in a UK university. Alternatively, I would like to know if there is the possibility of a UK advisor cooperating with my U.S. university committee and willing to offer a basic supervision during dissertation/data collection period in UK schools, in order for me to come back here for complementary exams in Fall ’16 and final dissertation in Spring 2017. Also, as mentioned above, I am enrolled at a U.S. university, but I am an EU citizen. Before moving to U.S. we have lived in the UK for 8 years (I graduated with a British PGCE and my husband with a PhD). In particular, I would like to know if this kind of transfers are possible, and if so: • Which universities would you suggest that can accept the transfer of my PhD graduate modules? • How can I find out what level are my U.S credits and qualifications in relation to the UK PhD system? • Finally: I would like to know how can this level of qualification help my progress to a full PhD degree completion in UK? • Or, alternatively, which universities in UK could be willing to offer a basic supervision throughout my dissertation and thus allow me to complete my Complementary exams and dissertation defense here in the United States. Most of all, after many efforts, two years of my life working hard, completing advanced courses, it would be devastating for me if I cannot complete my PhD due to the fact that we need to move. As time is of the essence for us, I would be extremely grateful if anyone can provide me with any information or suggestion. REPLY to Contributors'suggestions: Dear All, I need to add my reply here due to its length. I would like to thank you very much for taking the time to respond to my queries. I truly appreciate it and all your comments are extremely valuable to me. @Alexandros and @ Gnometorule: As explained above my comparative study has already begun three months ago through data collection and analyses here in U.S, thus, based on my study timeline and progress (and under initial advisor supervision) I will need other 6 to 8 months to collect data/analyze and writing period in UK. As suggested from my professors at my department the dissertation proposal submission can easily take place immediately after oral comps and, if needed, be amended according to complementary exams results. The reason why I need to move back with my husband is because I am pregnant with my first child and the amount of financial and health insurance support that I will require here in the U.S. it’s going to be significant. Having been not pregnant I could have certainly considered remaining here in U.S on my own to complete my degree. However, that would be very hard financially since my department struggles to provide funding and stipend for all of us PhD students (particularly internationals) during the academic year, and during the summer RAs or TAs positions are literally nonexistent (which means no health insurance provided) thus my husband has always supported both of us with living expenses and paid my health insurance in summer. Regarding my current U.S. institution, unfortunately, they have not been supportive. I have spent three months waiting for a solution in the hope they could find an advisor willing to follow my dissertation progress from abroad on a two to three weeks’ basis, which as suggested by many it is a pretty fair and common choice according to many professors from other different departments, also considering that this is a qualitative ethnographic study in social sciences that does not require any lab facility or strict supervision. However, after three months the department final decision is that they are unable to provide me with a supervisor as my current one is very young (new hired this year) they explained me “it is not fair to assign him the supervision of a student from abroad” also they cannot confirm the budget availability for the fall semester (even while doing complementary exams in Fall I have to be enrolled and tuition for an international student like me is extremely high). Every year we need to wait until the end of summer and only then we will know if we are funded for the following semester, this is also something that we struggled to understand as we are told from the general Graduate School and from other departments that when a department offers you a spot in a PhD program and is aware of your lack of personal funds but still offers you the PhD, it means that they are taking the responsibility of covering that program for the time required to complete it. I know students' life events can be challenging for the student and for all the people involved. However, such events or any potential challenging circumstance should not compromise a student’s ability to complete an academic program and the right to succeed. In 2016, we should never find ourselves constraint to choose between family and career… :( Finally, I have now contacted the British Council which suggests to get in touch with single UK universities and professors, thus for the time being I can only hope that some reasonable professor in UK will accept to at least look at my transcripts, at all the work I have done in two years (48 credits) and at my first part of data collected and dissertation plan. Again, I would like to thank you all for your contributions and willingness to help. A: i dont quite understand your description of a 'typical U.S. Ph.D.,' in particular the casual "it's only gonna take 6 months to begin and finish my actual thesis." You seem to be almost done with coursework (and haven't submitted a thesis proposal yet), and are considering to leave before it ends, and want to transfer these credits to a UK school, ideally one that has formalized this transfer process - is that correct? If yes, here are some thoughts... If your program is not massively different from any U.S. one I'm familiar with, you are vastly overestimating how deep you are into it. This is relevant as one possible step forward would be to simply start from scratch in the UK. You benefited from those classes (I hope); now you can enter a program light on or with no coursework in the UK. I'm going to be bald and say that there is not one school in Europe (or the U.S.) that has formalized accepting another school's partial coursework, to integrate it into degree progress at the new school. If you get accepted into a program with coursework, you can probably negotiate skipping some; but I don't think more is realistic. If you do not want to start anew, then, in practice, the only way to work this is to find someone abroad who is willing to advise you at their school, while you stay formally at your old one. They'd then likely be part of your committee, probably as a co-adviser. This again is only likely to work if that person is either a personal friend, or a close collaborator/friend of your adviser...which might be a problem again: as I parse your question, I don't think you have one? If you can make this idea work (it can work - I had a foreign co-adviser: he was a close friend, and we enjoyed writing a paper at his school while I was at graduate school), then I would warmly suggest to only consider the move after finishing your coursework. There wouldn't be a transfer as you stay subject to the degree requirements of your current school; finding what exactly is missing at a new school sounds messy, and certainly makes this even more complicated (==unlikely to find support for). Your visa situation seems to be fine, and it sounds as if it would only imply a few months of separation from your husband. In a worst case scenario (simply dropping out), you could probably have your faculty confer you an M.Sc. for it, maybe for a little extra work. Just putting it out here: as your visa situation is fine, I'd at least consider to temporarily live in different places. I've seen plenty of this in grad school, also for married couples. It isn't easy, but if your time-to-graduation estimate is correct (which I very much doubt), it would be only a bit more than a year. That said, it's your life, and none of my business. :) A: I have two main points: I have a nasty feeling that the transfer that you are thinking about might not be as smooth and simple as you hope; and I do not see why you need to transfer at all. As a seasoned university administrator as well as an academic, my initial instinct is that you would be best-off finishing the programme that you are on, wherever you end up living. Actually three points, really. The third is that you seem not to be approaching the UK system as it really is. It would be best to address and explore it for what it really can do, not to try to get it to solve the problem as you currently see it. (And even then, you might find it advising you not to transfer formally at all, no matter where you are moving to.) Right... Yours seems to be a fairly unusual Ph.D, by UK standards. There are doctoral-level awards that can involve passing some classes (the EdD sometimes, for example, can require attendance for research methods), but generally the Ph.D is typically awarded following submission of a thesis detailing your original research over a period of time. For that reason, if for no other, transferring in the manner you suggest seems a bit unlikely. There will certainly not be many (perhaps no) UK university programme structures shaped to accept seamlessly the kind of work you are talking about. If you really must transfer to a British institution, then your best bet might be to apply for funding on the basis of proven ability at that level (although that might also involve complications in terms of residency). In any case, my instinct is that you seem to be approaching the problem backwards. If you really must transfer to a British university, the main task would surely be to identify a few compatible departments, with suitable supervisors who might help you towards completion, and then see what possible leeway might be available in each case, in terms of timing and content. That might well vary from one university to another, perhaps depending on how each one sees you contributing to its culture and mission. I believe that the broad rules for my Ph.D (University of Reading) were and are pretty standard for the UK: for full-time students the work must be accomplished, and the thesis submitted, in no less than three years and no more than four. (Part-time, depending on circumstances, that four-year limit can stretch quite a bit.) Then again, one can be approved for a Ph.D ‘by publication’, meaning that you essentially write an Introduction and a Conclusion, sandwiching influential material that you have already published. That takes approximately no time at all. Amongst those structures, you might find that you can negotiate something on grounds of existing work. If you are still pursuing your work, though, a UK university is likely to want to see evidence of it in progress, followed by a solidly substantial and firmly-structured thesis (90,000 words or so, in the humanities, which your ‘comparative analysis’ sounds like). Frankly, you might not be as close to the end of this process as you think you are. However... Why can you not complete your studies with your current university? Many Ph.D students (this was my situation) live a long way from their host departments. I lived near enough to get to mine occasionally for meetings, which was simply comfortable and nice, and also yielded my teaching training... but for the most part I might as well have been living on Mars. If some force had shipped me overseas, I could still have completed, so long as I kept producing material at a reasonable pace. Some hardy souls undertake Ph.Ds while nowhere-at-all on military submarines. Can you not simply finish the programme that you are already on?

Q: Using an author's citations in a peer reviewed articles I'm reading this peer-review article which I'm certainly going to use as a source for my paper. The article is written by Robert E. Denton. Now, in this Denton article, Denton quotes an excerpt from another author, Murray Edelman. This excerpt is intriguing, and I would like to add it to my paper as an additional source. Denton provides text information of Edelman's work on his references page. My questions are these: do scholars ever do this? and by "this" I mean do research, and in there research(in the peer reviewed article he or she is reading) find an excerpt or quote of another work and include that excerpt or quote in their work without reading the entire article or book which that excerpt from? Is there a specific term for this type of citation? I have a feeling that there isn't. Is it an unspoken practice? Now, I would be using a similar interpretation to Edelman's excerpt that Denton's uses because there are only so many interpretations of four lines of text, but i would be relating it to very a different social phenomenon(these are socio-political works), so I can't exactly say that this is plagiarism. Would it be okay to quote Denton's assertion, and then quote the Edelman excerpt which he uses to support his assertion, and thereore use both quotes successively to support my own argument? A: It's a bad idea. Go find the original source. There are stories of misquoted data from citations being propagated through the literature because one early paper didn't go all the way back to the original source. If E quotes D correctly, you're free to draw on both their arguments with proper citation to both.

Q: Having decided to become a researcher after long career in industry, should I work independently or start a PhD? I'v been doing software development work for almost a decade. I really love doing research work but I am always doing programming work in companies. I could join a PhD program 15 years ago after my MS. degree in US. But I did not continue at that time for reasons (want more money, find a job for green card, etc.). Recently I decided to follow my true heart on sciences, instead of being a "seasoned company guy" all the way to my retirement. The machine learning/deep learning/big-data are thriving in these a few years. I cannot sit here just watching this big revolution in computer science. Money is always an issue but will not be a big issue for me. I have accumulated quite a bit of money in the past 10 years hard working. I can be mortgage free in a few years even in this most expensive city (Vancouver, Canada). My wife has a good job too. She “granted” me 2 years to do a starter’s non-profitable work on my own. Hear is the plan: Doing part-time work to earn half salary to support the living cost and the remaining mortgage. The rest of my band-wise will be dedicated to my research work. The question is, how to start? Option 1: be an independent researcher and developer. Spend the next year to do online study including all the necessary math/statistics skills. Become an expert on certain field. And starting to publish papers, contribute to open sources or have some software inventions/products. Option 2: apply a PhD program and spend the next 5+ years with professors to build up the foundation to become a truly powerful researcher. I am 42 now. Do I have that much time to spend? Option 3 is to dedicate the first year to invent and develop a software product (iPhone App, Cloud service, etc.) and try to make money on it. And use the earning as the funding to support myself on the research work. In the mean while, try to get some investment and government funding. None of the above will be an easy way. It is not a common career path, especially for a forty years old guy with a job/salary, wife and a kid...etc.. This will be a venture. I will spend years being dedicated /obsessed ( hopefully not half-crazy) in a house at the foothill of Canada north mountain, learning/reading/drawing/typing..... Which way to go...? A: A PhD is training for research. There's a whole lot of things that happen along the way, but the point of the process is that you gain skills in conducting research. In addition, you gain the 'worldview of a researcher': how to think critically, assimilate information, analyse data, collaborate and come up with new ideas. It is, of course, possible to do all these things without doing a PhD. But the advantage of the PhD is it gives you opportunities that you might not otherwise have: access to resources, specific programmes (eg internships or field studies), people to collaborate with, exposure to new ideas. Those opportunities can be open to PhD students in a way that they aren't to random members of the public. A big part of research is interacting with other people, not just working on your own single path. PhDs force much more interaction than you might do on your own (though it varies by subject). The other side of 'training for research' is that, once you've come out of the process, you have simple proof that you have been trained. That's what the letters 'PhD' are code for. While the experience can be very different at different institutions, a PhD means the holder has untaken a major research effort and it has been validated by their peers, and learned some of the skills of research along the way. That's the reason that many academic jobs expect you to have a PhD: they don't have time for a free-form assessment of your research skills - the PhD is proof that somebody else has already done that assessment. By doing research without a PhD, you force people you interact with to do more work to assess your skills. You can do that by building up a good body of peer reviewed research, which itself is unlikely to care whether you have a PhD (especially if the review is blind). But in superficial contexts (eg screening for a job, a grant application or an invitation to some event) you're likely to find yourself at a disadvantage. One advantage with working inside academia is you have more collaborators, but also as you become more senior you can build a research team: when students work for you, you (collectively) can achieve more. That's difficult to do when you're working independently. Finally, we can all come up with examples of brilliant people who started working on their subject without a PhD. I suspect that's much less common than it was in the twentieth century, for two reasons: Supply and demand: there were many fewer researchers, and the process was much more informal. Now every tenure job gets hundreds of applicants. Why would you pick one missing critical training? War and social upset: when you have to work on radar/antibiotics/aeronautics/nuclear physics/intelligence/cryptography at short notice for the war effort, all employment norms go out the window. When those people came back to civilian life, they already had skills they could use in research. Or, alternatively, they proved their worth in opportunities available because everyone who would normally take them was away fighting. (Side note: I come from the UK where PhDs are 3 years on paper and often more like 4 in practice. The North American process seems like a much more drawn out affair, and the time tradeoffs may be different)

Q: How common is it to work extra with one's professor after getting a M.S.? I'm in a situation where I am continuing to work on some of my M.S. research work after I have filed and will receive my M.S. It is fine with me and I think it's good because there were loose ends. This is computer science field, and it involves a programming project we want to improve. In the back of my mind, I'm hoping we can write a journal article. Part of me, though, wonders about whether this may be risky. Will my professor make excessive demands on me, even though we're officially finished? I also need to focus on other demands, such as my job. So I worry a little about the expectations. How common is it to continue working after getting one's MS, but without any official agreement (i.e., I just informally meet with my prof and discuss my progress). Also, in case you're wondering, I'm not currently interested in doing a PhD (maybe later, just not anytime too soon). A: Your concern that this is "risky" is somewhat vague, but generally, I'd say that working on something like this is extremely common. I've never "cleanly" finished a project, where it is fully wrapped up, with nothing else to do right as my degree was awarded, I moved to a new position, etc. I'd say it's extremely common, and if you think that extra work might result in a publication, fairly valuable. There is the possibility of things being too demanding, but generally people are pretty understanding of other obligations that come up, especially if you let them know in advance.

Q: What should I do with award certificates? I recently won the "Best Student Paper" award at a moderately significant conference in my field (subfield of CS). This came with a Trophy and a Certificate. The trophy I will put in the corner of my the lab, and use for motivation. But I don't know what to do with the certificate. What should I be doing with the certificate? Do I need to save it to prove to someone later my paper did actually get the award? Surely they can look it up online. I am generally opposed to the hoarding of documents -- I strive to minimise the number of physical possessions I have. So I was kinda thinking of just using it as scrap paper... A: Give it to a relative (parent, spouse?). My mother has a "wall of Sergio" in the house where she displays different types of significant awards, letters, etc. I think it's a little weird, but giving them these awards is a nice way to let them have a handy reminder of what you're up to at the time, and parents certainly appreciate it sometimes. My mother and I came from not very much at all, so she is so happy to hear I am doing something with my life -- maybe your family may feel the same. A: You will probably never in your life need the physical certificate. If you don't want to hang onto it, you can probably just dispose of it (though you might as well scan it first). A: I think you should, for documentation, keep everything that provides proof of your career achievement. One or two folders should be sufficient for most people. You never know when it would be useful to have that handy. It's just a piece of paper, and I would keep it where you keep official or semi-official documentation about your career. It's less space than a trophy, in any case.

Q: Why do most talented children still enter college after the age of 18? Considering how the complexity of science is growing with each passing year, it would make sense for people to start working on their degree as soon as possible. However the academic system in place in most countries doesn't seem to accommodate for that, as even the talented children still graduate after the age of 18. Why isn't there a push to lower the age of people entering college and is it a rational decision on behalf of the government? A: I don't think there is a need for this. Realistically, you can perhaps push the entrance age by one to three years: that compared with the expected working life of 44 years (from ages 23 to 67) is tiny. So, in the large scheme of things, having a small fraction of people (you suggest around 5%) increasing their work life in a 4% has a negligible impact. What are the risks? You will be putting a lot of pressure on immature kids. Some can take it well and become successful; others will drop out soon enough; and others will end up burnt and fail catastrophically. Accelerated programs require a careful assessment of the participants, and following up to make sure they are keeping up (NOTE: no idea if they actually do it). Scaling this to a 5% of the population is a difficult undertaking, and you are up for a massive increase in drop outs, among the best students, no less. And lastly, part of the whole educational experience is growing in both knowledge and maturity. Short cutting courses can speed up the first, but not the second. There is a much more gentler road, and it is exposing the good students to advanced materials, done through advanced classes in high school, or taking a few university level courses, as Bill Barth mentions. This allows them to learn more, but also keeps the risks low. It also helps keeping them engaged, as they can choose to take early the subjects that they like, and later in life will take the ones that also need. A: Would you like your extraordinary talented kid to go to college that early? I wouldn't. Don't rob children of their childhood. Being educated and being a brilliant scientist is valuable, but is hardly most valuable. I feel that you can hardly skip any part of human development without consequences. A 16-years-old needs to gain experiences they can only gain if they live their life as a normal teenager. Investing only in intellectual development is a mistake; a fully competent person should have other competences as well. IQ is not everything, we also have emotional intelligence and other types of intelligence that must not be overlooked. This is especially important in case of brilliant scientists, who must be aware of societal and moral implications of their research. A person who has no broader horizons than just science is a pitiful view indeed. Even more: allowing a young person to earn all sorts of experiences may help in the development of their overall intellectual capabilities, helping them to achieve even better results also in that particular field that is science. Also, I can't shake off the feeling that however brilliant they might be, a kid will be much more happy if they live their life as a kid. Last but not least, what the kid will do in their life is THEIR decision, not their parents or headhunters or whoever. Pushing their to college that early robs them of this right. The decision is made for them. Wait till their adults, and let them decide themselves if they want to go to college. Bottom line: Because there is, plain and simply, far more in life than science. And however brilliant, the kid has the right to experience all of it. A: Inertia. In most parts of the US, going to college requires being able to do other above-the-age-of-majority things like signing leases, handling major transport, etc. There's no to little support base for underage students at most universities. In large university towns like Austin, Texas, USA, where I live, there is a program in place for advanced high school students to go to the local community college (ACC) in place of some of their high school courses to get a leg up on attending the University of Texas at Austin. This program has been in place for decades and works well. Students may still live at home and attend both their regular school and ACC while keeping their support base intact. I attended an early entrance program that served as my last two years of high school and my first two years of university. These programs aren't common in the US, but there are several.

Q: How important is the prestige of recommendation letter writers? If it makes a difference, I am an undergrad. I am wondering how important prestige in the following situation: I can choose between two advisors, A and B, to work with. I think that both would be great advisors, but A has more publications and seems to be more well known than B. However, B's work is much more closely related to what I am interested in, though A is somewhat familiar with this area as well. All else equal, I would like to work with B because their research interests match mine more closely. However, I will need a letter of recommendation, so I would like to get the best letter possible and I think that A would be able to provide a better letter because they have more publications and are more well known. How should I choose between A and B? A: I am assuming the two choices are at the same institution. If they are not, choose the higher-ranked institution (if there is a clear winner), because moving forward, name DOES matter). That said: You have two currently incompatible, yet not mutually-exclusive motivations: a) work with someone who is well known in the field b) work with someone who has closely aligned research interests and, you are concerned about the letter of recommendation, to come later. the correct choice is B. You should work with the faculty member whose research interests closely match yours. Any other decision is to enter into a failing marriage. It is important that you can be excited about what you are doing, and your excitement will in turn excite your mentor, which will pay dividends. THAT SAID, names do matter. If the faculty that matches your interests is junior, you will have to plan ahead to ensure that in addition to his/her glowing recommendation, you also get a letter from the more senior colleague. This isn't impossible, or even difficult. If you are starting grad school, just be open and honest about it. Engage him/her. Go to their lab meetings. Later, when you do your prelim or comp exams, you can invite that person to be on your committee. You'll get both of best worlds: an advisor that shares your passion and a letter from a big wig. You have to love what you're doing.

Q: Can't handle the stress while being bombarded with questions during the presentation I am a fashion designer student. I have given numerous presentations but one thing always bothers me: the level and frequency of questions by the questioners. By that I mean some folks in the class ask difficult questions sometimes which makes me a little nervous. And by frequency I mean repeatedly getting questions from folks esp. when teacher has left for a while and there is a mayhem in the hall. I want an answer where those two things are addressed specifically. Any good tips in handling such situation? Thanks. A: In this situation, you're a presenter and you're getting bombarded with questions, is this right? Are people incessantly asking questions and not letting you answer, or do you just feel this way because you shut down in front of the audience? First, relax, because as the presenter, you have the floor, and you should thus be in control of the room. This mentality has helped me in the past because if you're presenting, pending time limitations, you're the highest authority in the room aside from the chair/professor, and you're free to speak at your own pace, discuss things in your preferred order, etc. Others should respect this, and remembering this gives you power. Pace yourself, and take time to think. If someone interrupts you, etc. tell them that you'd like to answer the previous question before you get to them. Stand tall, and crossing your arms behind your back helps posture to an extent, and try to not focus on one person in particular as you answer questions. Watching their reactions can be intimidating. Just make sure to not focus on the people asking questions or how you feel about questions, but rather on how you feel about where you are in describing what you wanted to talk about. Edit: If you don't have an answer, that is also fine, and never be afraid to say "I don't know". This is still part of the presentation, and that is what you have to offer. If you don't like not knowing it, ask the person asking the question if they can give you their information so you can follow up with an answer later.

Q: Can we ask a journal to assign another reviewer to review our paper if we think that his/her review is not satisfactory? Can we ask a journal to assign another reviewer to review our paper if we think that his/her review is not satisfactory, for instance if we have reason to believe that s/he is not familiar with the subject of the paper? For example, s/he points out that s/he does not understand a term which is well-known in the subject area. Edit: In this particular case, the reviewer in question is generally positive about the paper. The other reviewer is positive, and the editor has recommended acceptance. Do you keep quiet about it because the paper has been accepted? Or should we at least let the editor know that he has not assigned someone who knows the subject to review the paper? Or do you go as far as asking the editor to assign another review just to be sure that everything is done responsibly? If you have been in similar situation, I am interested to know which action you took. A: You can ask. It's not likely that your request will be granted, but it's not impossible. Keep in mind that the editor's default assumption will be that you are simply disgruntled by negative reviews -- every single author who receives a rejection is convinced that it's because the reviewer is incompetent -- so you need to show why you're different. You will need to make a strong case that the reviewer is actually incompetent, not merely that you disagree with them. That means you will need to point to incontrovertibly wrong statements they make. If they say something that 90% of the field disagrees with, that's probably not enough, because it may still be a legitimate minority opinion. Similarly, if their statements have any qualifiers, the editor is more likely to side with them. And it needs to be central to their review, not a side point. Basically, you need to leave the editor no room for subjectivity in deciding that the reviewer is incompetent. It's probably not worth the trouble, unless you have strong reasons for really wanting that particular journal for publication. Keep in mind that the stronger the journal, the more trust an editor typically places in their reviewers, so you'll need to make a really strong case. That said, I've seen it happen, so it can be done. Editors make the final decisions. They very often do deprecate one reviewer's opinion. But again, every author believes the same as you do, so you'll need to show objectively why you're the one in a thousand exception. Edit: From the comments "it is based on the assumption that the review and the editor's decision are negative. It would be great if you could include the other scenario as well, which I am more interested in." This makes it sound as if you sent in a paper that you suspect is incorrect or incomplete, and you want reviewers to point out the errors that you believe are there. This seems like an inappropriate use of the peer review system. The peer review system isn't a free editing service for you. It isn't a way to avoid having co-authors, or to get someone to hold your hand and walk you through a field for nothing. If you have doubts about something in the paper, it's your responsibility, not the editors', to find someone who can reliably identify and fix problems. If the reviewer approved the paper, but you don't think the reviewer was competent and you are concerned that there are still problems with the paper, then you shouldn't ask for another review, you should withdraw the paper and fix it yourself. If you can't do it yourself, then get a co-author who can, or at the very least have a colleague review it for you. Edit in response to the question being revised. If the review is positive, but the reviewer shows that they are not familiar with the topic to the point that the review is completely useless, I would not request a new review. The editor is supposed to be familiar enough with the field herself to understand this, and to deprecate the review or calibrate its impact appropriately. Telling the editor that the review is incompetent and requesting another review would be pretty insulting, telling the editor that they are incompetent themselves. What might I do in the case of an egregiously terrible review? The same as I do with a good review. Even if the paper is accepted, there's a response-to-reviewers letter, and you can use this to politely and professionally indicate that the reviewer is incompetent. Just as I said above, be objective, find points that are irrefutable and unambiguous, and show that the reviewer is completely wrong. I can't overemphasize that you do this professionally. It's the same thing you do with every response to a reviewer -- show where they're right and where you're right, and why. You never say that the reviewer is incompetent, because that's unprofessional. You simply show that they are objectively wrong. The editor should pick up on this and understand that if every point the reviewer made is objectively wrong, they shouldn't use them again. Finally, get over it. Bad reviews are a part of the job. It's hard for editors to find good reviewers. Almost every paper I've submitted has had at least one bad reviewer. I've seen scores of stupid, inane, missing-the-point comments. Get annoyed for a few minutes if you want, but don't take it to heart. A: I have made a request of this kind once, and it was granted by the editor. The referee in question was positive about the paper but had a significant misunderstanding of the subject area. The other referee had recommended acceptance of the paper in its current form. After a couple of rounds of refereeing, it seemed likely that resolving this misunderstanding might require many more iterations without any benefit to the paper. In this particular case, the associate editor handling the paper understood the subject area well enough to recognize this, and agreed to assign a new referee. Of course, starting from zero with a new referee after multiple rounds of revising is not ideal either, so consider carefully before you make such a request.

Q: Number of Funded PhD Positions available to applicants How can one find out how many funded PhD openings there are at a particular university in a particular discipline? For example, MIT might have openings for 2,000 PhD students in all disciplines. 1,000 of these positions might be in the field of engineering. But only 5 of positions might involve bioengineering. And of these 5 positions, 4 might already be filled by PhD candidates in their second year of study; meaning only 1 position is available to applicants. A: At US universities, it typically doesn't work that way. The department usually doesn't think of having specific PhD positions that have to be filled. Rather, admissions is done on a department-wide basis. Each year, the department sets a target for how many new students they want to admit, based on available resources. Let's say for example that this number is 20. Now, most applicants are applying to many different programs, so not every accepted applicant will actually come to study in this department. Thus, if they want about 20 new students, they will offer admission (with or without funding) to some larger number, perhaps 40 or 45 (assuming there are at least that many qualified applicants). This number would be chosen based on past experience as to what fraction of accepted students choose to attend, and can be varied if they have applicants whose applications suggest that they would be particularly likely or unlikely to attend. A few additional applicants might be placed on a waiting list. But it's entirely possible that the number of students who actually choose to attend is larger or smaller than 20. If it's smaller, they could try to admit some more people from the waiting list, but that still may not bring them up to 20. That's okay; they will just have a smaller cohort that year, and probably try to use a larger target number next year. If more than 20 accept the offer of admission, then the department just has to come up with the funds to support them, and use a smaller target next year. Also, seats aren't necessarily restricted by research area. In mathematics departments, for instance, departments won't typically break down their targets as "we want 5 students in algebra, and 3 in number theory, ...". They'll just admit 40 good students and let them sort out their areas of study after they arrive. So the number you are looking for may not exist.

Q: How does funding at UK universities work? The process for obtaining funding for graduate work in the UK seems much different than it is in the US. In particular, in the UK, funding decisions often come after offers of admission. What is the process by which a good, accepted graduate application at, say, Oxford, is given funding? A: The funding depends on your nationality/residence by a lot, as well as the field, the university, and the supervisor. UK or EEA residents can get funding from national research councils (such as ESPRC, STFC and many more) which give them (usually) the cost of tuition plus a small living stipend (when I was applying the living wage was about £13,000). Non UK/EEA people generally have to self-fund outside of a few special circumstances (competitive international scholarships such as Rhodes, university bursaries for internationals). This is very very rare. However, it's not terribly uncommon to see students from an above-average financial situation self-funding, but then they need to pay not only their living costs, but also the cost of tuition (at my old university it was about £20k per year for international students). I wrote an extensive response on all of these issues here and here and here. The other answers from other users on those posts are also excellent. So what happens is that you apply, and then you will be (hopefully) asked for an interview. If you are able to compete for the 'normal' funding pot, you will be interviewed much the same way as everyone else. First a shortlist, then the interviews, and maybe follow-up interviews will be used to select the best candidates from the pool of applicants. If you're non-UK/EEA, you may or may not interview with everyone else; it's up to the university. If they don't have the money to fund you, many departments will make you an offer anyway (especially for foreign students) which you will usually have several months to accept or decline. The research councils will grant the department a certain number of PhD studentship bursaries, and they will distribute them. From what I've seen, you don't have to do much self-application for scholarships unless you're foreign. Though you will always be told where the money is coming from, and there may be some requirements (a yearly seminar, for example) to get the money. If you are given a stipend, it is tax-free, unlike in many other countries. Your funding is all-inclusive, not split up into RA or TA like in the US. You can normally make extra money marking coursework or demonstrating in labs, although the 'estimated number of hours' taken by these activities doesn't always match up with the actual number of hours you spend on them !

Q: Writing two different books with some overlap I am in the process of writing a book on machine learning. I have also been contacted to co-author another book, on the topic of deep learning. The books are quite different, but they do have some overlap. Is this going to be an issue? I just e-mailed the editor to inform him, but I also wanted to have some independent advice. The book with the editor will probably go out first, the second one is a project with a friend we started a while ago and we are progressing slowly, and will look for a publisher later. Is this a matter of possible concern? Of course I will not write the same things, but the overlapping topics will probably have a similar style if I am to write both books. A: First of all, as long as you cite your sources correctly, there is little concern regarding plagiarism. Secondly, It is actually quite common to see similar materials in different books written by the same author. This becomes more understandable if the topics are related (which in this case they are). The only misconduct I can think of is if you copy an entire chapter or section verbatim. Otherwise, as long as the core concepts and contributions of these two books are not the same, it is natural to have some overlapping materials (especially if its' purpose is to explain fundamental and introductory concepts) In any case, informing the editor about this issue beforehand (as you have) is probably the most straightforward way to prevent any violations.

Q: Consequence of declining an accepted offer after the universal deadline 15th April This is my cousin's problem. In the first week of March he was offered a PhD offer (Upper Middle ranked School in USA) in Physics and he received his I-20 to get the visa.The admit was fully funded. He accepted the offer because he didn't have any offer at that time. But few days ago, a top ranked school admin said to him that, he might be admitted as a lot of students haven't accepted their offer (it is not guaranteed though plus admission is completed ). He was always expecting to get admitted in that school. The deadline of the offer letter from first school is 15th April (He accepted the offer already). Will it be possible to decline the first offer later/admission if he gets the offer after around two weeks from the top ranked school? I want to know the consequences of this situation. EDIT: I have received another suggestion from academia. He suggested to defer the admission (if he gets from the second university) from the Top ranked school. After a semester completed in the first admitted University, If my cousin feels that he should change the department, he will be able to do it. How reasonable is this? A: Assuming both schools are members of the Council of Graduate Schools, they have an agreement about cases like this. If you don't change your mind and reject the offer from the first school by April 15, you have to get a letter from the first school releasing you from your obligation to attend before accepting the second school. Otherwise, the second school will be unable to take you. In the one case I know about, there wasn't any problem in obtaining this letter. However, I can't promise that all graduate schools will be as reasonable. If your cousin gets an offer from the second school before April 15, he should contact the admissions officers at the first school by April 15 (today!) and tell them he is rescinding his acceptance and why. If he gets an offer after April 15, he needs to make sure the first school is okay with him not coming and get a letter from them before he accepts the second school.

Q: How to improve profile for graduate admissions in mathematics, when coming from a country where quality of math education is poor? What should I do after BS Maths before applying to a well reputed institute for masters and PHD in maths, given that my BS was done from a less developed country where quality of math education is very low? A: You seem to be asking how to get admitted to a much better graduate program than your undergraduate program and record merits. I'm sorry to say that unless you did something during your undergraduate program to make you stand out on a worldwide scale beyond what virtually any undergraduate ever does (in other words, a very low probability event), this is not going to be possible. Why don't you set more reasonable goals? If your education has suffered from coming through a systemically poor institution, I would suggest trying to get into a not-top-but-reputable program in a country with high academic standards (which gives you a lot of choices: US, Canada, Australia, the majority of Europe, Japan, some other parts of Asia...). E.g. in the US even the 200th best university has a curriculum which is largely modelled on that of much better universities, some very serious faculty members, quite solid library / computer resources, and so on. A student can "launder herself" by doing a master's degree at such a place. By doing excellently on the coursework and exams, she would show that she has the same skills, knowledge and potential of a strong undergraduate major, and could probably get into a top 50 PhD program.

Q: Word choice for salutation in a formal email to your PhD adviser, Is *Dear Boss* appropriate? I am a first year PhD student in France, born and raised in India. It is not customary in here where I am doing my PhD to call one's adviser boss but I do, partly due to my reluctance to call her by the first name, partly attributed to the culture in which I am brought up. As one comment suggested, "Dear professor" would have been an appropriate choice but she doesn't have any teaching duties and is a full time researcher. I would have used "Dear Madam" if I were in India but no one here use that. I think "Dear Dr. X" is too formal and no one here use that either. Many prefer "Hi X" but I think that is too informal. Now that I am writing an email, Is Dear Boss an appropriate salutation? If not, what would be an appropriate salutation in a formal email? A: In my view, in academia, the word "Boss" carries a large amount of semantic baggage that you probably don't want to invoke. Although you mean it to be polite and respectful, it also has an ironic context which you may not have detected. By saying "Dear Boss" can also imply that in your opinion they are neither dear to you or deserve the respect as a superior. It is safest to avoid such salutations altogether in emails. As others have indicated this is very culturally dependent and I think you are bringing too much of your south asian culture to a european environment. Do what the locals do and emulate other peers is the safest and wisest approach. A: "Dear Professor X" is still probably still appropriate. Even if they are a full-time researcher and aren't teaching, their official position is probably some variant of "Professor." If their job title is not professor, then I would just go with "Dear Dr. X" and accept that it might be a little too formal. At least in the US, I would pretty much never use "Dear Boss," even in an email sent to my actual boss in industry. It sounds awkward and weirdly removed. If you want something more formal than a first name, stick to "Ms./Mr./Dr. X." A: The first thing to do is to ask your supervisor what she wants to be called. Does she want to keep things formal? Does she want to be called by name? Whatever she tells you is the appropriate salutation to use with her. There is no need to second-guess yourself, nor to go spend too much time over-thinking this. Now, I know that cultural differences are hard to combine. For this reason I'll give you some pointers based on personal experience. In general, the French culture is one of extreme politeness when it comes to communication. The way people go about this is to use formal pronouns and conjugations when talking to each other. In other words, you'd address your interlocutor as second person plural vous. This is all true until one of the two, usually the one's that higher up in the hierarchy/respect scale (your manager/your spouse's parents), actually tells you "on peut se/tu peux me tutoyer" which means "we/you can use the informal pronoun tu", as opposed to vouvoyer which is what you were initially doing. Tu is the second person singular. When it comes to titles, the French don't really seem to be fussy about them. Indeed, the main titles used are Monsieur and Madame, i.e. Mr and Mrs (there is also Mademoiselle (Ms) for nubile women, although it's kind of deprecated since it's virtually impossible to safely gauge if one is married or not after they reach adulthood). Medical Doctors here are referred to as Monsieur/Madame, the Prime Minister is Monsieur Valls, the President de la République is Monsieur Hollande. Therefore, regardless of whether your supervisor is or is not a professor, has or doesn't have teaching assignments, the formal way of addressing her would be "Madame Xyz". Which, in your email would become "Chère Madame Xyz," or "Dear Mrs. Xyz". If however, Madame Xyz explicitly told you to use her first name Asd then a "Bonjour Asd," or "Hello Asd," will do. The title "Boss" is in no way appropriate nor more polite than Madame. I would not use it in this context, nor anywhere else in general.

Q: How to motivate students to do readings I am planning on teaching a couple of math-y classes next semester that will involve a large amount of in-class group work and discussions, and relatively little lecturing. There will be required outside reading for almost every class (3x/week), but as I am at a large public university where student work habits are not generally great, I am worried about making sure students stay up on the reading for each class. Also, the students will probably not be in the habit of doing reading for math classes. Currently, to encourage students to stay up-to-date on the readings, this is what I am thinking of doing: Use books that are relatively easy to read and hopefully interesting for the students (closer to popular books than textbooks when possible), and try to make each individual reading assignment short. Give simple quizzes on the reading once a week or so Generally try to make sure the in-class activities are closely related to the assigned readings. Are there any other effective techniques that would help encourage students to stay current on the reading? Note: while I want them to read certain things before each class period, I do not want to give a reading quiz every class period. A: I require students to fill out a short summary sheet of the reading prior to the start of class for classes with small group work based on required reading. The summary sheet looks something like a structured abstract of the reading. In total it is less than 200 words of writing. I make my summary sheet available after the class. Based on feedback, the students like the sheets since they help them in reviewing for the exams. It also helps them gauge differences between what I think is important and what they think is important. I divide the class into groups based on if the students have completed the sheet or not. Generally, I tell students to go to one side of the room if they have completed the sheets and the other side if they have not. I and the students can then quickly visually inspect the sheets to see if they are completed or empty. The groups of students who have completed the sheet get to work on the group activity, for which having the sheet is useful. The groups of students who have not completed the sheet work on the sheet and if time allows work on the activity. I make it a point to reassign students if the sheet is filled out with nonsense.

Q: What exactly does termination from a PhD program entail? I am an engineering PhD candidate at a US university. I left the university a couple of years ago after 5yrs of PhD work to work as an independent scientist, while also working with my advisor on the completion of my PhD on the side (while not being enrolled in the university all this while). I received a notice recently from the department asking me to defend my thesis ASAP or risk being terminated from the PhD program. What exactly does termination mean, and what does it entail? On a side note, what are the implications of such a termination on my professional career in the industry? For ex. does it show up in a background check? I have a Bachelor's (from another university) and Master's degree (from the same university). A: This is normal practice these days at universities. In the old days, doctoral students could drift away from their program mid-stream and people wouldn't really care. They might return after 20 years to submit their dissertation, but otherwise there was no attempt to track these zombie students down. Unfortunately, many places are now using average time-to-degree (TTD) as metrics to a graduate program's quality (purportedly a lower TTD is better). Zombie students are problematic as you can have someone who is 15 years into a program without graduating, dragging the average up. Note that there is a difference between a nominal TTD and actual TTDs -- for example, in my old university the nominal TTD was 5 years but very few people actually graduated in that time, the average was closer to 6.5 years. In my experience, provosts are asking departments to track the zombies down and determine whether they should be terminated or not. Being terminated isn't a bad thing, it means that you will be left with your last degree (e.g., M.Phil) and you shouldn't really call yourself ABD as you won't be permitted to submit. I've been through a few of these cullings and as faculty I think they are a good thing as zombie students on the books really help no one. If you have any hope of submitting, I would ask that you be given some time (1 year would be reasonable) to submit. Otherwise, I would take your MA/M.Phil and be happy with it. I don't think there are any negatives for a career in industry. Again, you technically shouldn't call yourself ABD (rather you "withdrew from program after meeting all qualifications for the doctorate but the dissertation") but I really don't think anyone is going to check. Think of it as a general discharge, under honorable conditions. A: Regarding background checks: at a US university, your educational records should be protected by FERPA and nobody should be able to access them without your permission. However, you should probably assume that a potential employer would be able to learn the following things: You used to be enrolled in the PhD program, you're not enrolled now, and you didn't receive the degree. (Some of this would be "directory information" which FERPA does not protect; other parts might be otherwise publicly available, such as from old department web page listings of grad students.) So they can reasonably deduce that you either quit voluntarily or were kicked out ("terminated"). Some employers might also require, as part of the job application process, that you give them a copy of your official transcript from the university. If you are terminated from the program, the transcript will state this, and probably explain the reason ("didn't complete program requirements within time limit", "didn't make satisfactory progress", something like that). If you don't think you will be able (or willing) to either defend before the deadline or negotiate more time, you might see about voluntarily withdrawing from the program. ("You can't fire me, I quit.") This might not look as bad on a transcript. After all, it's not uncommon for people to start graduate programs and then decide it isn't something they want to pursue, and you could explain it to an employer in those terms. ("I decided that instead of academic research, I wanted to work in industry, so that I could do work that was more practical / real-life / lucrative.")

Q: Cannot present paper at conference. Instructor wants to move me to second author Due to unforeseen circumstances, I am not able to present my paper at a Computer Science conference. Without the presentation the paper will not be published. My instructor has said that she will present the paper instead, but wants to move me from the primary author to the second author. I did all the work as a graduate student while she reviewed and gave general feedback. What is the proper etiquette here? Is it okay to move her to primary because I cannot present? UPDATE In the interest of fairness to the professor, I want to provide some more background. This started off as a end-of-semester project. Each student needed to come up with an idea, then propose, implement, present and write a paper on it. I initially proposed a vague concept of using PSO to train neural nets. My instructor said her lab is working on something similar and if I wanted, I could tackle an extension to their algorithm, which depending on the outcome could lead to a published paper. During the course of the semester, my instructor offered little to no help for the project, presumably because that would give me an unfair advantage. All the work, code, paper, the specifics of the algorithm extension are all mine, and all I had was the published paper of the previous algorithm to work on. After the semester was over, I decided to see if I could get it published. I noticed a lot of mistakes I made with my implementation during the tight semester time-frame and spent several months iterating and refining my process and results. I was put in touch with the previous researchers who offered little help with the exception of getting a portion of their source code, which was also of little help to me. I would venture to say that my professor's role in this was mostly advisory, although at the end of it, I would send my paper to her to proofread it. Fast-forward to now, my instructor is claiming that because I am not presenting, I am not taking ownership of my work. She is also claiming that the work was her idea and based on her lab's previous work. She gave me a choice of swapping authors or withdrawing the paper. Note that a camera-ready version of the paper has already been submitted. I offered to withdraw from the conference. She then tells me that she has already registered the paper so I shouldn't withdraw, but she wants the source files for my work (I assume latex files?). She has now invoked university policy and copyright law, saying that since both our names are on the paper, I cannot withdraw without her consent, which she has not given. Since she shares ownership of the paper, she claims she is also entitled to the source materials of the paper. She has offered not to change the author order. That is the majority of the story. The actual email conversation was not as civil. I have graduated and moved on... we never actually met face to face since this was an online class. So... given the above story, have I done anything wrong? Is the instructor entitled to the source material for the paper? This is for the IEEE WCCI conference this summer. We are the only two authors on this paper. This is my first paper, this is not her first paper. A: Who presents a work should not affect its authorship. Authorship is determined by the contribution to the publication. That work is complete at the time when the publication is accepted and the camera-ready is submitted. Now, it is entirely reasonable (and in fact common) for a paper to be presented by somebody other than the first author, and it's quite normal for the presenter to highlight their name in the presentation. In no way, however, should that change the authorship of the paper. A: No, certainly it is not okay to change order of authorship reflecting levels of contribution to a paper, because of not contributing to its presentation. You should ask very politely your advisor about this sensitive issue. (Try smiling.) A: Contrary to the other answers, in theoretical Computer Science, it is customary to list authors in alphabetical order, not by contribution (so what applies to you depends on what exact field you're in). That said, it is possible to deviate from this (for instance, placing the student as first author when they did an overwhelming majority of the work) but who presents the work shouldn't have any bearing on the author order. Since the order was already agreed upon, whether alphabetical, by contribution or not, I see no reason to change it.

Q: How should one describe a future academic appointment I am currently a grad student, and will have an appointment as an assistant professor in a few months. For various conferences I am attending, I am to provide my title. I would prefer to mention my future position, if for no other reason so that people I meet will know where to find me in the future. Is there a term for a future appointment like "President-elect" or "Chairperson-elect" that can be used? "Assistant professor-elect" seems strange and "Assistant professor (effective August)" seems clunky. A: I would not worry about the title as much as the new location. Assuming a name badge that looks something like Strongbad PhD Student Crazy Go Nuts University I would add a hand written line to make it Strongbad PhD Student Crazy Go Nuts University Krusty's Clown College (starting August) I would only do this if the contract has been signed and there is no contingency on you finishing your PhD. If you have to finish your PhD to start the assistant professor position, then there is no guarantee you will be starting in August. A: Sorry to be a bit of a party pooper, but I don't like either StrongBad's or paul garrett's suggestions. Notwithstanding the fact that you deserve all the respect and congratulations in the world for your new near-future position, and it's very understandable that you want everyone to know about it, I can't help thinking that writing anything other than your current affiliation on your badge or presentation slides risks leaving a rather negative impression of someone who is a bit too over-eager to take credit for things that they have not yet completely accomplished. After all, you are not technically a PhD yet, let alone an assistant professor. My advice is therefore to tell anyone you feel should know about your new position in private conversation, and wait patiently until the effective date of your new appointment before listing it on any official documents such as your CV or conference badges. This is a special case of my more general philosophy that one should never brag about achievements that one has not yet fully accomplished.

Q: Is there any API service to retrieve abstract of a journal article? There are some API services to give title, citation and authors of an article by its DOI. I wonder if there is a service to provide abstract of a journal article by providing its DOI. A: For the MEDLINE database, with the E-utilities you can: Use the esearch function to retrieve the PubMed ID (PMID) of the article that includes the DOI as a term (presumably only one article): http://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/esearch.fcgi?db=pubmed&WebEnv=1&usehistory=y&term=10.1021/bi902153g Then, use efetch function to retrieve the abstract among other bibliographic attributes of the article (you need to pass the query_key and WebEnv returned earlier by esearch). http://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/efetch.fcgi?db=pubmed&retmode=XML&rettype=abstract&query_key=1&WebEnv=something If you have the PMID, it is one step with efetch: http://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/efetch.fcgi?db=pubmed&id=17284678&retmode=XML&rettype=abstract

Q: Am I allowed to use published research in building an industry project? I am a graduate student of Computer Science and am currently building an advanced project based on a paper that was released earlier this year at a major conference. I originally undertook this project as part of a course I am taking, but based on some initial testing results it looks like it has potential to make an impact in industry. That being said, I would like to continue working on this project and possibly market it in industry. Am I legally permitted to build and market this project without notifying the paper authors, or am I legally obligated to include them in this process? Assuming I have no legal responsibility to notify and include the authors in my endeavor, would it be unethical to omit them from the process, or is applying research in industry par for the course (i.e. the original researchers need not be and often are not involved)? Business ventures aside, should I reach out to the authors and let them know that I am working on this project, even if it's just in an academic setting? I have no need of their technical insights or expertise, but I would like to know if it is common practice to notify a researcher that their research is being applied and practiced (I know if it were my research, I would appreciate being told just to know that it was making a difference). A: In general, research that has been published openly in the scientific literature is freely available for anybody to use and build upon. As such, there is no requirement, either legal or ethical, to involve or notify the authors of the use to which you are putting their work. The exceptions to this are: If there have been patents filed (which should be stated in a conflict of interest statement in a journal paper, but may not appear in a conference paper) you may be constrained by patent licensing if the patent actually gets granted (though that typically takes a number of years). If you publish a paper yourself, then you are ethically required to cite their work. If you think the users of the system would find it interesting/useful to know about its origins, you can include it in appropriate parts of the documentation. Beyond this, of course, most people would be happy to learn that their work is being put to good use: if you decide to contact the authors at some point and tell them what you're doing, they'll probably be glad to hear it.

Q: How to get an advisor for my amateur research? I'm about to embark on a research project in complex systems on my own spare time. It seems like the idea I have is a good one. However, it would be better, for obvious reasons, to have an experienced person guide me. What are the chances that a university professor would agree to guide me while I try and churn this out? (Obviously, I want it to be as professional as possible). If I don't get anyone on board, what are my chances of publishing, or at least getting a pat on the back from admissions committees when I apply for graduate school? Do they appreciate this kind of thing? A: You've mentioned that you intend to apply to grad school. It would be helpful to know where you are in the academic process: high school, started university, finished university? Regarding asking for help, I see two distinct phases: If you have not yet started the project (and you are not currently a student somewhere), then I think most professors and professional researchers would be very wary to spend any time helping you. Complex systems, is, in particular, a field that attracts a lot of crackpots, and even the most well-intentioned projects of interested amateurs usually fizzle. I think the best bet would be to find someone you already know to provide early consultation, rather than cold-calling a professional at this stage. If you are enrolled in a university of some kind, then the story is different: the faculty has something of an obligation to talk to eager students. (-: If you have already made significant progress and have specific technical questions, I think almost anyone would be wiling to help. One other piece of advice: don't worry too much about talking about your idea. Many 'amateurs' get obsessed with the secrecy of their amazing idea -- this is the road to crackpotdom. I think it would be quite reasonable to state your idea on a site such as mathoverflow and ask whether it is a credible research proposal. If you can cite recent publications in refereed journals that indicate active interest in the area of your proposed work, then this is a good sign that you have both done your homework and identified an interesting subject of investigation. That said, even if the thing you are investigating turns out to be interesting only to you, it could still be worth continuing. It might lead somewhere more interesting later, and you would certainly develop useful skills in the process. If I don't get anyone on board, what are my chances of publishing, or at least getting a pat on the back from admissions committees when I apply for graduate school? Do they appreciate this kind of thing? A successful independent project, especially one resulting in a publication, would be great material for your grad school app. If your project does have interesting results, it should not be too hard to publish, regardless of your credentials. Even if it turns out that your work is not publishable in a refereed journal, it might find a home in your school's "journal of undergraduate research" (or something similar), which would also be a nice resume bullet during the grad school application procedure. Finally, it's probably best to simply avoid the word "amateur".

Q: Is it ethical to include additional material in lecture notes if students buy them For most of the undergraduate courses I teach, I also prepare lecture notes and students usually buy a printed copy at a copy shop at the university. Sometimes I think it might be beneficial for the lecture notes if I include additional material which I might not cover in the course. Is it ethical to add additional material if most of the students will buy a printed copy and the price will go up due to the additional pages? Does it make a difference if the material is available as a pdf in the course's page in a learning management system? A: It is very thoughtful of you to be concerned with the increased costs to your students; indeed, professors should be aware of and sensitive to such issues. At the same time, it is important not to go overboard with such concerns. As an educator, your primary concern should be to provide the students with the materials that you feel they need. That can legitimately include material that you are not planning to cover in the course but feel would be beneficial to at least a reasonable number of students. When weighing the benefit of this extra material against the increased cost of 1-2 euros to purchase the lecture notes, personally I feel that the educational benefit wins out against the fairly negligible amount of money involved. So yes, I would say it is ethical. As for distributing the extra material online for free, sure, that would work as well, but would probably send a signal to most of the students that this material is not important and should be ignored, and would dilute the pedagogical value of making the material available to the students. Finally, note that my answer may be different if you personally were making a profit from the inclusion of the extra material. In that case there would be a clear conflict of interest that would warrant, at the very least, a good deal of extra caution and perhaps rethinking your entire approach to distributing course material.

Q: How to answer a professor asking "what your masters work is about?" when my thesis is not in English? I have contacted a professor, looking for a PhD position. He replied that my field is so near to his research field, and to consider my application; he needs to know more about my masters thesis. I need to see your masters work. My thesis and most of my publications are in a non-English language. I have one English paper published in a nation-wide conference's proceedings, and this only presents no more than a quarter of my master's thesis. How should I reply to this professor to better describe my master's work? PS: I have a detailed CV in which I have brought all my transcripts of my BSc and MSc, translated titles of my publications and projects and all my job experience. UPDATE: I sent a copy of my English paper, my CV, my thesis abstract and some parts of my thesis besides to a research statement in which I wrote some research topics I am interested to work on. A: I think that you should send the professor your thesis, pointing out the obvious that it is not in English. Perhaps they actually know the language or have a trusted student or postdoc who does? You should also offer to send an English summary and/or any papers that you have written related to the subject in English. A: The reason he might be asking to see your thesis is to get familiar with what you did, and to evaluate the quality of your work. If all the application materials (your CV etc) have English titles, he might not realize that the thesis is in any other language. So, I would respond to him addressing what he needs, and not what he asked for literally. I would write an extended abstract (summary) of your thesis in English. I would send the following, the extended abstract, conference paper, and thesis. He can gain insight into all of your work from the thesis abstract you just wrote. Your conference paper evaluates your writing. And finally your thesis is sent just because maybe he understands the language. Even if he doesn't speak the language, the references, figures, tables, formulas etc. in the thesis should give him additional information about the content and quality of your work, especially in the context of your abstract.

Q: MHRA: citing texts from foreign language - original in footnotes? I often insert quotes from foreign languages in my undergraduate essays. I translate them in English in the main text, but do I have to put the original text in the footnotes? It will make them long and unpleasant. I'm currently working with the MHRA referencing style, but I wasn't able to find any information online. Any suggestion also from other referencing styles (MLA, Chicago, APA) will be appreciated. Thanks EDIT: I'm asking here because my teacher has not replied to this question and I cannot go to see her. A: Here a few solutions, all of which should be fine unless your professor explicitly rejects one of them. Since the MHRA (from what I can tell glancing over it) doesn't include explicit recommendations, as long as you indicate the source of your translated text and the original, I can't imagine them being so unreasonable to count off. Option 1: Find a translation This might not be possible, but if you can, just cite it instead. Life made easy for everyone, unless it's a terrible translation. Option 2: If short, include both I would only do this if the handful of foreign words are pertinent to the discussion (perhaps due to ambiguity or double entendre), or are relatively famous. You would probably want to quote Julius Caesar as …"Veni, vidi, vici" (p. 38), which is to say "I came, I saw, I conquered"…. For such short translations, if you did them yourself or they are well known, there's no real need to indicate the source of the translation. Option 3: Original/translation in text, translation/original in footnote/endnote. This prevents your main text from being too cluttered but could quickly turn into an abuse of footnotes/endnotes, especially if you have a lot of relatively short quotes. If you just have two or three long block quotes, this might be best, though. Option 4: Translate to English and clarify. This is my preferred approach. Just cite in English, but in your citation, add a little extra saying "translation mine" not unlike the common "emphasis mine" to indicate italicization not present in the original. From what I can tell, in MHRA you actually put "emphasis added" in parentheses inside the quotation marks, so you may just put at the beginning or end "(translated from the French)" or similar. Or, since MHRA appears to use footnotes for first citations, just include the text after the reference entry "I have translated all citations from this source to English" (or similar), and never worry about it again.

Q: What to write about in a master thesis that's mostly software applying common knowledge? I have got a topic for a thesis that I'm interested in. It's not a very difficult task and is well covered by the basic theory in the field. I'm not doing anything new and I'm not supposed to either. I'm convinced that a person knowledgeable in the field would consider it trivial. Working on the task is mostly only software development, although there's also some hardware involved. Of course there's a huge open source software library that covers pretty much everything in the field. In essence, I'm calling 2 to 3 functions of the library that are specifically made to solve the task that I have. What I spent most of my time on was writing software that makes some hardware talk to each other, deliver data to and from the library, doing some format conversions, etc. None of this is particularly interesting for the actual topic, it's only providing the logistics of using the library. The academically interesting part is already handled by the library. I didn't do much except applying the provided functionality to solve the problem in the obvious way as I've been told. I don't really know what I should write about in my thesis. It looks like my supervisor is very interested in seeing the functionality (of the library) "in action" for this particular application. I feel like an unpaid software developer disguised as a thesis student. How do I come up with content? from the comments I'm convinced that a person knowledgeable in the field would consider it trivial. — So then, why would you choose it as your thesis topic? I choose this topic because it is interesting to me. I like it. I have a positive mindset about it. is a topic that I estimated to be able to handle and it turned out I can. helps me gain more knowledge in its field that I was previously not very knowledgeable about. A: How do I come up with content? The first thing to do is ask yourself why your supervisor instructed you to perform this work in the first place. Unless they wanted to give you completely meaningless work for no reason (unlikely), they are likely interested in whether the system you are building demonstrates some interesting and non-trivial result. For example, perhaps they are interested in how different types of hardware interact with each other using this library. Perhaps they think that this setup might make x protocol go more quickly. Who knows, the point is that you should find out what their motivation was, and then write your thesis as an analysis of the result they were trying to measure. I feel like an upaid software developer disguised as a thesis student You're not going to like this, but in my opinion, what you've described does not qualify as a master's thesis. A master's thesis is essentially a doctoral dissertation of (much) smaller scope. It is by definition a research endeavor. What you have described sounds like just a very basic software project that should take no more than a few days to hook up and measure. I don't blame you for not knowing this, I blame your supervisor for not making this clear. Some of the main motivations for doing a master's thesis are typically to give a master's student experience with research, and to get them published so as to help them in applying to PhD programs or other research positions. In this case, I think you are justified in being confused about what content to discuss in your thesis because it doesn't sound like your supervisor has directed you to do any research whatsoever. If you were planning on using this thesis as a boost to your career (be it for PhD applications, or in industry), it may be worth sitting down with your supervisor to figure out how to actually get you involved with research. If the supervisor is giving this kind of work to do as a thesis, then in my opinion it means that they're taking advantage of you as free labor rather than doing what they should be doing, which is guiding you as you learn how to perform research.

Q: How many hours a day on Mathematics as a successful student? My motivation to ask this question actually comes from here, receiving negative reactions for 12 hours a day or even 7 hours spending time on Mathematics. A person usually spends 4.5 years to accomplish a BSc plus a MSc coursework. Books that I found to study in pages (BSc+MSc) approx. are: Calculus (760) Algebra (450+940) Topology (510+540) Analytical Geo (210) Real Analysis (610+520) ODE (440) Complex Analysis (480+350) Differential Geo (510+420) Logic (260) Number Theory (480) PDE (320) Total: 7800 pages. Supposing spending 30 min per page of studying and 2 hours per page of exercises, so it takes (4/5)×7800×0.5+(1/5)×7800×2 = 6240 hours = 5.5 hours a day in 4.5 years (excl. Sat+Sun) for a student. 1- I think that a Mathematics student has to learn more than I have listed, for example other subjects in Mathematics. 2- a Mathematics student has to spend on other than studying texts, like attending classes, other courses (e.g. computer) as well. How a typical university student in Mathematics spends a few hours in average on studying and knows a lot Mathematics and is able to start research, which I am not capable of? It's a paradox, or maybe I am not smart as other? Thank you. PS I am not officially a uni student yet, but I had to spend 12 h/d on average to study the mentioned books which I am pretty sure are less than what a uni student covers in their studies. A: I am afraid that your computation is not even wrong. You might as well ask how many hours a day you need to practice dribbling in order to be a professional basketball player. Mere knowledge of mathematics is just one component of being a professor, even a professor of pure mathematics. To become a successful mathematics professor (or any type of professor, really), you need a lot more than just to have studied many textbooks: you need scientific creativity, you need vision, you need to be able to communicate and write well, you need to be able to teach, you need self-discipline, you need some broader understanding of how mathematics fits into the larger world, and you need many more things besides. Moreover, one of those many things that you need is skill at extracting knowledge from texts. The deeper your understanding becomes, the more that you will be able to see the structure of the content that you are reading, to analyze which parts are critical and which are accessory, and the less that the computation you present makes sense. In short: yes, it takes a lot of effort on mathematics to become a professor, but the process and challenges are very different than you think. A: One should not think in terms of a necessary (or even worse, sufficient) number of hours of work needed. What you should set yourself are goals: learn the courses of your curriculum, practice them to make them become natural to you, ask yourself questions about them (seek examples of definitions, counter-examples of theorems with an hypothesis removed, etc.), and very importantly get enough sleep (and possibly sport) for your body and brain to work efficiently. Studying for hours can be less efficient at getting good at maths than sleeping more and be more acute during the fewer hours of work. Working hard is an important part of success, true. Working well is of even greater importance, so be prepared to change your way of working for a more efficient one. A: I would say your calculation 5.5 hours a day in 4.5 years is close to real based on my own experience, the link @jakebeal provided and others' experience. I think one of the differences between your case (not officially a uni student yet) and others is that they have professors and TAs to help them. They attend Math classes in school. They learn what's important to read and what important exercises to do in the class. In other words, they learn Math more efficiently and more effectively than you do. This is why attending formal trainings in universities is always encouraged. Not only you have professors and TAs to help you, but also you have peers (classmates) to discuss the problems with. So, you learn faster and better. You eventually graduate from school (BS or MS or PhD). Hopefully you'll become a professional Mathematician someday.

Q: What are the potential benefits and pitfalls of leaving tenth grade early to pursue an internship at a prominent research lab? I'm a tenth grader in high school and I'm passionate about my research in computational neuroscience. I'm in a unique situation, and I'm wondering whether I should leave tenth grade early this year to accept a research position for four months at a leading university. I am a deep thinker and am profoundly miserable because my present educational environment isn't intellectually stimulating, growth oriented, and I'm worried I'm not accessing my potential. Because of this, I'm going to be leaving high school next year and hoping to attend the visiting students program at a nearby college. I don't think not being in traditional high school will be a hindrance to my college admissions; on the contrary I think what I do outside of school will boost my candidacy. I've recently been offered a research-internship position at a lab at: Cornell, Princeton, Oxford, and Rockefeller. If I wanted to attend any one of them I'd need to leave high school early this year. This is an extraordinary opportunity which will take me to new and incredible places and I don't want to let my schooling interfere with my education. I am positive leaving school is the right choice. Of course there are considerations but I've taken them into account; I'm not afraid of being unconventional. Just to be clear, I'm wondering whether I should leave for the last two months of tenth grade. Secondly, I'm going to attend a visiting students program at an Ivy League University next year which is designed for high school students to attend in lieu of traditional HS. Are there other benefits or possible pitfalls I should be taking into account? Edit: Thank you all for your guidance which is helping me see the situation more clearly. A: I'd like to offer a counterpoint to Anonymous Physicist. I started school early because I was on the border of the birthday cutoff date, and then skipped my senior year of high school. So I left for college at 15. It was too early for me. Not academically. I passed all of my classes, and found a number of them still a bit boring. But going to college isn't entirely about classes. For most people, it is their first time living life on their own terms. You make your own schedule, make your own food, wash your own clothes, make your own decisions with no immediate consequence. In short, you're learning how to be an adult. And in that, I floundered a bit. It took time for me to build a work ethic. It took a bit of failure for me to figure out how to maintain my own motivation and discipline. Enough for me to lose my scholarships and eventually drop out. And that was with a bunch of other early entry students to provide social support. If you're going to be unique in that environment, that will provide it's own challenges. And then there's the culture shock of going from being the best at your school to being just another person among the best in the world. So I would caution this approach. The things that led to my failure were things I didn't even think to consider at the time. The grass isn't always greener on the other side of the fence. A: Wait! Perhaps you can finish tenth grade AND attend the internship, using some people skills :) First, there should be an administrative coordinator listed in your internship correspondence. (If not, ask the offering professor for a contact name). Call this person and say that you are honored to receive an offer, and that your school calendar year runs through X, has anyone been in your situation before? What would he/she recommend? Maybe the dates are flexible, maybe some offsite work is permissible... Most coordinators I've worked were experienced and helpful; it's worth a try. Your final plan will need to be cleared with the offering professor. Then, approach your favorite teacher, and say you've received this wonderful internship opportunity, but it starts before the end of the school year and you don't know what to do. Who would be a good contact in the school to talk to? Perhaps a guidance counselor, principal, ... With any luck your favorite teacher will be excited for you and want to see you succeed. From there, get in touch with the recommended person (e.g. guidance counselor) to compose a plan to complete your high school courses. It may be possible to complete work early, substitute an online course, ... Next, approach each of your teachers individually, tell them about the great internship and that you're working with Mr./Mrs. X on a plan to finish the year. Thank them for helping you be able to finish early. It's best if you bring it up personally since they'll feel involved in the solution, vs. hearing about it from the counselor. A lot of work? Yes. Will all go well? Hard to say - there may be a few blockers. Worth a try? Absolutely. You want to be perceived as that friendly guy or gal who made it big and gets a writeup in the hometown paper. By the way, if you can pull this off you will be FAR more astute than I was in high school! Also, what do your parents think? They might have some good ideas on how to approach the situation, and on your options for next year. A: "I don't think not being in traditional high school will be a hindrance to my college admissions" As a high school dropout who is now an academic, I have found skipping much of my secondary education has actually accelerated my education, career, and earnings. However, this path is not for everyone. It depends on what sort of high school is involved, the goals/motivation of the individual, and what they do with themselves after leaving high school. If you want to pursue a research career, but your high school does not provide an environment conducive to learning, then I would recommend changing to a different environment. Keep in mind that you will need to learn things outside your preferred area of study to be successful as a researcher.

Q: Does publishing books help with PhD admissions? Say I have a deep knowledge of an advanced technical topic, and have written a book on such a topic. Though this book does not contain any original research ideas, it is a well written and thorough treatise on a technical topic that is relevant in both academia and industry. Would writing (and hopefully publishing) such a book help with PhD admissions, or do admissions committees generally only care about research publications (as far as publications go -- obviously they care about recommendations, grades, etc in addition to research)? If the book were published with a major publisher such as O'Reilly Media, would this make a difference? A: Certainly it would be a plus---even a good technical blog or a nice portfolio of posts on SE can be helpful. It speaks to your level of sophistication and interest in the subject. One can tell a lot about scientific maturity by reading someone's expository works---it betrays the way one thinks about things and can also give an indication of scientific awareness. At least some of your letter writers should be familiar with the book and be impressed with it. If you're lucky, some faculty at places you're applying may also be familiar with it as well. For me, publishing with a well-known publisher would make a little stronger first impression (the publisher can lend the book a little credibility), but really what the letters say about it, or how the book reads if I decide to look at it myself (which is much easier for open access books) is much more important. (Note: open access books or online notes can actually get wider circulation in academia than traditionally published books.) This is not to say that writing a technical book is a good way to get into a PhD program. It takes a lot of effort that could be put to other use if your only goal is to get a PhD. But if you already have one written, it would be silly not to mention it.

Q: Medium-quality English conference vs. Higher-quality non-English conference As a first-year masters student in a non-English speaking country who is considering to later continue to study Ph.D. abroad (US or Canada), which option would be more desirable? Publishing in a medium quality (locally held) international conference which is in English (and indexed by IEEE Xplore) or a higher quality (local) non-English conference or journal? Clarification: neither conference is top by international standards. It's a question of comparing two nationally known conferences where the English one has less national reputation. A: Which conference to publish in depends on your goals for the publication: Conferences can be extremely valuable networking opportunities, and speaking at a conference puts your work in front of the audience of that conference. If the non-English venue is a community that will be valuable for you to connect with, then publishing there can be extremely helpful with building professional contacts, getting into a good Ph.D. program or getting a good job, etc. Note that this may apply even if you're planning to study abroad later, as those colleagues may have overseas contacts. On the other hand, sometimes you are less interested in the interactions at the conference than in just having a "this is published" stamp and collecting citations for another line in your C.V. In this case, it's not the conference itself but the online accessibility of the paper that's likely to be matter more to you, and it will likely to be more valuable to have it in English if your subfield is (like most currently are) English-dominated. Note also that you may be able to gain the benefits of both by a follow-on journal publication. If you are in a field where it is typical for conference publications to be upgraded into a more archival "extended form" journal publication (e.g., computer science), then you might publish originally in the other language, then follow up with an English journal publication, thus obtaining both sets of benefits, though at a cost of having the English version come out much later.

Q: What material should I bring to my first meeting/interview with my prospective advisor? During a very brief email exchange, a professor of my university (mathematician) said that he is available to take on a masters student at the moment and gave me an appointment during his office hours. Roughly in the same spirit as the question How much detail to include in first email to potential PhD supervisor?, I'd like to ask What kind of "support material" should I bring to this "interview" to make sure the professor collects a sufficient (and sufficiently well-organized) amount of information? I mean, in addition to the basics, which are a copy of my CV; a copy of my trascript; a concise summary of my mathematical background that is relevant to the (possible) thesis topic with precise references to courses, workshops, conferences, summer schools, and the books or papers I've read. A: It looks like you're set with respect to material things. What I would encourage you to prepare is an agenda -- which, in this case, means a set of immediately practical questions you need answers to, and one or two conversation-starters regarding your would-be advisor's research and that of his existing advisees. Practical questions: what paperwork is involved in formalizing the arrangement, when should you report to start work, that sort of thing. Conversation starters: "I read your recent 'Mathematical Models of Baskets' in the Journal of Underwater Basketweaving; are you still working on that?" "What are your current students working on, and is there anything you wish somebody would tackle?" and that sort of thing.

Q: Are there any researcher digital identification services or directories, similar to ORCID and ResearcherID? Are there any general (not field-specific) researcher digital identification services or directories, similar to ORCID and ResearcherID? A: Some of the obvious ones: The ISNI initiative wants to assign unique identifiers to all "creators". (They take authors in the broad sense of individuals generating copyrightable content or something like that, since they include musicians and others.) That is about as "general" as you can want. If you want to restrict to Academia, the arXiv author identifier is not specifically field-specific, though it is limited to fields which have an arXiv presence. Since you didn't specify what is required of a "researcher digital identification service", social networks such as Academia.edu and ResearchGate which you mentioned in your other question can also serve the purpose of disambiguation of publishing records. Certain countries maintain their own databases of researchers residing there. The most comprehensive and successful seems to be that of Netherlands. The American Mathematical Society has recently starting maintaining author profiles as part of their MathSciNet service (I know that the question asked for "not field-specific"; I'll weasel and say that the AMS profiles include also those working in related sciences to mathematics, such as physicists and computer scientists, and some engineers.) For a list of some of the other services, the International Repositories Infrastructure Wiki has a slightly out-dated list of such services. Note however some of the items listed there have stalled and shutdown since the last edit. A: A few more creator/author/researcher identifiers: Scopus Author Identifier - automatically generated from author name and affiliation appearing in publications in the Scopus database Loop Microsoft Research Academic Search for authors Google Scholar author profile aka. "My Citations" Please note that ORCID lives within a reserved section of the International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI) namespace, see "ORCID and ISNI Issue Joint Statement on Interoperation", and works associated with an ORCID can be more than just publications but can include performances and presentations too, see "Supported Work Types" for a list.

Q: Is it a red flag for a PhD program if their graduating students cannot find postdoc? I got accepted to one of my top choice schools for a math Ph.D. However the graduate students there said in the past few years, the Ph.D.s before them (both pure and applied math) had quite a bit of trouble finding postdoc positions after graduating. But they are able to find nice jobs in industries. Would this be a red flag? I know that finding a postdoc or a tenure track position in math is especially hard in the recent years, so this might not be a complete measure about their Ph.D. program. I have also gotten accepted into another public university and the graduate students there said they didn't have much trouble finding postdocs. This one is not as prestige as the one above in term of general ranking. I have professors that I would like to study with in both universities, and I am leaning toward the second one. Could you give me some advice? A: I'd recommend trying to gather some objective data on outcomes. For example, in the mathematics genealogy project you can search by "name of school" and "year of degree" to find a list of people who graduated in 2014 or 2015. It's not guaranteed to be complete, and it sometimes mixes together people who were in different departments at the same university, but it's usually pretty good (and sometimes easier than finding this information on math department websites). Then you can start googling people, with "math" appended if necessary, to see what you can find. If you can't find any indication that someone is working in academia, then they probably aren't. If they are, then you can gauge how pleased you would be with such a job. This should give more reliable data than self-reported difficulty of finding postdocs, because it avoid filtering through the departmental culture. Some cohorts of grad students are optimistic and enthusiastic, while others are more apprehensive, and it's not clear to me that this correlates particularly well with actual success on the job market. It's also worth keeping in mind that the relevant issue is job opportunities, not actual outcomes. If one person complains about the difficulty of finding a job and another doesn't, you can't conclude anything without knowing where they were applying. (Sometimes students at more prestigious universities apply mainly to fancier postdocs, because they wouldn't be happy with less prestigious jobs.) Unfortunately, this is more difficult to gather objective data on, but I think it's a second-order effect. A: This sounds like pretty thin evidence on which to base an important life decision. You don't think the graduate students at the second institution might have been a little selective in their memory? They aren't exactly unbiased observers. Let's just recap: you're considering a general impression, not based on data (and thus, easily biased) of presumably a few graduate students out of many in the program about a 2 or 3 year period (so even for a pretty large school, maybe 50 graduates, and at many schools more like 20) about a wildly variable phenomenon (since the strength of graduating classes, the number of jobs available in different fields, which advisors students worked with can all vary wildly from year to year). Of course, all the data you have about graduate programs is low quality (since you don't know how it will apply to you, and sample sizes are so small), but if we reason Bayesian-ly, that means we shouldn't be eager to discard our priors over one data point. If the other things you know point you to first school, I don't think this is a good reason to change your mind.

Q: Literature searches in publications when you have limited access to journals I'm currently at an institution that has a phenomenal library system. I think every journal article or book I've ever needed, no matter how old or obscure, was available to me. I consider myself very fortunate, and always try to hold on to resources that I may not have access to in the future. I may be transitioning to a new institution soon, where a colleague of mine tells me the library is significantly smaller, and has far less access to journals, especially to those in science/engineering, which can be pretty pricey. I'm concerned that in the future my manuscripts will be rejected because my literature searches will be limited to only the journals I have access to. I was trained to never cite articles that I have not read, understood and could justifiably show are relevant to my work; I agree with that philosophy, so picking citations as "filler" is not something I am comfortable doing. If all that is available is an abstract, I know that can help, but it's no substitute for the article itself. I know that reviewers and editors are supposed to consider your contribution as a whole, and not just look at whether or not you cited the articles they think you should have, but the world is an imperfect place. For those at institutions with limited journal subscriptions/small library systems, how do you justify your literature searches that are missing articles that the reviewers and editors feel are necessary? Aside from your research contribution itself, assuming it is sound, worthwhile, and well-written, is it just the case that, those at institutions with fewer resources inherently have to publish in more accepting (less competitive) journals by default? UPDATE Thanks for everyone's interest and suggestions. The answers so far have focused on how to get those tough-to-find sources, but I'd really like to see some suggestions on how to handle the other side: communicating reference shortfalls to reviewers when the aforementioned suggestions don't pan out. Thoughts? A: You have several options - but they'll all take a bit more time. For one, check if your university can get access to articles "on loan" which usually just means another university sends you the pdf. Alternatively, check the corresponding authors university website. Often, they'll put their publications there, or on researchgate. Finally, if you can't find it via other methods, just email the corresponding author. A quick email letting them know you want to cite their work, but your university doesn't have access to the journal/book, and they'll usually be more than happy to email it to you (we all want to increase our citation counts!). A: See if you can hold on to some affiliation at your current institution. 4 years later, I still have a visitor status at a previous institution. I use it to access journals even though my current institution usually has access. I can get Google Scholar's library links to work better with my old institution, so the number of mouseclicks is fewer. Otherwise, Google Scholar will generally work and often provide a link to something not under paywall. If that's not available, and it's not 50 years old, you can usually email an author. Worst case - keep good relations with someone at your current institution and send an occasional request for a paper. Aside - everyone should think about this issue when they decide whether to submit to an open access journal or not. Want to have impact/citations? Make sure more people can read your work. A: If you know that a paper is relevant, you can probably get it in one way or another. The bigger issue are those papers you are unaware of. I'm currently working as a computer scientist at a genomics institute that does not subscribe to the conference proceedings published by Springer and IEEE. As a result, I don't have direct access to most papers in my subfield. When I need a paper I don't have access to, the first thing I do is a regular Google search. More often than not, I can find the paper on arXiv, the authors' websites, or institutional repositories. Sometimes the publicly available version of paper contains errors or omissions not present in the "published" (paywalled?) version, but that's just unfortunate. The blame goes to the authors, who are intentionally distributing misleading versions of their papers. If I can't find the paper on my own, I ask our library for it. They're quite efficient at obtaining papers, typically responding to requests made during office hours in a few hours. The requested papers are not free, even though I never see the price tag myself, so I only request papers if I'm fairly sure they're relevant. In the rare instances our library can't get the paper, I have resorted to emailing the authors. Yet as I said, the biggest issue are the papers I'm not aware of. As getting access to papers is cumbersome, I rarely read paywalled papers I'm not specifically looking for. Sometimes I miss relevant results because of this, but as long I'm making an honest effort at literature search, I don't worry about that too much. (Not citing all relevant work is actually quite common in computer science, where different subfields often invent the same or closely related concepts under different names.)

Q: How to respond a reviewer's reply when he is asking about much more to be discussed? I got review reply with three reviewers comments. Most of them are workable. I can address them while revising the manuscript. However, one reviewer is asking much more work, and based on my understanding, I feel that can be a another work. Thus, I want to politely answer that query with proper reasons. However, I am wondering if there is any formal way to address this issue? I can say that, we totally agree with the reviewer's concern. However, this study which itself is a novel work, is a part of our future work. A: One thing to make clear at the outset: it is the editor who controls whether your paper is published or not. Your task is to convince the editor, not necessarily the reviewer, that your paper merits publication. Most editors will not blindly require you to implement all the reviewer's suggestions to get the paper published. After all, it's not like the reviewer necessarily knows better than you do what is going to make your paper publishable. (If multiple reviewers all make the same suggestion, that's a different story and an editor will put more weight on that.) If you have a good reason not to do something suggested by a reviewer, you can not do it and point out in your response to the editor why you made that decision. The important thing is to make it clear that you didn't simply decide to ignore part of the reviewer's report. If you're going to avoid implementing any of their recommendations, you do need to justify it. It then falls to the editor to decide whether the paper is still publishable without that particular suggestion being implemented. I'd add that saying that an addition to the paper would be too large and would justify an entire followup study on its own is a valid response. Even a reasonably common one, I would think. Reviewers haven't done the research themselves; they don't know how much work an extension would take, and if you say it would be too involved, there's a pretty good chance the editor believes that you know better than the reviewer on that point. A: What's sometimes worked for me is to e-mail the editor noting the conflicting demands of the referees and saying what you propose to do and asking if that would be OK? Depending on the circumstances I have also asked if doing X is a requirement for publication, and I have withdrawn or resubmitted depending on the response.

Q: What is the difference between CS and Informatics degrees? I am interested in pursuing a degree in Computer Science. Universities I've reviewed have "Major In Computer Science" , but give "Bachelor's in Informatics or Computing". There is no "Bachelors In CS", I simply couldn't find it. So are Informatics and Computing the same as CS ? or IT? When I was looking for programming jobs, degree requirements were mostly CS. If I go to the university I mentioned above (Major in CS, but Bachelor's in Informatics), will I be able to write in my CV that I have CS knowledge? A: This greatly depends on the country the university is in, and the language spoken there. For example: In Croatia, informatics and IT are really roughly a same thing. What you want to study, in the strongest technical uni in the country, would correspond to something maybe best translated as computer studies (with a possible specialization in computer science). A computer scientist from Croatia speaking with another Croatian might get slightly offended if somebody called him an informatician. In France, the only term they have to describe computer science is informatique, and the person doing that for a living would be informaticien. Many French people will be talking about "informatics" when speaking in English. When I personally speak in English, I would never mix the terms computer science, and informatics. If I wanted to refer to somebody who might not be doing research (any more) I might switch to computing, or be more specific with the field. I might be biased since I'm Croatian and come from that culture, and I'm not fully sure what the difference between IT and informatics is, but there's a definitive difference between informatics and CS in my mind. The bottom line would be: don't look at the Universities title when choosing, look at their program instead. Look for classes whose descriptions match your interests and skills you want to obtain. If the program matches with your interests, that that is most probably the right university for you (without talking about the Uni's quality right now).

Q: Question about ethics and possible misappropriation of research funds I am working for a professor who started out recently. Most new professors get start-up funding from the department which helps them pay for their first students. Right now I am working in the lab with another PhD candidate; both of us have been funded by departmental funds until now. The PhD is working on a project which has no funding. I am working on a corporate-funded project for my thesis. Now I am the PI for this project internally. So I did the whole project as my thesis and I was listed as the PI on consent form (approved by my university IRB) when I carried out the final testing of my product with the corporate sponsor. Here is where things turn shady. When I carried out my testing, we paid the participants through my research funds (the account number for the project is listed on some departmental documents that I had to sign to get cheques for test participants). In my GRA contract, it was specified that my funding was coming from the departmental account and when the PhD candidate showed me their contract, it was getting funded from my project account (the stipend account number was my project account number and I have confirmed this with a student departmental assistant). Their stipend was coming from my project funds. I spoke with few other people in the department, and came to know that when the department gives seed funding to new professors, there is a limit in stipend they can give. So to give the PhD student more funding, my advisor is using my research funds (for which I am PI) to pay this stipend and thus is getting double my stipend. I am still getting funded by the department, so I get a lot less. Screwed-up thing is this project is highly successful as I did a lot of hard work and I am not getting any financial incentive. In fact, it's all going to the other researcher who is nowhere involved in this project. The sponsor is giving my advisor funding for a second phase next month and also offered me a full-time job at their corporation. I should probably mention that I don't have a good relationship with my advisor and we fought multiple times in past due to some other issues but the PhD candidate gets along very well. They are like family friends and have very good social interactions. I am graduating this December, so it probably won't matter anyway, but is this ethical? Can I speak with my department chair about this? I had asked my advisor multiple times to increase my stipend but they said they cannot. The questions is not about money — it's more about betrayal by your own advisor who you trust to be fair. I still have the copy of the departmental documents used to order cheques for testing showing my account project number and a copy of the PhD candidate's contract. A: I cannot really tell what you question is about, but let me try and clarify a few things. First, being the PI on an institutional review board application does not make you the PI for the funded project. It is not clear what you mean by "your" project funds, but from your description it does not sound like it is your funding, but rather funding that your supervisor was awarded and is providing you access to for you to accomplish your thesis. Second, applications for funding generally have around 3 aims. The linkage between these aims can be pretty loose. It is not uncommon for students working on different aims of the same grant to think their projects are completely independent. Often a grant might not provide funding for all the staff required to complete the aims. In fact a selling point to potential funders is the ability to leverage their funding with "outside" funds like a departmental studentship. The real issue I think in your question is if it is ethical for your supervisor to use her funding to pay PhD students different amount. The answer to this is that it is most likely ethical. It is possible your supervisor has circumvented the policies of both the funder and the department, but this seems unlikely. It is quite likely that your department has a fixed, relatively low, stipend for internally funded PhD students, but allows for PhD students funded from outside grants to be paid more. In my mind there is nothing unethical about that. So then the question is why is your lab mate being funded by the grant while you are being funded by the school. No one but your supervisor can answer this. Maybe she flipped a coin. Maybe she thought your the project of your lab mate was closer aligned to the aims of the grant. Maybe, as you say, she likes your lab mate better and cannot be trusted. Before going down that road, you need to remember that it is quite possible that the decision of who to fund from where may have been made prior to either of you applying to grad school. A: I will disagree with Joe Hass, in that it's quite possible that your advisor is very likely doing something unethical by paying you and your colleague different amounts for the same position in the absence of merit-based arguments to do so, it is quite possible that nothing illegal is happening that requires reporting. The important issue here is that you do not know the terms of the contract between the external sponsor and your advisor. In particular, you would need to know what restrictions have been placed on the funds provided: in some cases, it may simply be an unrestricted "block grant" that the advisor can spend in any manner of her choosing. If this is the case, then the only regulations that might have been broken are departmental regulations. Now, on the other hand, if there are restrictions on the use of the funds, it is much more likely that something inappropriate has occurred, but without knowing the agreement, you could be setting yourself up for needless trouble, so proceed with caution.

Q: Asking a celebrity Prof to sign a paper they wrote? So we are all fans of some professor at some stage of academia. If I see one in an upcoming conference/workshop, should I ask them to sign a paper that they wrote as it's also one of my favorite papers? (I'm sure I'm not the only one who brings a paper that someone else wrote when I know they will come for the conference/workshop). How would you respond if you were the Prof asked to sign the paper? Has anyone done the same before? A: Just ask! In the past, before electronic publishing, one had to ask for physical reprints from authors. They usually signed them with a nice greeting, sometimes a signature, and occasionally nothing. I have sent reprints to other upon request and always with a signed greeting because I appreciate the request. I have a hard time seeing anyone being offended by it although an eyebrow may be raised by the request since it is now quite unusual. But it is a good way to strike up a conversation and contact the person. Personally I would try to approach the person away from an "audience" in order to not interrupt and have a real chance to state why you admire the work (person). I am sure some might say no but I would not be offended if someone asked me, not that I see it happening to me any-time soon. A: Should you go and ask, you probably don't run a big risk of anything really unpleasant happening, as other answers point out (except in the context of @Anonymous' answer!). However, I would feel uncomfortable asking such a thing and here is why. By asking for an autograph, you are in effect behaving as a fanboy/fangirl rather than a peer (a colleague and possible coworker). I don't see that this is the way you want to bring your existence to light to an admired professor. So, sure, if your goal is to get a professor to sign her name on a paper, go ahead and ask. But if you considered this mostly as an opportunity to establish contact with the said professor, I'm sure there are other ways which do not involve humbling yourself before someone you would likely rather impress. A: I knew a friend who approached Dr. X, the author of a notoriously challenging math book with a huge number of difficult exercises. He asked Dr. X to sign his copy of the book. Dr. X took and inspected the copy. The spine was undamaged, the pages were pristine, the book was in like new condition. Dr. X smiled and returned the book. "Read it first, then come ask me again!"

Q: Completing German master's programs in less than allotted time I'm considering applying to master's programs in mathematics over in Germany (e.g. Bonn, Berlin Mathematical School). The stated time for these programs is two years. Should I get accepted and attend, are there any issues (ethical or otherwise), with bailing after a year to attend a PhD program in the US? If so, is it possible to complete the program in a single year if I come in with some kind of advanced standing (i.e. having taken many graduate courses beforehand)? A: This is something that you have to ask the respective offices at the schools you apply. You can savely assume that completing a Master's in Germany in less than two years is in general possible if you complete all required things in time, i.e. you've got enough credits in all required categories. It will not hurt if you double check with the "Studien-" or "Prüfungsordnung" of the respective programs. If the program will award credits for courses that you have taken somewhere else is something that nobody but the program office can answer (and will probably finally decided on an individual basis by the dean of student affairs).

Q: I regret declining a really good PhD offer. Can I ask if I can accept the offer after all? I recently declined a really good PhD offer in the US for another offer from an American university and I'm terribly regretting it now. I made my decision on the 15th of April and it's past deadline now. I really want to go to the other school and since the 15th of April was the last working day, I'm hoping that they haven't offered my position to any other aspirant yet. I know this is ethically wrong but I feel miserable about my decision and want to contact the university and ask them if they can still accommodate me. As far as the other university is concerned I have only accepted their offer through an email and haven't formally been given the final offer letter yet. Should I go ahead with this? A: Dude I am an old guy and here is my advice: Never be shy to ask for things you don't know. Accept the fact that you are an imperfect being. You made mistakes, and will make mistakes. Be open to hear others views, and take moment to digest their words to fully understand their perspective. Therefore it is totally normal to email the university back with full honesty and tell them that you changed your mind. BUT before you do that, think twice, thrice or even more. You have already done a mistake for being too quick. Don't be too quick again. At least learn. To me it seems that maybe you are unstable and change your mind too quickly. Let me blame you a bit: before deciding too quickly, why didn't you just email them back and simply ask "I would appreciate some time to think. Could you please let me know the deadline for my response? Thanks."? Lesson #1 when you are at a point in time where you need to make a choice, usually the best decision to evaluate and perform is the following: Evaluate if it's possible to postpone the decision (you might need to ask questions to ensure whether it's possible to postpone the decision). If it's possible to postpone, then postpone it so that you have more time to think and make a better decision. Of course, some times it is not possible to postpone a decision because time matters. That's why you need to first evaluate the possibility (or even more accurately: the cost associated with postponing it; if the cost is low, and the value from a more reliable decision is high, then dude postpone it!). A: I don't have much experience of US PhD programs, but in the UK it would be quite likely that the place you declined would have been offered to the next candidate almost immediately after you declined it. Again from a UK perspective, it would also give a somewhat unfavorable impression that you declined and then changed your mind. A potential worry for the University making the offer would be that you might change your mind again at a later point. You don't mention your reasons for declining the offer the first time, I would reflect on these before doing anything further or in haste. Having said all that, if after reflection you still feel that it was a mistake to decline the offer, I would suggest informally contacting the University where you declined the offer and asking if there is any possibility for you to change your mind. If you don't ask, you'll never know. A: You had a reason to decline. Has the reason evaporated? Why are you changing your mind? You should need to have a good response for that, both for yourself as well as to the place you apply to. As a superviser, I had students changing mind back and fro, which I understand - it's a big decision, and not all information may be available. However, keep in mind that your originally offered position, as stated elsewhere, may have been already given to someone else.

Q: Applying to PhD position (Scandinavia): what should be included in personal letter So I'm thinking about applying for a PhD position in Norway (life sciences). They use a jobb portal for the application, meaning that you just upload your diplomas (bachelor, master, etc.) and write a personal letter. However, I am a bit unsure of what I should include in this letter. I have written one outcast, where I ended up writing a lot about myself, what bachelor I had and why, and also what master degree project I had, and what came out of this. Then I discussed a bit what I have learned, both my weaknesses and strengths. And finally I try to explain/summarize what laboratory methods I have used, etc. Does anyone have suggestions of what is more or less important to include? Is it a bad idea to discuss my weaknesses as well, and how I handle them? Should the focus be more on what I know compared to the position, or should it also be a bit personal so that they get the sense of who you are (and if you will fit into the group or not)? The thing is that most of these suggestions on the web (and here) seemed to be aimed at people who want to apply for degrees in the states, or other places with similar academic structure. If you take your entire degree in Norway, then there is more or less nothing called internships for life sciences, nor relevant summer jobs (only for a very few lucky people, but it's only routine stuff that you don't really learn a lot from), and master thesis is normally 60 credits (6 months in lab and then writing) which is hardly enough to publish anything. It's therefore hard to know what you should write about. Is it therefore a good idea to discuss who you are, regarding my weakness and strengths compared to the experiences I have? Or should I focus on the courses that I've taken (labs etc), and other experiences outside of academia (e.g. summer job teaching children etc?)? A: I believe the general advice given in the other question still applies to your situation. All those you mentioned are good to include, but they are mostly about yourself. To be more complete, you should also include reasons why you choose this particular school to do a PhD, which research topics interest you and why, as well as your aspirations for the future. Remember to be specific and try to relate as much as possible to the school you are applying to.

Q: Visit to a different university - is it OK to bring my girlfriend along? I am a PhD student, and I was recently invited to visit a university which happens to be at a very attractive touristic location. It goes without saying that the purpose of the visit is purely scientific, and any other matters are tangential. On the other hand, it has occurred to me and my long-time girlfriend that it would be a perfect opportunity for her to see this touristically attractive place. Now, I am wondering how best to make the arrangements, so as to maximize both research and personal benefits (and not offend the host as a by-product). To state the obvious, at the time when I am supposed to be doing research I will be doing research, and not get distracted by the presence of my partner. The place is interesting enough to keep her entertained through the day, and to keep us both entertained during the evenings. I would not expect the host to have much interest in how I spend my free time if I want to be left to my own devices, so if me and my girlfriend make totally separate arrangements and only spend the evenings together, this should not cause any problems. Keeping things entirely separate feels a little impractical though, so I have some questions about issues that I do not see as so clear-cut. My host will be booking accommodation for me and paying for it. Is it impolite to suggest that he book a double room, and we pay half of the price from our own pocket? It is probable that I will be invited to some social gatherings - maybe beer after a seminar, maybe dinner. Is it polite to bring my partner along/resign from joining? Would it be OK to streach the visit for an extra weekend after the research is done (paying for the hotel, of course, but hopefully still getting the return flight refunded)? I would also be grateful for input on any issues that I have not yet thought of. A few details, just in case they are relevant: My field is (pure) mathematics. The university is in Europe, at the Mediterranean coast. The visit is about a week long. We are in a long-distance relationship, so a extra week together does make a difference. The host strikes me as rather easy-going, but I don't know him that well. A: It is perfectly reasonable. I have done it a couple of times and I know colleagues that frequently do it. Her presence at work/social events depends on the event and how well you know the host and the events. Often the work/social line gets blurred. I am friends with a number of my colleagues partners and my partner are friends with them and their partners. Sometimes my partner will join me for social events when we have a visitor. That said, while it is not inappropriate, the trailing partner at academic events never has worked well for us. I have been both the leading and trailing partner. The person working is often tired at the end of the day and not really in the mood to be a tourist. We find it is a better use of our time and money to travel both as tourists and really enjoy our holidays. A: We often invite people to our institute, and it's not at all unusual for them to bring their girlfriend/boyfriend/family with them. This is never a problem - we're often asking them to come a long way, and it would feel strange not to accommodate their personal ties as much as possible. I imagine other institutes are similar - certainly no-one should be surprised if you ask, and I would be surprised if it caused a problem. I would also ask about extending the visit to cover the weekend. Sometimes institutions have bureaucratic rules that can affect their ability to pay for your flights if you do that, so it's worth making sure that's not the case here. I don't think it's an unusual thing to want to do, so again they won't be surprised if you ask, and they will probably be apologetic if it's not possible. A: To complement StrongBad's answer I'll address directly a few points of your question: Is it impolite to suggest that he book a double room, and we pay half of the price from our own pocket? No, it's not impolite: there should be no problem for them to ask refund for just half of the hotel's invoice. It is probable that I will be invited to some social gatherings - maybe beer after a seminar, maybe dinner. Of course it depends on your host, but as a European, and according to my experience around Europe, for a week-long visit, there might not be many social events, probably just a dinner. You can surely tell your host that you would like to come with your girlfriend. Would it be OK to stretch the visit for an extra weekend after the research is done Whether it's ok or not depends on the administration of the university which refunds the flight: if it's your host's, ask them; if it's yours, ask your university administration.

Q: How to contact professors as a high school student? I am a high school student who is interested in mathematics. As such I have been emailing several professors from prominent universities. I have been running into trouble when trying to figure out what their research is from their websites (it's either way too specific and jargon-filled, or so general I can't find anything good to ask them.) Would it be a good idea to just plainly say: "I see you research 'area in math.' Would you mind telling me what specifically your research entails?"? A: I advise you to put yourself in the shoes of the professors reading your emails. Why would they answer you? What's in it for them? They explain mathematics for a living, so your request is a bit like asking a barber you aren't friends with to cut your hair for free. It's great that you want to learn about math research, but with due respect, you can't understand the specifics of most math research. Not because you aren't smart enough, but because it's written in a language that takes years to learn. It is (or can be) possible to communicate some of the ideas behind a piece of research math to nonexperts, but this is a difficult thing to do, and most researchers aren't inclined to try. This is unfortunate, and it would be nice if there were more resources out there for laymen who want to get a sense of what math research is all about, but emailing professors out of the blue is not the way to go about this. A: Some professors are open to interested/enthusiastic students. However, they are busy people. If you want them to spend their time with you, you have to give them a starting point that gives them something specific to start from, not some generic "tell me what you do". Better to check out what you would be interested in (e.g. robotics, quantum physics, topology, or whatever), read up on that, and then find a friendly lecturer at a local college who covers that material. If there are none, then you could contact a prof, but be specific with your question, and do not waste their time. A: With a little bit of poking around the Internet, you can find videos of lectures given by prominent mathematicians freely available online. For example, here is a video of Manjul Bhargava giving his Fields Medal lecture, where he gave an explanation of his work to a general mathematical audience. As another example, the Arizona Winter School is an instructional conference for graduate students, and they have posted videos of all their lectures for a long time. Most of them are quite good. If you just want to get an idea of what leading researchers are working on, I think that watching videos might be more enlightening (and more entertaining) than trying to read papers. In general, please don't send unsolicited e-mails to professors -- especially if you are choosing the recipients because they (or their universities) are famous. If you develop a particular interest in, and some understanding of, a subject area in contemporary research, then it may become okay to send unsolicited e-mails in certain circumstances. Also, if you want to seek a research mentor from a local university, then e-mails might get a positive response, especially if this university is not famous, and/or if you have a math teacher who is willing to write first and say you are exceptionally talented. One famous mathematician told me that he gets a huge number of e-mails such as yours. He feels bad ignoring them, but he gets so many that if he tried to answer all of them it would leave him no time for research.

Q: Would summarizing peer-reviewed articles on a blog count as academic participation? I was a former college instructor (as an adjunct), but ultimately left academia due to low pay. I have no intention of going back to academia any time soon (for a variety of personal and non-personal reasons). However, I am still interested in academia, and would sometimes write about interesting peer-reviewed papers on my own personal blog. Would writing blog posts about current academic research be considered a form of participation within academia (without having to actually enter into the toxic and less-rewarding atmosphere of academia)? I understand that I am talking to a 'non-academic' audience (and that there is a difference between popular literature and academic literature), but I would also be helping promote academic literature while also providing critical commentary on it. For the sake of this question, let's define "academic participation" as "the ability to call myself an academic". A: In a comment, you clarify that by "count as academic participation", you mean "I could call myself an academic." No, you could not call yourself an academic just because you write a blog about academic research. Or, rather, you can call yourself whatever you want but most people interpret the phrase "I am an academic" as meaning "I'm a member of the teaching and/or research staff at a university." Using the phrase to mean anything substantially different from that would be very misleading.

Q: Will experience in related fields help me get into my "dream" graduate program as a non-traditional student with some failures in my past? If wanting to end up in a specific graduate program at one university, but having had failures along early paths, like college dropouts, mediocre to good GPA and GRE, having become an adult/unconventional student, how can one still end up in the specific program of dreams? Would it help to collect experiences in neighbouring fields if the direct, focused approach fails? When should one just give up the dream of getting into a specific program, or even the whole field of studies? Let's take scientific, non-engineering astronomy as example. If wanting to be admitted to a Master's and/or PhD program at a specific R1 level university, how would it be seen if having a thorough vocational industry education in optics manufacturing, an internship in electronics, astronomy as a hobby with serious nightly observing programs and submitted results, a half finished college degree in physics and a full degree in geology? Does a patchwork such as in this example have any advantage if having the bad luck of not having been able to succeed in first college attempts and thus being 10 to 15 years older than a typical college student? A: When I started my PhD (R1 school in engineering), I shared my office with an older gentleman who was 12 years older than me, had an average GPA, been a structural engineer for 10-15 years or so, married with kids and extensive industry experience. He applied for 3 years in a row to the same university and only that university because he lived in that town and did not want to relocate (his kids were at school, his wife had a job too) and every time he would get rejected. At his fourth trail, he was accepted. He said that he was going to keep applying as much as needed! As far as I know, nothing has changed in his application from the third to the fourth year. The professor who agreed to support him has just got a project and needed somebody with technical experience (it was construction/material related). I would say that getting to know the right people does not hurt! Maybe visit the department, introduce yourself and have short meeting with some professors. I noticed that many professors hold much respect for established industry people who want to go back to school. Although some feel it maybe a little risky as well. But, you never know if you do not ask or try. I do not think it is impossible, but maybe you would need to do some extra work to convince/explain your story/timing for such a decision. I can also think of a scenario were if you work at a company that has an R&D department, maybe a collaboration between the company and school can open up a spot for you in a program. In this scenario, the company can provide the school with a proposal, pay fees and (raw) materials and the school can allocate the lab, equipment and an advisor to supervise you. You can work on such a project and get a degree at the end of the day. However, I'm not sure if this applicable to your case or if this something that happens often.

Q: Should I do someone else's peer-review work? My secondary advisor approached me; he is on the program committee of a conference and asked if I were willing to review a research paper that is in my avenue of research. The review is part of the peer-review process, to determine acceptance. I accepted, but it turns out it he is planning to submit the review himself, just asking me to write it for him. Should I protest? If they are my words, my name should be on the review. But I don't want to raise a ruckus if it materially doesn't matter anyway. Do I gain any benefit if it is me who submits the review instead of him? A: No, you gain no benefit if it is you who submits the review instead of him. If you conduct a review on his behalf, you gain the advantage of his mentorship and advice. It will be good experience for you, as you will get to work through a work in progress and understand more deeply how submitted papers are evaluated. If you are concerned about credit, ask him to mention to the editor that he asked you to do the review and these are your comments. Ideally, he should ask the editor for permission before sharing the submitted manuscript with you, as it was sent to him under a condition of confidentiality.

Q: Does taking an academic job in Asia or Africa make it difficult to get a job in the US or Europe later? Many in this community know of the struggle of finding a job in tertiary education after completing a PhD. However, there are many options available for people who are willing to work overseas in exotic locations in Asia, Africa, and the other developing areas of the world. I am wondering if working overseas would be detrimental to someone's career. Is it hard to get back into the States/Europe after spending a few years teaching and writing in the developing world? How do search committees view someone who has been away in order to find employment? Let's say the person asking has a PhD in education. A: It's not a career killer, but it can make things more difficult. If you are looking for research-oriented jobs, and are doing high-quality research, it should not make a difference (except in cases where your area is only popular in other countries). What the other answers fail to mention, is that it can be a significant disadvantage applying to smaller/more teaching-oriented schools (e.g., most liberal arts colleges) from overseas. Here are a few reasons: Flying you in for interviews is more expensive. Being able to teach well in the US system is important, and overseas applications tend to provide less evidence for this. Many schools want to find candidates who specifically want to be at that institution, or at least are not likely to leave. International applicants need to convince committees not just they want to move to the US, but would be happy at that specific school. At least in my field, we are over-saturated with good domestic candidates, so search committees can afford to throw out applications for small concerns, like ones I mentioned above. This is not to say it's impossible, it's just a somewhat harder. In my field, where postdocs are common, my general advice to people who want permanent jobs in the US is to try to do their last postdoc in the US (or at least apply to US postdocs as a backup when applying for tenure-track positions). A: If you go to top schools overseas, you should be fine. You can always explain your decision by saying that you needed to travel, help developing countries, explore opportunities. In my field, many Chinese schools have very high-tech requirements in their labs! My old school (not in China) has unlimited funding! So, research wise, it might be a good idea to travel for a year or two to establish a good working relationship with labs and schools. Many of the professors (engineering) I know will go to the Gulf region and work in Dubai/Kuwait for a sabbatical year or even as a visiting professor (1-3 years) because of the good pay (can get up to 140-160k), benefits (paid housing, car, air tickets, schooling etc), no taxes, less stress (no need to write proposals or get funding). As long as you keep your contacts in the US/Europe "happy", you should be fine. I know some professors will hold international conferences and put their colleagues on committees! I know some will hold 1-2 days seminars/workshops and invite their previous department chair as a keynote speaker or lecturer for crash-courses (they make easy money out of this).