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Honestly how do people do literature reviews I’m getting started with my first research project and I find the how literature search and review such a pain staking process. I totally understand the necessity but I seriously can’t bring myself to actually read the papers let alone criticize it or boil it down to it’s main points. Really struggling with this and being systematic about it

The literature review shows that a) you know what you're talking about and b) there's a need for your work. The most credible work is grounded in existing best practices but moves beyond that into some new direction. You don't have to drown in the foundations; spend the bulk of your time considering the pushback to your new approach. Why is your work different? Why is it necessary? What does this add to what is already known?

How to do a literature review if there is no literature published on the area? I am a geology student and I am trying to do a literature review. The problem is that the study area is very small and there is no literature published on it. My master's guide is the first person to work on this previously unexplored area. His earlier masters' students have worked in this area but I think I can't use their thesis as a reference in my paper. Can someone please help me out here? If someone has published a paper on a novel work can you link it here? It might help me. Thank you in advance!

Your literature review should explain the gap in existing research that your project will fill. Is there literature in surrounding areas that you can discuss? You need to set the scene for the reader and explain why they should care about your project. For example, if you're doing a project on a new basket-weaving technique that saves hundreds of hours, your literature review should discuss basket weaving in general, then narrow down to various existing techniques. You can then explain that no one has researched your specific technique yet and then introduce your project.

How did academics do literature review before the internet? My first thought was libraries, but that still sounds crazy

There's a great book by Umberto Eco about how to be successful in graduate school—he wrote it for his own graduate students because he was tired of giving them the same talk every time a new cohort started. He describes going to the library, going through the catalog, and writing down the bibliographical reference for the texts he wanted on individual note cards. Then he'd go find all the texts, take his notes on the note cards, and keep them in an ever-increasing collection in his office. So—yeah, as everyone else said. Libraries. And note-card collections.

Desi PhD Female Query Hello, ladies/academicians of Reddit. I am a 27F, starting my Ph.D. in the USA in fall 2022. As a brown girl with, single/complicated long-distance relationship, I have a few questions about life at large as a Ph.D. student. 1 - when is the right time to get married ?? and if the guy stays in my home country or Canada what are the chances of him working in the USA? 2 - when is the right time to plan a family in the course of those 5 years? 3 - IF NOT THE GUY I AM DATING RIGHT NOW, how on earth do Ph.D. students find potential matches? The last few days have been pretty stressful living in a brown/desi family and I am really wanting some answers now.....Please be kind enough to share some of your personal experiences if you don't mind.. Thanks, A STRESSED BROWN/DESI PhD Girl.

For 1, you should consult an immigration attorney or at least your school's international student office. For 2, it depends on personality and finances. Some recommend doing it while ABD, others as an assistant professor (if you are so lucky). For 3, try online dating, grad student social events, and at work (same as other people). Good luck!

How to read academic papers while exercising I wanted to know if anyone else has figured it out. I spend so much time sitting at a desk, I'm beginning to develop lower back pain. Even without the back pain, I'm so tired of staying at my desk. I would like to exercise more, such as going on walks, or doing some jogging outdoors or on a treadmill. It would be great if there was some type of read aloud feature for academic articles, or even some app that can make it much simpler to read articles without the awkward zooming in and out that comes along with reading typical two column/page format. I've tried importing the pdfs into an e-reader but that didn't work well since the e-reader was made for books. Let me know if you have any ideas or if there is anything that has worked for you.

I've used the accessibility features of my iPhone to do this exact thing. As long as you have a readable PDF of the article on your phone, it can be read to you. Citations get really repetitive, and I usually need to reread some parts of the paper later, but it's a great start.

I really am making very boring Research slides To all the folks out there, could you please give me tips to make a presentation visually appealing? I have this habit of making very standard slides (say text on the left hand side in points and one image on the right) with hardly any variation throughout the PPT. If I'm trying to present a summary of the research paper is there some way to make it not look boring? I don't have many creativity ideas. I keep the headings same as the ones in research papers. I've seen in conferences some very eye catching presentations and they do not follow any fixed format, there may be a flow chart on one slide, a heirarchy table on other and things like that. Is there some course or resource for learning how to do this? P.S.: I'm in life sciences field

Ugh, please do not use PowerPoint animations or design templates. To make a presentation interesting, use mixed media (images, diagrams, text, cartoons). Don't put walls of text or equations on slides; keep them sparse so the audience isn't trying to listen to you and interpret a dense slide at the same time. Most importantly, make your talk interesting by focusing on the big picture, speaking conversationally, connecting with individual audience members with eye contact, varying your tone, introducing light humor, and using appropriate gestures. Let your passion and humor come out.

How do you deal with the 'paper not cool enough' rejections? I'm finishing my first year as postdoc and I've been trying for almost 2 years to get my second paper (about cancer signaling) from the phd accepted somewhere. I am extremely frustrated. It is a follow up from a previous shared paper that published really well, probably because we used a lot of novel crispr methods right in time of the crispr hype. The follow up paper however is not 'breakthrough enough', 'doesn't get a high enough priority score' or 'isn't relevant enough' for the editors to even do a revision, although the various reviewer's comments we got are doable and the editors said the data is convincing. How do you deal with this? How do you make your research ''cool'' if there's no hype for the topic? Is it really possible to convince the editors about how interesting the data is just by wording things differently? TL;DR: basically my paper keeps getting rejected without chance for revision because the topic is not hot enough at the moment. Is there something I could do?

My personal approach to rejection is similar to how the NTSB investigates plane crashes: every failure is the result of pilot error, and their job is to figure out how it could have been avoided so that future pilots can avoid the problem. If I said something three times and the reviewers still didn't get it, next time I say it four times. If they said that my paper wasn't enough of a breakthrough, then next time I make sure to explain exactly why it is a breakthrough in the abstract, introduction, body, and conclusion. Rejections are inevitable, and perseverance is key.

Attending conferences under one's preferred (not legal) name? So, I'm currently in the process of applying to attend a workshop at a conference. This in itself isn't a problem - the issue is that this will my first time applying to anything after coming out as transgender. I am out at my institute and all the people in my doctoral college are familiar with my correct name/pronouns, and I would feel very uncomfortable crawling back into the closet to attend a conference, but I have not been able to change all my documents (including my passport, my records at past institutions, and my official records at my current institution). I'm not exactly keen on outing myself in my application (although, anyone who meets me can clock me at this point, as I am early in my transition), and I don't want to seem somehow, I don't know, attention-seeking by noting it on my cover page or something, but I don't know what else I can do without there being inconsistencies should anyone try to look me up or something (also, seeing that the conference is in a country in which I do not live, I am somewhat nervous about attending a professional engagement under a name that doesn't match my passport. So...has anyone else been in this situation? How would you approach this? I really have no idea if there's some sort of standard practice for this sort of thing, and I don't know anyone who will have any more insight than I do on the matter. Thanks in advance!

It sounds like you are worried about the conference part and not necessarily the travel part. When submitting to a conference, they usually only ask for basic information. There's usually no identity verification. The name you submit will be used for your conference badge. This might vary by field, but I've been to dozens of conferences and have never had to show my passport or license at the conference registration desk. Even if they wanted some sort of ID verification, you could use your work ID, which I'm guessing is updated.

How do PIs choose PhD students? Just curious as to how PIs pick their students? Assuming that all applicants have good academic background and the lab's has more than sufficient funds, what is it that determines one student gets selected over the other? What qualities or red flags do PIs look out for when deciding to accept or reject students? How do PIs tell if one student has potential or not (assuming both cases of having worked together before and having never worked together before)? Also, would a PI rather keep a bright student that is not neccesarily the most hardworking, or a hardworking student that isn't as bright? Just out of curiosity!

Were they first in line to make it clear that they want to join the lab? Are they interested in a project that needs more hands or one that already has enough people on it? Do they ask the right kinds of questions? Do they come across as being coachable? Are they enthusiastic about the prospect of the work? Are they likable? Does it seem like they'll be a good lab citizen and contribute favorably to the lab culture? If they did rotations in other labs, what did the other PIs think of them? If they rotated through the lab, or even just hung out with the current lab members, what do the current lab members think of them? Also, would a PI rather keep a bright student who is not necessarily the most hardworking, or a hardworking student who isn't as bright? They'd rather keep the one that produces significant, publishable results in a timely manner with as little hand-holding as possible.

Why are students warned not to study Carl Jung [psychology] Allegedly of course.

Can you clarify what you mean by "warned not to study Carl Jung"? If you are using Jung as if it is contemporary, evidence-based theory, then you're just misinformed about the state of the science at this time. But Jung is certainly a legitimate thing to study from a historical perspective.

What is academia like in Germany ? I have been reading a lot of posts about how bad the academia is in many countries like Publish or Perish or pressure to constantly publish in big journals but then i read some good things about academia in Germany and that is chilled than academia in most countries so i wanted to know is this really the case and how is it different than academia in countries like USA or UK like is Publish or Perish a thing in Germany also . I am interested in Math , Physics and computer science so it will be nice if you can tell some specific things about academia in those fields .

Publish or perish is definitely a thing in Germany, especially at the bigger research institutes. At Helmholtz Institutes in particular, the policy is called "leistungs-orientierte Mittelvergabe" — performance-oriented funding. This means there's one big pot of money for the whole institute, and funds are distributed based on the number of publications in prior years. More publications = more money. Lots of groups at these big institutes also get external funding, but the majority of funding for most groups comes from these "competition-based" mechanisms.

If academia can be ideal, what would that look like? Academia has many flaws, from salaries to the promotion system, publish and perish, and others. If you had a magic wand to change things to the best, how would you do it?

I suppose this goes a bit beyond just academia, but I would change the normalization of working long hours. In the UK at least, it seems like a badge of honor if you're the person working the longest hours. I remember in my first year, I felt really guilty leaving the office before anyone else. I changed when I received an email asking for people to do a teaching course. It was unpaid, had little value in terms of employability, and involved maybe 10-15 hours a week. I queried how they expect us to fit the time in and whether we'd be eligible for a slight deadline extension to our PhDs, and the response was essentially, 'We expect you to work long hours; this is the norm, so get used to it.' From then on, I worked 30-35 hours a week and changed the scope of my thesis rather than increasing my hours. I still passed, still did a load of extra stuff that landed me a job in industry, and allowed me to enjoy the process. Meanwhile, many of my co-students worked 50% more than me, and some went on to ask for formal extensions due to stress. I just hate that people expect you to give your life up for it. For me, it was always a means to an end. That said, people are just as bad in my current company!

Unpaid research assistant... should I or shouldn't I? Hi. Asking on behalf of my SO who doesn't have a reddit account. My SO graduated with a B.A. in neuroscience, and will be wrapping up her masters in a psychology/education hybrid degree, both from well-known schools. She hopes to take a year doing further research before applying for a Ph.D. She is still deciding between whether to apply for Neuroscience or Education as her Ph.D. She has a part-time offer from a lab, to begin next semester, that will introduce her to a new field in neuroscience. Yet as most of the new work takes place on the weekends she has been searching for a second lab to fill in the time. A prominent researcher at one of the city's top psychiatric institutes has offered her a voluntary ad-hoc position that would give her the chance to explore yet another field of neuroscience. The person hinted the possibility of evolving to a full paid position at the completion of the initial assignment (which would take a semester, I'm guessing). Without getting into the specifics, the field is a niche area, and paid openings in the field is supposedly hard to come by without prior experience. My worry is that this is essentially an unpaid research position, a glorified forced labor to be more blunt, and I think that there could come additional opportunities, preferably paid, for someone with a Master's like my SO. That being said, I also do want to maximize her chances of getting into a well-respected Ph.D., and if this unpaid position is the best option, we are willing to take it. What are your thoughts? Should my SO take this unpaid research assistant position? Or should she keep looking for more positions?

I agree that unpaid positions are discriminatory for those who need income support. Unfortunately, for highly technical fields, those who come in to train as interns are, for the most part, a drain on the resources of the group—it takes a great deal of time and resources to train them. Even when I take on unpaid volunteers, it actually negatively impacts my lab, at least for six months, usually for the whole volunteer period. I do try to support people after an initial period of a month or two, but this isn't because their labor is valuable; it is because it is the right thing to do. So, if the opportunity is great and you and your wife are not desperate for support, then I think she should do it.

What big debates are going on in academia right now? Often for a bunch of different subject’s histories hear about big debates defining for the field. In physics the Einstein Bohr debates. In mathematics the foundational crisis. I guess you could look at the continental analytical divide in philosophy. What debates like these are happening right now in academia?

Social psychology has been going through the “replication crisis” for at least 10 years now. So much social psychological data is based on college students, and foundational theories, especially, are primarily based on college men (e.g., the Stanford Prison Experiment, Asch’s Conformity Experiment, Milgram). Replication of these foundational studies has been in question with new data on community-based samples, and tend to go off the rails suddenly when you include women. Additionally, funders (e.g., NIH/NSF) are notoriously disinterested in pure theory-building—they want applications that are functional in improving systems. When you have research driven by money, which is pretty much all we have, then researchers start doing application work when a theory is not yet fully formed, or is formed on homogeneous data. Then, when someone else tries to do it in a different population, the theory and application fail. Add to this that there has been a rash of retracted papers (Diederik Stapel is a prime example) in the field, and you’ve got an entire subfield of psychology, and one that has been a leader in theory-building, under fire. Academics blame publication quota standards in tenure applications for this, mostly, but there are plenty of tenured researchers pulling the same crap. While I think that publication pressure is real and valid, and spurs quantity over quality, I think that funding is the bigger issue. Until we can convince the funders that theory is important again, the replication crisis will continue, because the only “free” participants are college student pools. Additionally, interpersonal social psychology especially has been struggling because our minimum number of participants per trial are matched pairs (dyadic), which is, again, notoriously difficult to fund, and even more difficult to schedule and run, especially with community-based samples. Getting one person to show up is hard. Getting two people to show up at the same time is even harder. As a result, a lot of interpersonal social psychologists (including myself) have fled to other fields like Health Psychology, Social-Cognitive, and Public Health. Even more have run to Marketing or Econ. Research is almost fully online through cross-sectional survey research now, because it’s at least relatively affordable, but causes problems in determining causation. Longitudinal designs are more and more desirable, but, again, money and participant mortality are huge issues. Granted, I’ve been soft money funded for the last three years and will only be experiencing tenure pressure for the first time in a couple of months, but I’ve had it drilled pretty hard into me that there’s no excuse for bad research.

Should I put an anarchist/anticapitalist organization on my resumé when applying for research internships? I've been part of Food Not Bombs at various locations since last June. It's become a large part of my life, and I feel that it's contributed significantly to my personal and political growth. And I'm proud of what we do. But of course the politics of FNB run counter to the norm, and other volunteers have gotten into clashes with the authorities in the past. On the one hand, that connotation might scare recruiters off. On the other, though, I feel that omitting it would provide an incomplete summary of myself, my life, and my accomplishments. For what it's worth, I'm in linguistics/computational linguistics.

It depends on the jobs you're applying for and how much else you have on your resume. Don't forget that you can have two versions of your resume, one with and one without [mention of certain experiences], and send the appropriate one to each job. For example, if you're applying to work for the federal government, maybe don't include your experience with an anarchist group. But if you're applying to work for a charity, do.

IEEE conference doubled fees in 8 years!?!? What can be done about it? As the title says, the conference I most like to attend went from 440 € in 2013, 650 € in 2016 to 830 € in 2022! Like.... wtf??? (all comparing early bird registration for members). How do they justify that? I know that the answer is "ask them" but... The association, such a giant one like IEEE, doesn't really have anyone I can ask to, or a public front or whatever. So... how does one protest? On top of sending like one third of the people you'd generally send. But how do I let someone "high up" that we're fed up? Who decided anyway? I mean... it's a non profit scientific , I expect them not to be price gouging...

Conference fees are decided by the general chair and organizing committee, not the IEEE. You should be able to email them or discuss this at the conference. Be polite—the general chair is a difficult, often thankless volunteer position. General chairs also don’t like raising fees; they do it to cover costs. In addition to inflation, there are now higher expectations for AV (video, livestream) that are expensive. Conferences tend to barely break even, even after tens of thousands of dollars in donations from industry. Source: I have served on many OCs, including a flagship IEEE conference.

As a first time instructor, should I allow a student to write their exam early? A student contacted me today and said they are in a wedding on the same day as the exam (a Wednesday.... 3-5pm...). This exam has been booked tentatively since the first day of class and is listed on the syllabus. 1- I think its fishy that its a wednesday 2- it'll require either the TA or myself to sit aside two and a half hours for one student on a day which is usually busy (coordinating a final with 200 students) - the TA also doesn't have extra hours in contract 3- I feel like the student should have known it was a conflict because it was stated upfront Should I grant it? I don't want to be a troll of an instructor but my gut says to say no.

No. And you don't need to explain yourself to the student. The student is enrolled in your class, and that class has requirements. The student can choose to complete those requirements or not, but it is not your job to make special allowances for situations like this. In addition, this exam has been on the syllabus from day one. It also sounds like the student has only raised this issue at the last moment, whereas this is not a last-minute conflict. Is it okay for the student to ask? I think it takes a bit of gall in this circumstance, but there's nothing to stop a student from asking. All you need to do is say, "No," and the matter should stop there. Do not get into a protracted discussion where the student tries to negotiate some arrangement. Finally, something to think about: having one student take an exam early is much riskier for the integrity of an exam than having one student take the exam late. One student taking the exam early can leak information to any number of students; one student taking an exam late means at most one student has illicit information.

Doing a PhD even knowing that research is not my passion? I finished my master half a year ago, and I've been working as a research assistant in the same lab where I completed my thesis since then. However, I feel like it's time to move on, and I'm thinking a lot whether I should pursue a PhD or try my luck in the industry market. During this last months I've come to realize I feel really comfortable in my current position: I like the research topic, my colleagues very nice and supportive, and my supervisor is an extremely good guy... Right now, I'm pretty motivated to start a PhD, but I'm ware I lack something that seems to be mentioned as a requisite everywhere: I am not passionate about science. I like doing research. I like being challenged and struggle to find solutions for problems that I consider interesting. And while I am excited about the idea of continually learning stuff during the next 4 (or more) years, I can't see myself getting passionate about what, in my opinion, is just a job. I'm not scared of the low salary (being quite a frugal person), and even the perspective of staying in academia does not appeal a lot to me. But on the other hand, I feel like a PhD would be an amazing opportunity to keep educating myself (both in an academic and personal level). If I have to phrase it as a direct question, I guess I would like to know if embarking on a PhD with this mindset is a recipe for disaster or an actual sensible idea. Once I start feeling the pressure that usually comes associated with a PhD, will the lack of passion towards my research topic ruin any chances I have to pursue it? Is there anyone here with a similar mindset that could put his/her two cents about his/her experience? TL;DR: Is "being passionate about research" a major prerequisite for pursuing a PhD, or more like an overstatement implying that you need to do it for reasons other than salary or status?

Don't. A PhD is a massive investment of time and mental health resources, which is not worth it if you don't have a passion for research. You are far better off financially and mentally if you go into industry. Source: I am a PhD supervisor, and I regularly give this warning to prospective students.

My Professor Just Asked Me If I Want To Work As A PhD I'm working on my masters project in neuroscience. Currently my work is centered around human IPS cultures and Micro Electrode Arrays, and it's a field of study that I find really interesting. Having completed my first half of the thesis project, my professor just asked me if I wanted to continue working as a PhD after I finished my masters, but in a slightly unrelated field- attention switching in hover flies. I don't know what is the best option, should I take the PhD offer and hope to get into something I find more interesting later on, or should I turn down his offer and hope that I can find a PhD that is perfect for me? I don't really see my future being in insect neurology. Albeit an interesting field of research, I want to work with something that can help people in a more direct sense.

Just wanted to clarify, did your professor ask you if you're interested in working as a PhD after the master's (i.e., asking about your career goals)? Or was it explicit that they offered a PhD position with them?

I'm so nervous about my PhD interview today It's quite formal (I'm giving a presentation and I've been told to wear interview attire), so I'm pretty much bricking it right now. This is my future hanging in the balance. Several people (including a lecturer my girlfriend knows) have said it's mainly a formality. But I can't help but feel that I might screw this up and not get in. Send me words of encouragement and your own stories of PhD interviews.

This isn't your future hanging in the balance, it's just one interview. If you don't get it this time, there are plenty more to apply for. I hope it goes well; or, assuming you've already had it, how did it go?

Is it okay to ask professors for multiple references? I'm starting to apply for PhD programs. Naturally, all of them require references, and most of them have a link or email address a reference should be sent to, directly by the reference. Is it okay to ask a professor for multiple references? Or should I split it up evenly among my past profs? I want to ask it from some of the more active/published faculty but I don't want to annoy them either.

Absolutely yes. In fact, as a professor, I expect this. If I have recently written a reference letter for a student, sending it off to five different places is barely any extra work for me. If you instead ask different professors to write each letter for you, you are (a) likely getting worse letters due to not choosing the professors that know you best, and (b) making more work for everyone, since now everyone is writing letters for you rather than just a few people.

Is it still worth trying to become a professor? I'm an undergraduate student in the U.S. double majoring in European Languages and History, and I'm on track to graduate in the spring of 2021. For years, my plan has been to work towards an eventual professorship. To that end, I spoke with one of my advisers about the viability of my career goals, and his answer was disheartening to say the least. To him, seeking a professorship is no longer a realistic career option for hardly anyone. He cited decreased funding and enrollment as major factors and sees a downward trend in available jobs. While he recommended law school, archive studies, or library science as possible alternatives, none of them have quite the same appeal to me. I was wondering what the general consensus of academics is on the state of graduate studies and professorships? My plan was to work towards a masters in theology with an eventual PhD in either theology or Church history, but my adviser believes that at this point a masters/PhD is only worth pursuing as a factor of another job (such as a masters in history along with archive sciences) or as a means of self-fulfillment. I think I will likely still pursue at least my masters, but find it hard to plan for if it isn't career-oriented. I know this is a general question, but any thoughts on the practicality of graduate school and the nature of the university job market would be greatly appreciated.

I hate to be the bearer of more bad news, but my understanding is that the alternatives he suggested are all near dead ends as well, and you have to actually pay for those degrees. Do your research.

Is the road to becoming a college professor worth it? I'm a college undergrad and I LOVE religious studies. Even on my downtime I do lots of research in the area and I could talk religion for HOURS. It's the only subject I really enjoy and rarely get tired of. I also love to teach and discuss this topic with other people. So I'm thinking about majoring in religious studies and working towards becoming a professor. 1. Is the road to becoming a professor worth the time & money if you really love the subject? 2. How difficult is it to find work in this discipline? 3. Is there any benefit to teaching overseas rather than the US?

Watch out for "survivorship bias." This is where you only look at the experience of people who "succeeded." Any existing, successful person in any field is going to tell you it was worth it and tell you that the things they did led to their success. More and more research is showing that they are wrong. Thousands of people will have done the exact same thing but failed. So, luck is really the primary factor in success, yes, even over hard work. That said, you can't make use of any luck if you aren't properly positioned to do so. So, do your PhD. Work hard. Make sure to become as much a part of the learning community as possible. Help anyone who needs it. Don't be afraid to ask for help. Then, after all that, accept that this cannot guarantee that you will become a professor. Perhaps you will write a great book instead. Perhaps you will figure out how to reduce the number of people who become radicalized within whatever belief system they hold. Perhaps you will become a well-loved minister in a small church who preaches understanding of all religions. As long as you continue to do good work, wherever you land you will feel lucky to be there.

What salary to ask for when applying for a job that will be a step-down on the pay-scale? (Going from faculty to journal editor.) I have been given an opportunity to apply for a position as an editor of a prestigious journal. This will require a temporary (and maybe eventually permanent) leave from my faculty position, but the job seems like an excellent fit and I have long been interested in editorial work of this type as a new career. Right off the bat, though, they want to know my salary demands. Though I am experienced as a scholar, I have no editorial experience so I would have to start at a lower-level job, which is fine with me. I have had a lot of informational interviews about being an editor, and people really go out of their way to inform me that it will mean quite a significant cut in pay. I looked up what the average editor makes at this journal and starting salaries seem to be $65K - $70K, with senior editors making $80K - $90K. As a scholar, I imagine I am more qualified than most candidates they see, and everyone will know I make about $100K annually. I, of course, want to make as much as possible and I don't want to low-ball myself or make it seem like I don't know the potential of what I could make with my background. However, I don't want to make too big of a demand. Any advice?

I would never give a desired salary before a potential employer gives out a range. I would simply say that your salary is negotiable. You don't want to risk asking for so much that they reject you or so little that you get locked in before you have a chance to interview and make them like you. Even if the job listing asks for a salary requirement, I wouldn't give it.

Our manuscript got rejected but they offered to transfer it to other journals? My supervisors and I submitted a manuscript to a journal. Our manuscript fit the scope but judging from their recently published papers it was clear that they favour another method and only every now and then publish papers with the method we used. We wanted to try anyway (they have a good impact factor) and got a rejection today with the offer to transfer the manuscript directly to a variety of other journals. What I am wondering now is: does it make any difference whether this journal directly transfers the manuscript or whether we take the manuscript and submit it to a journal by ourselves? Which of the two is the better option?

The main advantage of these trickle-through systems is that they save you having to jump through formatting hoops. So, the only reason to trickle down is if the paper is going to the next journal on your target list. If your next target journal isn't in their publishing house, or the next on the trickle-down list, then go elsewhere.

Have you ever been so excited about a research project? That nighttime comes and you cannot sleep because you are still thinking about it and then the next day you are super tired (lol)

Yes. Many, many times. If we’re similar in the slightest, proceed with caution, my friend. It feels great to get excited or obsessed with a project; I can get a lot done. I can also forget to have a “life” of my own, forget to take care of myself and my relationships. I’m 32 and still learning how to find balance without losing that excitement.

I'm conflicted about recommending -again- rejection for a paper about an extremely accurate experiment So, three months ago I was a reviewer for a paper about something in a sub-sub-niche where I think I'm one of the most qualified people around (because I think that like 10 people worldwide worked on this extremely specific subproblem). The paper involved super careful simulations to try to solve one of the longest running issues of this very specific sub-field. I recommended rejection because I thought that such simulations, while technically incredibly accurate, are not addressing the issue at hand. I've later found out that also the other reviewer agreed. The editor went for a reject with option to resubmit (in a high IF journal that has also the major revision option). Now the paper is back. They've expanded a lot the already long paper. They've tripled the amount of simulations, accounting for yet other factors. But I still think it's irrelevant because the question they're asking does not relate to the issue we're trying to solve, not because there's any issue with the practical implementation. So I'd want to recommend again a rejection... But I feel bad for this large team that did a huge and accurate work. Also, I wouldn't know what to write in the review. It would be like two lines "You did a great job, but it still doesn't address anything of the two pages I wrote last time". It's true... but I feel super bad in saying something this dismissive to someone that worked this much... So... what should I do? Out of curiosity, it's an issue for which 3 years ago we internally also produced lots of data and... decided not to even write anything because we couldn't find a method that would allow any reasonable way to validate results

Does this paper answer the research questions it poses? Can you reproduce these results from the description? Judge the paper for what it has, not for what you think it should have. If there are limitations that the authors admitted, it is okay, as long as the merits grant publication.

Self-Plagiarism if I am publishing my undergraduate dissertation - quick question I submitted my undergraduate dissertation and now, alongside help from my supervisor, I am condensing the dissertation and trying to get it published in a journal. However I am wondering whether I need to be mindful of self-plagiarism in this situation? I submitted the original dissertation on Turnitin so it is on their database. I am rewriting certain parts of the dissertation and condensing it, but there are chunks that I have not changed at all, is that ok? ​

You're revising your own work—everyone does that. My first book was a revision of my Ph.D. dissertation, so it was probably 80% identical to the prior work. The original wasn't "published" per se (though it was bound and on the library shelf) and needn't be cited. The only time you have to cite your own prior work is if it was actually published, say, as an article or book chapter.

Am I a terrible person? Plagiarism... Hi! I've always taken a lot of pride in my research, paper writing abilities and always been praised for it and today I'm questioning all of it. I feel like a sleazy, lazy cheater who likes to take shortcuts. I'm in third year of university and generally have gotten okay/good/great grades for the past three years of university and last 2 years of high school and written a lot of papers. I feel like I've been doing paper writing wrong? Recently, a professor said I had plagiarized because a few sentences here and there, and one paragraph was copy pasted word to word although these were all cited. I was super surprised because I always find synonyms for the general information boring stuff when I already have too many amazing quotes before I write my analysis and arguments. Other than that everything else I type myself, my thesis, perspectives, insights and everything else is all mine. He let me go, and let me write another assignment. Well, research now tells me that: 1. More than two to three words together that have not been paraphrased right are plagiarism still? I don't know why I was never conscious of this...one could argue I just never took it seriously or viewed it as wrong...and that realization makes me realize that I'm a shit person. 2. In my head plagiarism is handing in a paper or idea that is not mine...and when I have cited every word - in quotes or not, paraphrased or not, that doesn't feel like plagiarism but that doesn't make it any less wrong. I;ve always tried to be an honest person. And wow, am I such a cheater. How did I ever rationalize this to myself? I'm questioning every single essay I have ever written in my life...my whole research/communications career and I feel like I don't deserve anything. That I'm an imposter and that one day people will find out. I went to my current internship today feeling like I should quit because, oh well, I don't deserve this. Can you please help me make sense of all this? I'm feeling really overwhelmed, kind of shaking, and need to know what to do.

What you're describing is called patchwriting, and yes, it's considered plagiarism or academic dishonesty. It's also very common among undergraduates, and it doesn't make you a bad person. Your teacher probably recognized that you did it out of ignorance rather than bad intent, and that's why you got a chance to rewrite rather than getting an F. It's a good thing that you did the research and that you now have a better understanding of paraphrase and citation. As an English professor, I'd be pleased if you could demonstrate that in your next paper.

Resources for teaching a high school student how to use Python? Hello! I am a PhD student that is hosting a high school student for a year-long research experience. Since we are currently working remotely, I would like for my student to develop some basic python skills to prepare for a fall project related to machine learning. Does anyone recommend any online resources that would be engaging / academically age appropriate for a high school student? Most of the resources I have found are pretty dry, and I want her to have a good experience. She does have some introductory experience using Matlab.

I used “Automate the Boring Stuff with Python.” It’s superb—I can’t recommend it enough. It teaches you the basics of Python, then has you put that knowledge to use doing various procedural tasks, such as writing data to Excel spreadsheets or scraping the web. It’s free online under a Creative Commons license, and he also has a video course on Udemy (based on the first edition but still more than adequate). I had a blast completing it, and it allowed me to actually search for more advanced topics on YouTube, having gained the necessary background knowledge.

Women in academia: what is your quality of life like? Have you found a pseudo-balance in your life? How did you get there? Has it impacted your academic productivity? (If possible, please let me know what country you're from, if you have children and your position - e.g., full professor)

Second year teaching full-time at a 4-year college known for hands-on learning. Second week enrolled in my doctoral program. Second trimester of pregnancy. I hardly have enough energy to write a concluding sentence. I taught and graded today (I have 5 classes and 4 preps) from 9 a.m. until 3:30 p.m., followed by a long faculty meeting. Now, I get to spend my entire evening—literally, until my eyeballs close—reading material for my doctoral program.

Academia - should I stay or should I go? (Research assistant trying to figure out if they should do a PhD) Dear Academics, I'm a research assistant in Cognitive Neuroscience and I'm trying to decide whether I should get a PhD or start a career as a Data Analyst or Data Scientist outside of academia. I'm based in the UK and I've heard numerous scary stories of people with PhDs struggling to find a job as a lecturer. Also, I can see that other academics I work with are focused mainly on applying for grants and trying to publish as much as possible which seems extremely stressful. It looks like the things I enjoy the most (data collection/analysis) are done by research assistants or PhD students. I'm just afraid that I'm going to devote the next six years of my life (PhD + Post doc) in order to MAYBE get a job as a lecturer. I would very much appreciate if you could tell me if I'm being overly pessimistic here, or if my concerns are reasonable. Thank you so much for your attention!

Also in neuroscience! (Different subfield). I dealt with this exact question recently! I'm actually starting my PhD in the fall. For me, I felt it was important to know what I wanted out of a PhD. I feel like data science jobs were going to be available no matter when I got out of school. I wanted to do a PhD because (1) I want five years of getting paid to do science with ownership/independence, (2) I didn't study engineering/CS but I want legitimacy in the things that I've learned, and (3) I wanted to learn certain experimental skills. But those reasons may not resonate with you at all! That's totally fine. But I really suggest figuring out what you're looking for with that degree. I worry that too many brilliant people go get a PhD because "it's the next thing to do" or "my mentor thinks I should" and the process crushes them. Take this all with a grain of salt though. I'm just an optimist who's keeping her options open (who might have made the wrong choice! Who knows!) Feel free to DM me if you want to talk in more detail about my process! I'm happy to share any info I can to help!

Question about jobs and possibly leaving academia I'm currently finishing up a PhD in anthropology. If all things go well and my adviser remembers to show up to my defense (joking... maybe), I'm graduating this fall. I am currently in the midst of being hired for a short term lecturer gig at a private institution. The pay is laughable and the job offers no benefits, but its a job in my field and the pay is not as bad as other adjuncting positions I've seen. At the same time, I've been applying to non-academic jobs in the surrounding area because the academic job market is a dumpster fire. I'm interviewing for an editorial job at a research institute that is outside my research area. It is a full time, regular job. It pays a livable wage and includes benefits. My question: If I take the latter job (or one similar outside of academia), am I forfeiting any hope of a traditional academic career down the line?

Take the job. The job market is brutal for PhDs at the moment. If you get something that pays the rent and offers benefits, take it. If you want to stay "in the stream," you'll have to keep publishing and attending conferences on your own dime and time.

Which non-technical questions were you asked doing your PhD/postdoc interview I'm going to hire my first phd students soon and would like to know which kind of questions not related to the field you were asked. Thanks!

Some of the most offensive questions I got include: "Do you feel that your career commitment ever makes you a neglectful mother?" "Do you intend to take vacation time?" "Do you plan to have more children?" "Doesn't your husband care about his career?" Don't be one of those.

How far does being sociable/authentic/“normal” go in academia as far as being respected, getting quality positions, and being successful?

Having a good personality alone won't get you an interview, but it may get your CV taken out of the stack and looked at by the hiring committee. Having a good personality alone won't get you a callback after your screening interview, but it may help a lot. Having a good personality may be the deciding factor on whether you get an offer after your callback and how you're ranked compared to other finalists, assuming you didn't blow your job talk, get drunk during dinner, or something else like that. I've never seen someone get a position based on their good personality alone, but I have seen many cases of people not getting a position because of negative personality issues (they had a difficult time talking to female faculty members, they didn't make eye contact with anyone, they seemed bored, they were arrogant, etc.). More commonly, being well-liked by people on the faculty means that people get ranked more highly as finalists and thus are more likely to get an offer. People on faculties are often colleagues for decades, so everyone worries about hiring someone who's going to wind up being awful to work with.

How much leeway do professors get in choosing what they write? Are professors allowed to write on and publish whatever topics they choose? I understand this somewhat falls under what tenure is and why it exists, but I'm not really asking about controversial stuff. Let's say I'm a prof in a political science department at X school. Does the department care about the topics I'm writing on? Does anyone else at the school care? If a professor starts shifting from one discipline to another - say pure politics to political economy to largely just economics - what would happen? Does it matter as long as they are publishing? How does this change as a PhD candidate / assistant prof / tenured prof? Thanks!

As someone in a field where getting data is time-consuming and expensive, my understanding is that for most people in similar situations, it amounts to "you can write whatever you want as long as you can convince someone to fund it." This is probably very different in the humanities, of course.

What do you do when peer review takes FOREVER? I have a manuscript that has been submitted to an Elsevier journal and has been in review for 6 months. All of my other journal papers have gone through review in less than 2 months, so this sort of time frame is completely new to me. Would it be inappropriate for me to contact the editors and ask for an update and inquire as to why there is such a delay? Also, if you decide to review a paper and you take this long...screw you. I'm of the opinion that nobody should agree to review a paper unless they have the time/ambition to do so.

Likely this is an error. No editor would be offended by you asking for a status update. I've let reviews go (by mistake) and editors contacted me the next day. I've had reviews take two weeks longer than average and contacted the editor for resolution, which came swiftly. Six months is egregious, so I'd guess it got lost in the shuffle and maybe never even sent out.

Those of you who got TT jobs straight or shortly after doing your PhD, what do you think you did differently to beat the competition?

Luck, pure luck. And the willingness to move very far away. When I started my PhD, my topic wasn't that exciting; when I finished it, it was red hot. I was able to position my work strategically to be of interest to several different fields. The right job opened at the right time. I figure, at the end of the day, it's rare that someone is head and shoulders above everyone else. We're all pretty smart and dashing handsome. It just has to be the right job for the right person at the right time.

I have to read 7 peer-reviewed articles (typically 30-40 pages each), and write an abstract for each one, every week this semester; do you have any practical tips for reading and absorbing that much literature without drowning? This is all on top of a 15 credit course load as well. I’m a slow reader and it takes me a while to really grasp information that I read, but this semester I just can’t afford to take three days to get through one paper. Any advice would be super helpful!

I had to do that once, and it sucked, but it really taught me what I'm capable of and what rules I could get away with bending. I know they say that you should absorb all that information, and I'm sure in an ideal world it could happen, but realistically, you're going to have to cut out a lot of memorization and just get the abstract written. This is what I did. First, I bought the biggest binder I could find that had see-through pockets on the front. Sounds like you will need two of these. Then I went to the school's library and printed off every article I needed, including the weekly reading schedule. I stapled these and used a three-hole punch, putting them in the binder in order. I then put the weekly schedule in the see-through part of the binder. Next, I got a dedicated notebook and wrote my schedule for all of my classes, including assignment due dates. It went with me everywhere. I even wrote out a weekly schedule where I blocked out time slots for each class to get assignments done, and I stuck to it religiously. I highly recommend doing this. It will take you about a day, but the time is well worth the effort. When it was time to work on assignments, I would pull the article I needed. I had three highlighters: pink for things I knew I had to remember, green for pertinent information, and yellow for new ideas or general information I thought might be helpful for in-class discussion. I would use a pen to block out passages of text and highlight them accordingly. I never underlined; I found that blocking around the text allowed for readability. Sometimes I would annotate my thoughts in the margins, which aided me in in-class discussions. After I finished that, I would write my abstract, going back through the article using everything I had blocked out. It really helps you develop a knack for summarizing. I would save these and use them to study for tests. I ended up getting A's in both of these classes. I was tired and stressed; between work and school, I averaged about four hours of sleep a night. My GPA stood at 3.8, so it was definitely worth the sacrifice. Manage your time wisely and remember, you can sleep when you're all done with that nice degree hanging on your wall.

What did you do to celebrate obtaining your phd or masters degree?

Defended 9 a.m.-12 p.m. Lunch with the external examiner and my PI at the grad club. Stayed there for the rest of the afternoon, and my labmates filtered in, and we had some celebratory beers. BBQ at my PI's house with my labmates and other grad students from the department. In bed by 11 p.m., absolutely drained. Oh yeah, and I bought myself a KitchenAid stand mixer as a gift because I fucking earned it. Once I get a real person job, the Vitamix is next.

How difficult would be a PhD straight out of undergrad? Those who went to do PhD straight from undergrad, how difficult was it to get accustomed to PhD without a master's degree? How big of a jump would it be to go to PhD straight from undergrad? How difficult would a PhD be if I went straight out of undergrad compared to completing Master's and then going for PhD? (PhD in Economics to be exact but any insight from any discipline would be very helpful).

Are you in the US? Most PhD programs start with a year or two of coursework, which is a master's degree. That's why you can "master out" of many programs where you complete the courses but don't pass the comps/quals to move into doctoral candidacy. So basically, the master's is built in. Doing a separate master's degree often means it will take you longer to graduate (you will repeat coursework in your doc program) and cost you more (master's programs rarely give assistantships).

I think I made a mistake falling in love with chemistry I'm 26, and I've been studying chemistry on and off since high-school. My dream was always to be a lecturer... but as I get older the more I realize that academia isn't for me. It was attractive because I could spend my days plodding about a lab, creating new things that could potentially help the world. But I've spent *8 years* sitting at my desk studying and I'm starting to just want to go outside and enjoy my life! I'm still studying part time, and will be for another 3.5 years!! I started at UNSW part time and did really very well there, but they went to trimesters, so I picked up at left to Sydney University. Then COVID hit. I've met close to none of my professors and my third year plummeted. Also, UNSW requires one major to graduate, while USYD requires two, and it's taken me some time to find something else I love (apparently, it's Spanish... hola!). By the end of my degree (with honors) it will have taken me ELEVEN YEARS to get a BSc Adv. Science with a double major. I'm broke, and will be for the foreseeable future, and even then to get anywhere significant with chemistry requires a PhD. I'm afraid that I've wasted my life studying, and just desperately want to can the degree altogether for a full-time job in the industry (if anyone will hire me, I have ALL the chem qualifications but my second major is holding me back from that pretty piece of paper). I'm also jealous because some of my friends picked a trade (massage... lift building... agricultural science), studied for a year, and now they have a job and a nice paycheck. I'm getting anxious for it to be my turn. I think I made a mistake falling in love with chemistry.

I can't give you practical advice, but I can say this: I'm almost 30, and I haven't had the chance to even start undergraduate education at a college yet due to a string of family and housing issues over the past 10 years. My interest and what I've spent most of my free time on is Mesoamerican archaeology and history, something assuredly far more niche with less prospects for academic or private/commercial careers. I also have no real financial safety net and have no clue what I'm going to do or if pursuing it is worth it. My point being this: Regardless of what decision you come to for what you want to do, you are *always* going to be behind or seem late compared to somebody else, and compared to yet another person you will seem years and years ahead. It's really easy to wallow in despair about what chances you've missed out on or what could have been, but ultimately it's not productive for deciding what you should be actually doing. (Also, I'm not trying to be high and mighty about this; I'm guilty as hell for thinking it's too late and being upset about that instead of focusing on what my next steps should be.)

How to tell my professor I feel underpaid? Even though it isn't his fault? Hi All, So to preface this, I'm a physics undergraduate and a rising junior. I have been working closely with this professor since last summer and this summer I get to work with him full time on a research project. I'm very excited, and I don't wanna lose this opportunity, but I feel overall cheated out of decent pay because of a grant that I received from the department. In early January, we began discussing the prospect of me working with him. I was under the impression that I would probably only get to work 30 hours max at $12 an hour. The standard rate is $10, but since I had already worked with him for over a year and this wasn't my first research project I would be getting $2 extra an hour. This is the standard affair for him, and he has strict policies on how he pays students. I would have been fine with $12 an hour at 20-30 hours a week. Then, a month later, I'm told that I can work 40 hours a week if I can acquire a departmental grant. So, I apply for the grant with the help of the professor. We end up getting awarded the grant and we immediately sign the papers. The grant listed me getting paid in 3 installments. 2 for $1500 for May and June and one for $1000 for the month of July. I was under the impression that this was in addition to what I would be paid by my professor, so I was very pleased. However, I just learned about a week ago that I won't be getting paid by my professor at all, I will only be getting the 3 installments from the grant. The grant is also requiring me to work 40 hours each week for the month of May, June, and July, meaning that in May and June I will be making 9.375$ an hour and in July I'll be making a mere 6.25$ an hour. I could just have easily made this much working 30 hours a week on $12 an hour. To further add to my dismay, the department has also come through again and funded some other students of his for 40 hours a week for at least $10 an hour since that is the base pay. Mathematically speaking then, they will be making just as much as me for the month of May and June, and more than me substantially in July. So essentially, me getting the grant was completely pointless, or at least it feels like it. I hate to be picky about money like this, but I have bills to pay and its taken a lot for me to put myself through school alone. I want to do this research job, but I'm not in the financial position to just leave money lying on the table like this. To be clear, I don't believe my professor intended for this to happen, me and him have always been very close. But I can't help but feel cheated in this scenario. What should I do? Should I bring this up or leave it be? What even are my options at this point?

Professor, Absolutely tell your professor. Send an email and explain as you did here. Be neutral and courteous. For what it's worth, you don't need to add that you hate to be picky about money or that you have bills to pay. You have a right to be paid fairly. I recommend making your request clear: "Is it possible to be paid $12/hr for 40 hours per week? If not, is it an option to decline the grant and go back to working for you for $12/hr for 30 hours per week? I am grateful to have been able to work with you and to continue to do so. Thank you!"

University provided regalia or buy my own? I'm a DMA (doctor of musical arts) candidate expecting to graduate in May of 2023. In a nice gesture, my university provides doctoral regalia to all students graduating at that level. However... I think the university provided regalia is cheaply made and doesn't look nearly as nice as the regalia worn by our professors at commencement. I'm looking to go into a career in academia, and would like to invest in a nicer set of robes for myself. Would this be gauche, or am I within my rights to do so, as long as they adhere to the design laid out by the university?

Have you secured your position in academia? If so, do you know how often you'll be asked to use your regalia? I only wear regalia once a year, at most, at commencement, and we aren't required to attend. Some places have convocations and other events where it is expected, though. You are free to buy regalia; it is just a pricey investment (close to $1000 for me), and wouldn't make sense from a return on investment perspective. I just use the cheap version that my university provides each year when I do attend commencement.

9 years' experience teaching at the community college level, only have a master's degree. Should I bother applying for lecturer/instructor positions at four-year schools? I've been seeing job postings that say something like "PhD preferred, ABD will be considered". Is it worth it to submit an application due to my college teaching experience, or will I be immediately disqualified? For reference, my teaching experience had been in anatomy/physiology and microbiology.

"PhD preferred, ABD will be considered." If the job ad says this, then you will not be considered. This is meant for someone who is toward the end of their doctorate and would be expected to complete their doctorate within the first year of employment (typically). A common example is someone who defends their dissertation over the summer before starting a job in August, but the university does not officially grant the degree until the December graduation. Of course, there is nothing wrong with shooting off an email to the search committee chair and asking if they are willing to consider someone with a master's degree. It would not be uncommon at all to see a person with a terminal master's degree teaching A&P at a four-year school, so keep looking.

Witnessing unequal grading by professor as a TA I am TA for a new course at my institution and am responsible for tutorials, office hours and grading. There are 3 TA for the class and we have all noticed that grades in our Google spreadsheet for marking have been changed by the professor. The average of the class is 85-90% but specific students harass us over their grades and the professor gives in and gives them 100% on labs and midterms. We mark according to the professor's marking notes but when students argue the professor makes exception for some students and incorrect/missing information in answers gets marks anyway. For example the marking key says that they need to write the scientific law used in their answer but they leave it out. Other student loses marks but student that complains gets full marks. Sometimes the teacher says to mark based on what we feel about the answer and doesn't give marking key. One TA talked to the professor about this but the professor told him that it wasn't important and they were only grades. We think this is not fair to student who accepts grade and doesn't ask for change. Some students go from 80% to 100% from complaining and have straight 100%s. Is this against school rule and ethics? If so, who would we talk to about it as a TA?

I get that this is frustrating to watch, and it's not how many of us would handle student complaints, but responsibility and authority over grades ultimately lies with the professor. If you've talked to the professor and they don't care, there isn't really anything you can do. (Well, unless you're in the UK or another country with an "external examiner" for every course. IIRC, they usually focus on exams, but at some universities they review all aspects of the course. However, tattling to them would be a fairly extreme step and likely torch your relationship with this professor.)

What are some very impressive things (style/structure) etc that you've seen in a scientific presentation? Animations and graphics are really cool in humanities and scientific presentations are often termed dull. How do we bypass them?

I think the most impressive thing I've seen was in a PhD defense where someone was outlining the number of possibilities in an experimental parametric study (7 parameters, over a million different combinations). He organized all that in what looked like a tree with different branches (one for each parameter) and would gradually shrink it by making assumptions and simplifications. Ultimately, he ended up with a smaller tree with fewer combinations (over 1,000) which outlined the number of experiments he did in 3 years of research.

Just got asked to write my first Letter of Rec I am a graduate student who teaches undergrads in my department. This is my first semester teaching as the primary instructor and I have just my first request to write a LOR for a scholarship. The student in question was a good student and I have no problem writing one for him... except I have never done it and don't know what to include. Almost all of the LOR I have had written for myself I have never seen, as they were submitted directly to the school or scholarship committee. Any advice is appreciated.

I have been told that many organizations don't accept letters of recommendation from graduate students, or at least don't give them nearly as much weight as letters from faculty. You should check with the organization that awards the scholarship to see if they have a problem with it.

Did I get rejected or semi-accepted..? I just received reviews back for my first paper (first author). I expected to either feel happy or sad after receiving reviews, but never anticipated confusion to be my primary emotion... I'm feeling pretty stupid about this, but I'm unsure whether we were rejected or not. The editor basically said that they "cannot accept the manuscript for publication" but would consider a revised version if it addresses the reviewer's "serious concerns". Is that a soft rejection? Or is this considered "accept with major revisions". Or is this in between the two..? For some reason I thought the options were to be accepted, accepted with minor revisions, accepted with major revisions, or rejected. Since those are the things you hear other people talking about. Do I fit into any of these categories or is this like not good enough for the "major revisions" category?

It's a "revise and resubmit." It will go back out to reviewers after you revise it, and it might be accepted, or it might be rejected. They are telling you that they are willing to look at it again if you make substantial changes.

Is it unethical and/or frowned upon to present the same content at multiple conferences? I've heard some people say that it is great to disseminate as much as possible, but others say that it is bad form to present the same content at multiple conferences. Thoughts?

It's a tricky one to judge. I've repeated plenty of papers before, but only when I was confident of addressing a different audience. I'd also frame the content of the paper slightly differently each time to fit with the conference theme. If the conference has multiple parallel strands, then you can repeat papers in the knowledge that people who have already seen it can attend another session instead. You don't want to repeat stuff too much, though—give it a few airings (including at least one major conference), tweak it after each performance to improve it or just freshen things up, and then find another home for it (article, chapter, blog, YouTube, etc.) in order to squeeze out the full value of your research.

My first time writing a paper. Would someone be willing to review it? The paper is phenotypic prediction of drug response on cancer cell lines using convolutional neural networks. My mentor will not review it because the work is not in the scope of the lab and he doesn’t have the knowledge of the field. Please PM/comment if interested.

If I were you, I would not send my unpublished manuscript to people on the internet. There must be somebody at your university, as a faculty member, who can review it for you.

Research Papers accepted but not published Hi everyone. I'm applying for Masters in Computer Science in US Universities for Fall 2022. One of the key elements of my profile is the amount of research experience I have. However, none of my 3 papers have been published and this is making me super anxious as my deadlines are right around the corner. Paper 1: Accepted in conference, presented at conference, publication in 2022 Paper 2: Accepted in conference, presentation in 10 days, publication in 2022 Paper 3: Accepted in a journal, publication in 2022 I had a few questions: 1. Do papers that have been accepted but not published carry the same weight as papers that have been published? 2. How would I go about writing about accepted but unpublished papers in my CV/Resume? 3. Should I include a manuscript or something because my papers have not been published? Thank you :)

"In press" is the accepted term for accepted but not yet published. You absolutely include it in your CV with "in press" rather than the date. Some fields might use other terms like "forthcoming," but I've never seen that used in my field.

"Abstract accepted for research topic issue". Is Frontiers trying to scam me? I got an email yesterday from a Frontiers journal. saying that the abstract *I submitted* for a “research topic” issue that they’re having was accepted by the issue editor. And that I have until september 30th to submit the paper. **That will be subject to all the ordinary author processing charges!!!** I absolutely do not remember ever submitting an abstract to them. The very weird thing is that the title they claim I’ve sent them is the exact title of a project for which I’ve won a grant. However, it hasn’t started yet because we have issues with the drug regulatory agency. Therefore, as it hasn’t started, it shouldn’t be known or even public! I don’t especially like Frontiers but it’s still a legitimate editor, not a predatory one. They shouldn’t be grabbing keywords from the internet to scam you into submitting something... I’ve triple checked my email archives and I found no instances of corresponding with any of the issue editors or frontiers in general ever. What’s going on? Is this legit so should I write them to clarify? Is this a scam so I should just delete the email and ignore, to avoid acknowledging them? BTW, they clarify that the paper will be treated as a submission and therefore reviewed and it could be rejected. So it’s not an invited perspective or a review….

Scam. Ignore. You've already wasted more time on this than you should. These places scrape grant and conference submissions for titles, then speculatively invite you to pay to publish—the definition of predatory publishing. I had one a couple of months ago where they were asking me to edit a special volume based on a conference session we proposed two years ago (that didn't even run because there wasn't enough interest). Simple rule: ignore invitations to publish emails.

I feel like I am a chump. Don't know what to do. I am a STEM PhD student and is part of a two man team. I work on the architecture level and he works on the device level. I have added this guy to my papers as co-author even if he did diddly squat for the paper, because we were a team. He was even part of a book chapter I wrote based on one of my works because he was part of the original paper. He then goes on to publish at a conference with no involvement from me and doesn't include me as a co-author. I feel like such a chump. This guy is part of a conference paper, a journal article and the aforementioned book chapter without having to lift a finger, and he completely excludes me from this conference paper. The worst part is, because he works on the device level, I will have to use his work for most of my architectural level proposals. So eventually he will have more publications than me (as he is co-author as part of the team), and I feel that most of my work would be derivative of his (which is fine in a team scenario). I don't feel very good about this whole set up. Should I talk to my advisor about this ? He suggested adding this guy to the conference paper, even though he made no contribution. But I feel like I will come across as whining.

I don't mean this to sound excessively blunt, but stop playing games with authorship. If someone makes a substantial intellectual contribution to your paper, add them as an author. If you make a substantial intellectual contribution to someone else's paper, demand authorship. Don't worry about someone else's achievements; focus on your own research success. You're getting wound up over an insignificant thing. (I also found myself getting wound up over insignificant things in my own graduate research. It's a thing that happens. Try to step back and refocus. Compare your own achievements only to your own.)

Seriously, what does it take to be in an Oxbridge kind of place? What is it that people who study at Oxford or Cambridge have that others don't? Let's say hypothetically someone wants to study there for a PhD, what is it that they need? Is it just outstanding grades? A dedication to hard work beyond what everyone else does? What kind of skills? Is there something that draws the line between someone who studies at Oxford and someone who studies at an institution that's not at the top of rankings? I'm talking only about the people, because I'm aware a big difference can be resources (bigger labs, bigger librairies, etc.). Alternatively, what is it that makes certain academics do groundbreaking work (especially in the humanities) that other academics don't have? I know my question is a bit weird but I'm genuinely curious what kind of profile do people who go to those prestigious universities have. Do some of them have the same problems other people have (like struggles between mental health and academia, financial issues, etc.)?

Analogously, I’m in Boston doing my PhD and have a lot of friends at Harvard and MIT. In my opinion, my friends who go there don’t seem categorically smarter or harder-working than many who don’t, but only that they’ve been dedicated longer than most and are unusually well-connected within their academic subfields. Most have at least one parent with an advanced degree, and many have academic parents; they also seem to have gone to the upper crust of prestigious universities and early on started in the labs of the biggest names. They seem to understand the way the academic game is played and have been playing it since at least the start of undergrad, having made all the right moves: good GPA and standardized scores, of course, but primarily networking with the right people and working in the right labs. They almost all come from families that were at least well-off enough that they never had to work a job, but I’d say almost all could be considered “privileged.” In a nutshell, they’re universally smart, hard-working, dedicated, and come from privileged backgrounds, but the real differentiator is their extensive networking.

Worst first day of graduate school So I started Master’s in Computer Science in top 15 USA University. I just graduated form bachelors in CS from same university recently. I still have doubts and felt the imposter syndrome because I don’t think I’m very smart for this. But yet again, I’m an international student and want to work hard to find sponsorship later on. *During my undergrad I have gone through depressive episodes and have certainly faced a lot of problems also concerning health and had a surgery. * Covid really weakened my learning during sophomore- junior year. And In my senior year, I just thought of graduating. But going into Master’s I have motivated myself to get serious and change habits like waking up at 5am, working out, and setting out studying hours. Anyways I started master’s today and went to see professor who I had been working for as an unpaid research intern during undergrad. I set an appointment and reached his office. I was humiliated. I guess for the right reasons. He asked me what I was there of, and I told him respectfully about restarting my research. He replied infront of other students, saying why should I keep you in my team, so that you’d disappear again for few months? I replied that I take full responsibility and this time it’s different but his response was that you said that last time. Well it’s true, there have been times when due to mental health I stopped my research and focused mainly on my health and pushing for graduating as an undergrad, but in masters I wanted to start my first day with a different mindset yet got rejected by the same professor who was excited and motivating when I got into the program. He told me to find another faculty as I have broken his trust and I don’t deliver. This setback really upset me today and I did contemplate life for hours. Words are everything. It can definitely make or break a person. Today was just not my day.

Sounds like you learned an important lesson. If you ghost people, it's going to come back to haunt you professionally. That's just how these things work, unfortunately. Do the best you can going forward. It will take time, effort, and uncomfortable situations, but you can earn your reputation back. Why did you choose to enroll in a program where you knew you had ghosted people and messed up pretty badly? Why did you enroll in a master's at all when it sounds like you weren't exactly present for a long time? And now you've decided to have a huge life change—get up at 5, work out, etc. This doesn't seem reasonable or likely. It makes it seem like you're still all talk and no action. Just set realistic goals for yourself and forge ahead.

If you could restructure your university from the ground up, what would you change? Here are a few of my suggestions: * Have a maximum Staff : Faculty ratio. My ideal is an absolute maximum of 1:1. Yes, it would mean faculty would have to take on more administrative responsibilities. I'm okay with that. My hope is that this would help reduce tuition costs and give the students more of what they're actually paying for. * Mandatory retirement ages. I'm flexible on when exactly this is, but right now I'm thinking that you should be required to take emeritus status at 75. Emeritus faculty could still retain access to their offices and would be compensated per course taught, rather than a full-time salary. This would free up more full-time positions for new faculty members. I was thinking of some other problems that need fixing (notably a lack of journal space), but I don't know how any single university could fix those. What are some measures you'd like to see implemented? What do you think of the ones I've just suggested?

This applies to general universities everywhere, and some have started, but can we begin to separate ourselves a bit on titles and functions? You're a great teacher and not so great at research, so you will teach and advise. You're great at research but couldn't care less about teaching, so you will do research mostly and bring in money. If you want to teach a higher-level class that's more interesting to you, great. You're great at organization and planning, so you'll teach/research (their choice) and also help with administrative duties for the department/college. This goes along with the idea of lessening the number of administrators. What about the missing classes being taught? Graduate students with a desire to teach get the chance. They can be put through some pedagogy classes to learn how to teach and paired with a teaching professor to learn and get ideas/materials. The big thing is, no one will be measured by their weaknesses. If your heart isn't in teaching/research/service, you will not be penalized for it. You can still volunteer to do things like teaching a class or doing research, but it's your choice. I feel like people would be happier if they had a choice and weren't put all in one group to be assessed for tenure.

How to publish a paper as an independent researcher After completing my master degree from a university, I have joined a startup. While doing a job I was also working on a paper with my colleague (currently `Ph.D.` in another university). Now our work has finished and we intend to publish it, but I don’t know what affiliation should I mention. * Cannot use company name because it was not part of the company work * Cannot use the university name, as I am already passed out What should mention in affiliation, Can I mention my old university name.

Is the paper based on research you did at the university before you started at the company? If so, you can just list the university. In similar circumstances, I have also seen people list both, with a footnote to explain the move. Or just list the company—even though you did the work on your own time, you are affiliated with the company (and every company I have been at would welcome the publicity). Or list neither and just put your personal address. There isn't really a wrong answer here. Nobody really cares, as long as you don't outright lie.

How do I transition out of a lab without hurting my or my current PIs career? I'm a 3rd year grad student in the life sciences at an R1 in the US. I was one of my PIs first graduate students. Suffice to say that I haven't been a good fit for the lab. The science that we do here is extremely interesting, but I don't really feel like a member of the lab and I definitely can't communicate with my PI. I came into grad school with a clear vision for what I wanted to do, and it was not in line with what my PI wanted me to do–namely, work on a very specific system to give his lab that "brand". I wish I would have realized this earlier, but I had told him specifically that I didn't to work with this system (because I know from my time as an undergraduate and in industry that the system is tricky) but I didn't see what his long term goals were. Once he realized that the system was not as easy to work with as he expected, he put the problems with my project down to my skills in the lab and has effectively told me to repeat the same experiments over and over again. I've made some progress (mostly by working in secret to troubleshoot experiments and adjust protocols–I tried doing this in the open but got yelled at too many times) but the work is slow and my PI has more or less checked out of my project to prioritize the progress of other students in the lab. I'm trying to wrap up what I have into my first paper, and then promptly leave my lab for another. I have a lot of options on this front (although I haven't talked about it explicitly with the PIs, I know that multiple labs would like to take me) but I don't want to damage my or my current PIs career by doing this. I don't have any personal issues with my PI (he's a bad communicator but his heart is in the right place as far as I can tell) and just want the whole transition to be as drama-free as possible. What should my first move be?

Truth is: you don't. I wish I had started to consider my own life instead of just blindly supporting my PIs and doing nothing but propelling their careers while hoping they would help me later. Turns out I just got used. Don't make the same mistake, OP. Look out for #1.

How do you handle feelings of attraction for/crushes on your students? Feelings of attraction are bound to happen when you're around so many attractive, intelligent, socially charismatic people. These people just happen to sometimes be your students. How do you handle it? Obviously because of the power dynamic acting on the feelings is not appropriate while they are your students, but what about after? Do you act on it anyway? Do you wait until the course is over? Do you ever contact any of them after graduation? Do you ever mention it at all, or just suppress the feelings? How do you (or have you) navigated this space?

Feelings of attraction are bound to happen when you're around so many attractive, intelligent, socially charismatic people. These people just happen to sometimes be your students. You obviously don't work at my university. Once they start talking, all attraction is gone.

How to be an independent researcher when you micromanaged by supervisor? I’m in PhD course and I have found it difficult to focus on research primarily because of micromanagement (such as daily reports and weekly three meetings) by the supervisor(PI). I am spending too much energy and time in making reports and meeting presentations for which he is not satisfied. I stay in lab from 8am to 10pm and work on weekend. Knowing the fact that this is not healthy work style but still due to stress I spend most time in lab working and learning stuff. But things are not clear, I found my self in dense fog. Could you please give me some suggestions how to navigate this path?

Two suggestions come to mind right away: First, **work less**. This may seem counterintuitive, but if you are working 14 hours a day, seven days a week, that is too much and it will lower the quality of your work. You are working 100 hours a week; that does not leave enough time for a healthy sleep schedule, plus preparing and eating necessary meals—the bare minimum to keep yourself alive and physically healthy—to say nothing of the mental and emotional toll which is not being addressed. If you pull back significantly and create more space for physical and mental health (and, if you can, some slight glimmer of a social life), you will find yourself being more productive in, say, 60 hours a week than you are at present in 100. Second, if you want to be an independent researcher, you must think like one. For example, in daily meetings, think of these as a *progress report*. You are not trying to convince your professor that you have somehow solved every research question in just the last 24 hours; you are simply keeping them up to date with the progress you are making. So keep these brief. I would probably include very brief statements of: what your goal was/what you wanted to accomplish, what you did, what results you got, the significance of the results, and the next steps for today or the near future—ideally, this is connected to the larger plan for finishing projects, publications, chapters, etc., as suitable. If this is a written report, it would be no longer than one page on most days; if an oral report, not more than a few minutes plus any questions or discussions. Candidly, I wonder if your PI being "not satisfied" is a difference in communication styles. If the PI is telling you that your work is poor-quality and insufficient, that is one thing. However, I think more commonly PIs tend to focus on things like what are the next steps, have you accounted for X/Y/Z, how close are we to publication, etc.—basically, these are "big-picture" questions related to the overall process of research, which can be a source of confusion for many students who are expecting feedback on the quality of the work done. This can feel like criticism in a "why haven't you done this yet?" sense. Without knowing more about your PI, I couldn't say for sure, but either possibility could be the case here. Keep in mind that the PhD, and research in general, is an ongoing process that takes a long time to come to fruition. Your PI likely knows this, but many PIs do not communicate this to their students effectively when it would be very helpful to do so.

For those of you who run STEM labs, do you prefer to be called Dr. ____ or your first name by your mentees? My PI always signs his emails with his first name, but most of the people in the lab refer to him as “Dr. PI”. Occasionally someone will use his first name. I’m used to always calling PIs by their first names since that’s what we did my previous labs, but now I’m not sure what to do. I’m assuming I should default to saying “Dr. PI” because that’s what other people do, but I also don’t want to seem too weird and formal since he continues to sign emails with his first name and he also refers to other PIs by their first names when talking to me. Any advice?

I think the convention on all of planet Earth should be that junior people call senior people "Dr." the first time they meet them, and the senior person should immediately say, "Please, call me FirstName." It shows respect on the part of the junior person and humility on the part of the senior person.

Filing a complaint against PI for mistreatments of employees In past I worked for a bad PI. I left the lab without asking for her recommendation. A year later, I am witnessing another employee (a technician) of hers leave the lab after working for 2 years. He asked for her recommendation and she is saying negative things about his work ethics. She is lying. She has lied on multiple occasions in past, for petty things to very serious matters. Should he complain to HR about her in his exit interview? Or is it not worth it? Do they every take any action against PIs? I left without complaining but I want to do so now, so future employees don’t suffer. It’s been an year since I left. Should I file a complaint?

Speaking as a senior administrator, yes, you should complain. You will get zero satisfaction in the sense that you will never see the impact of your complaints, but good institutions have memory. When the opportunity comes, repeat offenders will be kept from positions of authority and/or pushed out altogether.

Is it a little spooky that so much of this subreddit is devoted to harassment complaints and such? I am wondering if maybe this sub is a good sign that not all is well in Denmark (so to speak). I have noticed that lots of posters use this forum to flesh out their complaint, ask for feedback on the technicalities before they submit the final draft. Am I noticing an uptick?

What other use cases does this subreddit offer? If you have a question about a specific part of academia, you can ask peers, an advisor, or administrative staff. If you are afraid or embarrassed to go to those resources due to misconduct or other sketchy things, you can ask random people on the internet.

Boundaries of what is acceptable for a prof to ask their students to do There's a fellow student in my cohort who I see washing cups in the lounge every now and then. One day I decided to ask him what's up with him cleaning all of these tea cups, and he replies that his adviser asked him to do it for him. Apparently his adviser drinks multiple cups of tea a day and gets his graduate students to clean them for him. Is this acceptable behavior??? Ultimately this is between those two, and I have no reason to get involved, but it seems quite an abuse of power to me.

It's unprofessional, but I don't think it's actionable if the student complained. The student/advisor relationship is literally a medieval concept, and some advisors like to use students to ridiculous degrees like this as a display of power.

Should you receive authorship even if you are being paid? I am a doctoral student who is 18 months into a 2 year internship with a consulting firm. The top leadership at the firm have regularly assigned me to work on conference presentation submissions and journal articles for them. I had assumed my name would be included on these, but recently discovered that it is not, despite me doing some to all of the review of academic literature. I figured I am not owed authorship or credit because I was being paid and it was obnoxious for me to ask. Recently, when I talked about the work to some graduate school colleagues, they insisted that regardless of whether I was paid, they were supposed to give me credit if I contributed to academic work. Is this the case? I know there is nothing I can do about the past, but I want to know moving forward and for my future career.

If you made substantial and/or novel contributions, you should absolutely be listed as an author. It doesn't matter whether you were paid or not; not listing you is dishonest and unethical.

What's your favorite aspect of academia? Least favorite?

Favorite: Flexibility of work hours, weekly and throughout the year. Awesome, smart colleagues, excellent access to resources (library, tools), and smart students that make me think deeply about my own research. Least Favorite: Sexism, ageism, racism, stupid hierarchy and old-boy-network favoritism, the bullshit students try to pull, and the insane amount of work hours.

What do you wish you knew before starting your PhD? Hi all, I hope this is the right subreddit to ask this. I'm a 21 year old undergrad graduating this semester, and working towards a master's degree during my gap year while applying for MD/PhD programs. I have been in the same lab for 2.5 years during my undergrad career and absolutely fell in love with research, and my master's is a research-focused thesis-based program as well, I'm really excited to get started. I've seen quite a few posts on here from PhD students, incredibly stressed out and looking to leave their PhD programs, which does make me hesitate a little bit. What am I missing? Was it just not for you? Does it depend on your PI/mentor and the lab in which you complete your PhD? Are there things you wish you knew before you started? I would really love to be a physician researcher, however I don't want to spend the extra time working towards a PhD if it's going to take a significant toll on my mental and physical health and if I could do the same thing with only an MD. Any words of wisdom?

I wish I knew that there would only be 4 jobs on the entire planet for people with my degree the year I went on the job market. I knew it would be bad odds, but I didn't realize they would be *that* bad! Edit: My very first award!! Thank you! ❤️

Starting my 4th and last yeah of the PhD, wanting to quit Hi all I am currently a PhD researcher at a European university (29F) in microbiology, with little to no supervision. Since I am part of a bigger project and some end evaluations by the organization providing funding is coming up, my PI has been pushing me to finish an enormous amount of work. I have no motivation, am in the lab every day, but stuff just is not working and I cannot get the guidance I need to help me figure it out. From the start I was not happy in the PhD, but pushed through thinking the whole pandemic had caused much of the issues. Now really I am wondering if this is worth it, and I have been really considering just quitting. I am a very stubborn person though and am afraid what impact this will have on future jobs. I am not planning on ever returning to academia, but will a failed PhD impact job search? I would appreciate some advice Thank you for reading/helping!

You only have a year left. Just finish it. You probably started the program to get a degree, not to have fun. Your job prospects with a PhD will be much better. I am sure you will be able to find a job if you drop out, but you will have to be very creative explaining to employers why you left. If someone is willing to throw out years of their life, I wouldn't expect them to be a dedicated employee where they can leave at any time without repercussions.

Venting - first semester on the tenure track, and I'm really disappointed in my students. I've taught before at a variety of institutions, and I've always enjoyed it. Now that I'm teaching full time at a SLAC, I'm really, really struggling with my students behaviors. I try to be entertaining, but it doesn't stop them from looking like zombies. I show funny videos. I use colorful prezis. I don't even assign much outside work! and 85% of my students (mostly first year, traditional aged) have zero interest in the classes, don't read, don't care. If I could just take like the 3-5 students from each class who gave a damn, I'd be happy. I mean I'm not naive enough to think that this wasn't a possibility, but I'm really struggling with how MANY of them have no interest - and it's not just me and the way I do things. My colleagues experience it, too. I was able to ignore it before, but a girl outright said in my intro sociology class, "this is so stupid"...and she also burst out laughing at inappropriate times, AT me. I wasn't expecting to have to become a disciplinarian. Today a student walks into my class 10 minutes before it ended, and said "did I miss anything last week?" DURING my lecture. I said no (because, seriously, wtf) and she left. NEVER saw her before. I'm suspecting this wasn't the right choice of career for me. I just wish I knew that before spending so many years chasing a phd and preparing for a career that apparently nobody appreciates. I'm secretly hoping you'll tell me everything will be alright, and it's just that I'm new, and that reaching a few of them will make all the difference. Deep down, I know that's not necessarily the case. **end rant** TL, DR; my students are drooling zombies with almost no brain activity and I'm wondering why I wasted a decade chasing a career for people who don't care.

You were a good student. Most of your friends were probably good students. It was easy to not notice that most students... suck (hard) at being students. Also, don't think that not assigning much outside work will cause your students to be more engaged. Quite the opposite; they'll see that they don't have to do much in the course. Give them work to do, and the ones that actually care will start asking questions and coming to office hours to discuss it. (The other ones will just copy it off each other and then bomb the exams.) I always comfort myself by saying that it's not my job to teach students the material. My job is to provide them with all the resources they need in order to learn it.

Age and obtaining one's first assistant professor position after finishing a PhD So I met with a potential PhD supervisor recently and he said he's interested in supervising me (yay!). One piece of advice he gave me that kinda has me stuck is about my age. I'm 35 and hoping to start my PhD in September of 2019. This would mean, assuming I progress well in my program, I'd be hoping to gain an assistant professor position when I'm 40-42. The supervisor's advice was doing so is usually difficult but still possible at that age because universities prefer to hire people around the age of 30 for such positions. I'm wondering, what have others' experiences been who were about the same age? Is there anything I can do to help position myself as well as possible while I'm in my program, assuming they accept me of course? For reference, I'd be studying at a Canadian university of about 30,000 students in public policy. Happy to hear any thoughts!

The job market is a monster to begin with. Being on the market in your forties is less of an issue than the fact that there are so few jobs. Regarding age specifically, my school often hires more mature candidates; they have more teaching and life experience. We just hired someone in their late fifties as an assistant professor.

Full professor but worried about job security On the same day last week, I received official confirmation that I've been promoted to full, and also heard that if my program doesn't drastly increase our student numbers, we would likely close. We have two years to turn things around. Besides a moral obligation felt by the Dean to try to help me and the other faculty members who would be affected (by possibly creating new positions in other departments?), should I expect that I have no job security? I haven't heard of this happening elsewhere (besides when tenured faculty lost their jobs after Katrina). But surely departments close occasionally. What happens to those professors? Thank you for any thoughts and insights!

I bring this up because tenure protections have been in the news lately, and Wisconsin actually cut protections for your exact scenario. It used to be that if your program was eliminated, tenured faculty had to be relocated, but that is no longer the case. I only bring this up because, depending on where you are and what type of university you're in, you may have some legal protection. It's not likely, but worth checking out.

PhD in Finland - tips to convince PI (supervisor) to provide funding in the form of salary? Hi, I'm an international student currently doing my Master's in the University of Helsinki. My field is molecular bioscience / biomedicine. There is a PI who has expressed interest in wanting me to join the lab as a PhD student. But during our discussion, it was mentioned that funding will most likely be in the form of grants depending on the duration of those grants, maybe one-two years and get renewed accordingly. But as far as I know a salary is more preferable because of paying taxes and hence receiving social benefits, and also having an employment contract would probably help in getting a visa/residence permit with a longer validity? This way I wouldn't have to pay repeatedly and go through the application process again and again, right? And in general having years of official employment is also probably an advantage? (Considering it is common for PhD students in Europe to be considered as employees) Looking for thoughts on this as well as tips and points to bring up during the discussion about this!

I think your salary should be fixed in accordance with the collective wage agreement with the student labor union. Where your salary comes from does not matter. However, if your salary is paid for through external grants, you may end up having to quit your PhD due to lack of funding. Usually, though, they will try to find money somewhere. Don't take my word for it, though; try getting more information from the student union or your prospective PI about these matters. If you are not an EU citizen, then, to my understanding, you have to renew your residence permit annually. Again, this wouldn't matter where your PhD funding comes from.

Which word processing software is best for submitting to scientific journals for publication? Im assuming its not Microsoft Word.

In STEM subjects, we often use LaTeX, a markup language. It's implemented for free online in Overleaf. There's a bit of a learning curve at first, but many journals have their own LaTeX templates.

Thinking about pursuing a PhD, but I want to go to industry after. Am I making a mistake? I have research experience with ML in chem from undergrad. I am applying to top schools for Computational chemistry. Would like to work in AI for this or related subjects after. Should I still go for a PhD? Masters? Or go work?

This is what I suggest: get into industry now, or get a master's and then industry. Spend two years in industry to get real-world experience and learn something about what you want to do. Do you want to go into a biotech startup? Large Pharma? Do you want to run a group or be on the bench? Give yourself two years, then, with your knowledge, either stay in industry as your career grows, or bail out temporarily and get a Ph.D. if you see it as valuable to where you've decided to go. Note that your industry experience will put you light-years ahead of anyone else going directly into a Ph.D. program. If you decide to do a Ph.D., the industry experience will also put you miles ahead of any other freshly minted Ph.D. without industry experience.

To PostDoc or Not to Postdoc? I am in my final year of my PhD (neuroscience) at an Australian university and have been given the opportunity to do a postdoc once i finish (89k a year, 17% super). I really dont fully understand the whole postdoc/academic career exactly and most have said it can be a dead end. However, I find it enticing since I would be able to work on some research I have always been fascinated in. Could anyone let me know how the postdoc/academic career works exactly in terms of grants and funding and gradually working your way up the academic ladder? Do you basically pay for yourself through grants or does the uni actually pay you? Is it supposed to be short term? And are there negatives to doing a postdoc? Sorry for the ignorant questions!

This looks like an excellent opportunity to me. Unless you have a tenured role offer on the table now, it's the best around. I'd also suggest that your questions suggest a pretty low understanding of the academic system. I don't mean this in an unkind way at all, but you may not have been given much advice or mentoring so far. I suggest you prioritize this by asking lots of questions to colleagues and researching how the system works through blogs, etc. All this will inform your judgment, which is critical for you to thrive in this sector. Power to you!

Has a colleague of yours lost tenure? What were the circumstances? Inspired by this news article. I've heard that tenure is very difficult to lose once you've got it. In your experience what caused a colleague to lose tenure?

My former boss finally lost tenure for sexually assaulting graduate students (after two schools, including mine, swept it under the rug so as not to harm his reputation). My undergraduate professor was fired after spending a couple of years in an Argentinian jail for drug smuggling. But don't worry, he got all of his back pay for the time he was in jail before they fired him.

Graduated from Masters but my supervisor still wants me to help So I've obtained my masters degree in electrical engineering in June. Around the start of January my supervisor asked me to assist another student who was struggling with their project. She later dropped out and I've been assigned to work on it. Even though I've graduated my supervisor still expects me to work on it until its published. (even though it'll take several more months of obtaining data) I also got a full time job after graduating and have already published two papers with her. What should I do? I have a neutral relationship with my supervisor and a good stable job, I was thinking of just ghosting her. However, I wouldn't mind helping out if she paid me fairly, would that be inappropriate to ask?

Damn, you are nice, perhaps too nice. The fact that you need to ask someone how to act in this situation goes to show your need for assertiveness training; you are too agreeable. Don't let people use you.

Are the hefty publishing charges by most of the academic journals justified or not? What is your opinion about thousands of dollars being charged in the name of publishing charges by many journals?

The whole publishing model in academia is, of course, completely messed up, but I especially hate the recent trend of forcing academics to publish open access. Doubly so in fields like math and physics where all our papers are on the arXiv anyway. Publishing in an OA journal requires you to either be in a rich country or at least in an affluent research group, and such gatekeeping of top publication venues is extremely misguided, in my opinion.

How do I pick which journal to submit a paper to? I work for a local public health department, and we have access to some cool new data that other jurisdictions don't have. How do I compare journals that are in different categories and don't have comparable impact factors? I'm considering Clinical Infectious Diseases, Annals of Internal Medicine, and PLOS One, since those journals have previously published papers similar to the one I'm writing.

One way to find out which journal a paper is looking at is by examining the references used. See which journal you have cited most papers from; it gives you an idea about your probable journal.

Can you get into a good graduate program if you take time off after undergrad? Also, does the extent to which undergraduate may have prepared you for graduate school become more or less important when there is such a time gap?

I went to a small state school for undergrad. Then I did two years in the Peace Corps, followed by three years as a carpenter and bike mechanic. Now I'm in grad school at a top 3 program in my field. You'll be fine.

How can an undergrad have their name included on a paper? Does running an experiment or programming a data analysis warrant being included? I'm not sure how strict the rules are as far as putting peoples' names on papers go or really how the authoring system works in general. The first and second authors I know are the people who have written most of the paper itself. Past that I'm not sure (though I know the last author is usually the P.I.). I'm also not sure whether there's any reason for the first author not to put someone's name on their paper (as long as it's within the reasonable number of authors for a paper, which I know is highly dependent on the field). Does the author get more credit/prestige if there are less authors on the paper? Or does having a no-name author on the paper look bad? What sort of contributions do I need to make in order to have my name listed? Any help is appreciated!

Many PIs have different requirements for an undergrad to get authorship on papers. I've been in a few labs where if an undergrad did the experiment that was part of a final figure, their name was added. My current lab PI doesn't like to add undergrad names because they rarely give intellectual input but only are a pair of hands. The best way to know is to talk with your PI about their requirements. I don't see a problem with adding names to a paper, but everyone has different ideas.

Stay off the job market if accept the counteroffer? Please advise! I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask this. I have an offer from another institute. I told my current institute about it and expected a salary increase. They send me a counteroffer, which is excellent. But the offer letter said that I have to promise to stay off the job market for another 3 years. I feel very uncomfortable losing the freedom of finding another job in the next 3 years. What if I have to move due to family reasons? For example, what if my wife finds a job, and we have to move. Do I have to stay without my family until the end of year 3, then spend one year looking for a job, and reunion with them in year 5? My kids are still in pre-K, but what if they need better education and we have to move? I have serious concerns about this. But my department chair said that if I ask my dean to remove this from the offer, they will assume that I will eventually leave and be on the job market every year. and they will take it back. If I decline the counteroffer and stay, I have the feeling that they will also feel that I am not "loyal" to them, they may do something to make my life harder. Please advise! Thank you!

This clause is *absolutely standard* in counter-offers. Indeed, the entire point of a counter-offer is to keep you. It is not only expensive for them (money-wise) but a counter-offer also takes a significant expenditure of administrative energy. (Chairs, Deans, Provosts, and Chancellors all have to sign off on it... and sometimes entire Departments too, because sometimes the entire Department must agree to forego some of the department's raise pool—i.e., everyone *else's* raise—just to keep you.) A counter-offer is a big deal. And then if you leave the following year anyway....??!!!! Usually (at R1s) the time to agree to not pursue/accept any other offer is 5 years. A 3-year clause is actually quite generous. Also, ignore the advice here that says it is "unenforceable." It is *entirely* enforceable! Read your contract. But that doesn't mean you're stuck! All it means is that (read your contract closely) if you accept another job offer before the no-job-market clause expires, then you are on the hook to PAY BACK your raise + other benefits (research accounts, research time off from teaching, etc.). Note: one of my colleagues did this. They went on the market, received an offer, got a great counter-offer, signed a 5-year stay clause... and then two years later, their DREAM job opened, they applied anyway, they got it... and then had to pay the university over $50,000 (in cash) for the raise, the semester teaching-release they got, the research money they spent, etc. But for them, it was absolutely worth the $50k. TLDR: just sign the damn thing, and if the things you're worried about happen (wife gets a job, etc.) then just buy your way out. NO Dean or Provost will sign off on a counter-offer that does not include this stipulation.

Christian professors in secular universities, do you have religious objects in your office? I'm wondering to what extent other professors bring their spiritual life to their campus environment.

There's a standard in First Amendment law that young children can't tell the difference between "my teacher believes it" and "it's absolutely true," but older adolescents and young adults can. Thus, a kindergarten teacher who tells students about his Christian beliefs is evangelizing, even if he never says something like, "You should believe this too." A five-year-old doesn't understand that "I believe Jesus Christ rose from the dead" is a different kind of sentence than "A dime is worth 10 pennies." College students have enough mental development that they can separate the professor's personal religious beliefs from the factual content taught in class, so there's not so much worry that the professor is promoting one religion over another just by expressing personal beliefs. That doesn't mean there are no downsides. If you express strong religious adherence, especially to a sect that is known to judge or exclude populations that may include some of your students, even if you don't personally hold with those beliefs, students might see your objects and worry that you do. They might avoid you, skip office hours, refuse to go to you for help, etc. This could be mitigated if you also displayed a clear sign of commitment to those groups. To be concrete: If a professor has a lot of Mormon stuff in their office, LGBTQ+ students might choose to stay away, believing (not necessarily correctly) that this professor probably won't really respect them. If that professor also gets Safe Zone training, participates in the university sex and gender diversity caucus, etc., the signals would probably cancel each other out.

Whats a good "thank you" gift you can give a professor for giving you a recommendation?

An email or handwritten thank-you note with your full name. Include whether you received the position. When we go up for review/reappointment, notes like that sometimes get included in the binders. It is “evidence of effective teaching and service.”

Is anyone else frustrated with many scientific articles that use statistics? I'm a PhD student in engineering, so I don't use statistics very often (though there are many engineers who do). Nevertheless, I regularly find myself interested in articles in medicine and social sciences that use statistics heavily. The problem is, I can rarely pick out the details of their statistical methodology. Usually, they make a claim about the controls they include and list off dummy variables that account for them, but usually, they don't give enough details for me to determine if they're using the variable appropriately or if they're using it as a degree of freedom that manipulates the data to serve their conclusion. In other words, I'm if I were in the field, I would not feel as though I had enough to replicate the paper's findings, so I would have to take them at face value, which seems like a big no-no. Yet I keep encountering this problem. Additionally, I often find that the figures in these articles are labeled poorly, i.e., no axis labels and non-descriptive captions. Is this due to my own ignorance or is there a larger issue here?

If you don't use statistics often, it could just be that you don't understand the way they are reporting the statistics, especially with it being outside your main field. There certainly are articles published with incomplete reporting, but there are a lot that report appropriately—if you know how to read the statistical statement.

How can I organize what I read? I usually get lost finding the right note. As a Ph.D. student, I read a lot of book sections, theses, and especially journal articles. I get a lot of information out of it that needs to be written down so I can go back to it later on, but I often get lost in finding what I am looking for as it's not really well organized (using Google Docs). How do you guys organize your notes using notion? Is there any template for that? I am a bit tired of searching for the right one that might make my reading much easier. Thanks in advance.

Nobody has mentioned a "smart notes" system, which is kind of a wiki for yourself. I've been using Obsidian for knowledge management, and it's like having a second brain. It's not optimized for citation management, but it's wonderful for general information management.

Do sciences feel pressure not to undermine the status quo? Does anyone else notice, or have evidence to prove, that some fields of science tread far too lightly around certain topics — perhaps seeking to avoid upending prevailing narratives or bringing attention to uncomfortable truths? (Yes, this post is terribly reductionist, I know..) I’m not talking about anything specific because I’ve pondered multiple diverse potential examples. I hesitate to give examples for fear of narrowing the discussion to a few partisan footballs. Or perhaps the ‘uncomfortable’ parts are just left out of public discourse? Why, exactly? If it is the case, either way, I think it would be terribly irresponsible. An informed public is an empowered public, and an unempowered public is a dangerous and anarchic one. If it isn’t the case, I have further questions. Tl;dr: I suspect some sciences don’t talk about or study things that might upset the sociopolitical status-quo.

As others have hinted, with a question like this, I think a clear distinction needs to be drawn between publishing articles and writing grant proposals. Without a doubt, in articles, the goal is to challenge some aspect of the status quo, even if that aspect is extremely esoteric. And as others have mentioned, the scientific publishing machine generally rewards papers (i.e., they get published in higher impact journals, get picked up in the news, etc.) that push against the status quo much more than incremental or confirmatory research. Grant proposal writing is a little more complex. Most funding agencies have "newness" somewhere within their core criteria (e.g., the buzzword in the US NSF is "transformative," i.e., your proposal needs to explain why the work you would do if funded would "transform" some aspect of science), but in practice, panels (i.e., the groups of scientists ranking proposals) are often a bit risk-averse, so there definitely can be a drift toward more incremental science. That's not to say that the goal is to enforce the status quo, but more that people are hesitant to recommend dropping hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars on a really out-there, "risky" idea. Something that is new and maybe pokes at a status quo idea a little bit, but is clearly very tractable, is (generally) probably going to be reviewed much more favorably than a true, hugely boundary-pushing proposal, but might be so new that it's just a little ahead of its time in terms of all of the pieces being there to actually follow through. Scientists, by nature and training, are skeptical, and the scientific status quo is usually the status quo for a reason (i.e., there is a body of observational evidence to support it), so a proposal that claims they're going to upend some huge portion of previous work is viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean that at least in the way science is proposed, there is a little bit of a push toward "safer" things that chip away at problems. This is not across the board, and there are certain programs within funding agencies that are designed for a bit more "out-there" type research. Also of importance is that ultimately what you propose to do and what you actually do with the money are often a bit different. Not in the fraud sense of working on a totally different problem than what you said you would, but proposals are written assuming ideal conditions that rarely exist. Thus, methods etc. must adapt, and in many cases, you can end up in a much more boundary-pushing region than you maybe said you would be when you asked for money.

What was the most glorious moment of your career in academia? What was the lowest moment of your career in academia?

a) Getting quoted in the New York Times last summer as an expert on my topic; Dan Savage calling me on my cell phone to talk about my research on his podcast. b) Getting told by a professor in my first semester of grad school that I didn't seem to be taking grad school seriously enough, and she didn't think I was cut out for it. At the time, I was working around 70 hours a week just to keep my head above water.

Applying for job during tenure review process — bad idea? Posting from my burner because I’m pretty sure my chair is a Reddit lurker. tldr: I’m about to start tenure review process but am annoyed about being underpaid. Is now a bad time to get a competing offer to leverage a raise? I’m a TT AP at an R1 in STEM. I am preparing my tenure packet currently and chair/everyone has assured me it should go through no problem. I like my job and department but I’ve felt for a long time that I’m underpaid. I’ve brought this up every year at my annual review and the chairs have generally been good about giving small raises (above cost of living but not dramatically so). Last year I low key threatened to get a competing offer and the chair gave me a slightly higher raise. But I still feel I’m underpaid because: 1. We recently hired someone in my area and they’re great, but are making 20-25% more than me. Our research output is comparable while my teaching/service is considerably more than theirs given teaching relief etc. 2. We are a soft money school and I am funded literally 99% on external grants while also teaching more than required and supervising/funding the largest number of students in the department. So it’s not like the department even foots the bill for my salary (I’m well below NIH salary cap). 3. I have recently helped negotiate academic salaries for two mentees that are *higher than my current salary*. One of those position was not even tenure track. So I’m just a bit peeved. I found a job at a comparable university for a comparable position that I am contemplating applying for. As I said, I like my job and don’t want to leave but I also want to be paid competitively. I feel the only way to achieve that is by getting a competing offer. My question is: is now, while my tenure packet is being reviewed, a really bad time to do that? Any perspective from people who have been through the retention process would be appreciated.

The year you go up for tenure is typically the best time to test out the job market, as a fallback option if you fail to secure tenure, and as a bargaining chip if you do get tenure but wish to renegotiate your salary. You're on a 90% soft money position that is massively underpaid—what is the big deal if you do piss off your promotion and tenure committee?

Professors of Reddit!, What do you actually look for in a Statement of Purpose?

Here are some things I look for: * Can write well (writing ability is surprisingly important, even in my field of computer science). * Understands what research is (many applicants actually don't quite understand). * Has a pretty good sense of what they want to do (e.g., information visualization, mobile computing, social web, etc.). * Can describe their own past research experiences well. * Conveys that they have the potential to do good research (e.g., can work independently, understands the broader context of the problem space, overcame adversity, applied some interesting ideas or techniques to solve a problem).

How does it feel to defend a thesis? Should i use a powerpoint or prezi? Hey all. I'd just like to ask for your advice. If ever you've done a thesis before, how does it feel? I'm really nervous for this one. I don't exactly know what to do. And do you recommend a powerpoint or prezi for the presentation? Any insights can help.

Suggestions: (1) Rehearse the entire thing—not an abbreviated version where you say, "And then I'll go over the methods"—by yourself and time it. Keep doing this until you've got it at a reasonable pace. (2) It's okay to read portions from note cards. Try to practice enough that you can look up from time to time and that you don't mumble. (3) Rehearse with others. Most people do a run-through with their advisor. You can also get other students to watch you, friends, etc. The more you do it, the less nervous you'll feel. (4) If they've let you schedule a defense, they think you can do it. It might be tough, but the people in that room are rooting for you. (5) PowerPoint is better than Prezi for this purpose. Prezi is more showy than practical, especially if you are going to have charts and graphs.

First Campus Visit Felt...Off -- Advice? I had my first campus visit a couple days ago for a tenure track faculty position at a small liberal arts college. I went in incredibly excited at the possibly working there. By the time I left, I felt off. Because this is my first interview, I can't tell if this was due to the visit being poorly planned or if I somehow bombed without realizing it. Any thoughts or advice? The visit was short. I took an uber \~1hr from the airport to the hotel the night before. I was picked up at 8AM where I immediately met the faculty in the small department (\~5-6 individuals) for my first interview (no coffee or breakfast provided). After answering around 5 questions, they asked if I had any questions for them. I had a few lined up but had been hoping to speak with new faculty separately to ask how the adjustment to the university was, chat more personally about some of the work coming out of the department, etc. but never got a chance to do this. Then I had an hour long meeting with the Dean (which went great). Next, I had 30 mins to myself to prepare for my teaching demo. I did the demo to a live class and really enjoyed the students. After, I ate lunch by myself in a room for about an hour. Then, I met three students for about 30mins. After that, I met with the Provost for about 20mins (which also went great). Then, spent an hour with an undergraduate student from admissions showing me around the campus (though he just stood and talked to me about the campus rather than showing me for some reason). The visit ended with a quick chat with the department chair before taking another \~1hr uber back to the airport. I never got to chat with faculty in the department so I left the visit feeling like I couldn't make the connections I wanted to, have the informal chats I had hoped to have, etc. The longest meeting I had was with the random undergraduate student from admissions "showing" me campus. I didn't even get a chance to ask about the courses they wanted a new faculty member to teach. I was really thrown for a loop. Only one faculty member commented on my teaching demo. Did I somehow bomb this? I thought perhaps I didn't use the 2-3mins walking to the few meetings wisely enough to make some of the connections I had hoped to. But either way, I left feeling incredibly disconnected and off. Perhaps because it was my first interview, I was unprepared and hadn't planned well for very limited time to talk with faculty. Maybe I was a sympathy candidate visit so they didn't put in any effort? I notice that all their new hires are from the same institution prior. Given that they are a small department and this is their 3rd year interviewing candidates for new positions, maybe they were just exhausted? How would you even read what happened here?

I wouldn’t jump to thinking you bombed it. I work at SLAC, and here are some thoughts: One thing is probably COVID. I know pre-pandemic we used to take candidates out to lunch and dinner, but recently we’ve only been doing small lunches and no dinners. There are still fewer people on campus than normal due to the pandemic. Everyone is burnt out, so maybe less engaging. The last candidate talk I went to, there were like five faculty members present, and that was the only opportunity I had to interact with the candidate. It could have been your travel plans. One interview I did in person, my flights were tightly scheduled around the day, and they were making sure I did everything I needed to and then got back to the airport. I would try not to assume the worst things, like they aren’t interested. You never know what’s going on, and unfortunately, the wait and see is never fun, but try to just stay positive until you have a reason not to, and move forward with whatever else is going on.

Had Campus Visit Then Job Was Reposted on HigherEdJobs I had a (virtual) campus visit at an Elite SLAC in early December for a TT humanities position that went really well. I'm assuming I was one of three candidates since I was given three dates to choose from for the visit. From those dates, I was the first to be interviewed while the last date was the second week of December. The chair told me that they hoped to have a decision and inform their top candidate before Christmas. I received a follow up email the week before the school's holiday break thanking me for my patience, which I took as a good sign. I haven't heard anything since then. This was basically my dream job (school context, class sizes, teaching/research balance, etc.) out of all the positions I've applied for. I've moved past my anxiety and accepted that I probably wasn't their top candidate. However, a couple of days before Christmas the job came up again in my daily HigherEdJobs email. The listing on HEJ website said "Posted 12/22" even though the October application deadline (but "open until filled") remained the same. Does HigherEdJobs regularly repost job listings that have remained open, or is the most likely scenario that the committee didn't agree on anyone from the visits and the position was reposted to seek more applicants?

So, it’s well past Christmas. Reach back with a “Hi, hope the holidays were great” email and ask for any updates on the search. Don’t guess, just ask. A good search chair will tell you what they can, even if it’s nothing to update. Also, while it may be your dream job, don’t fixate on it. Keep your search as active as possible.

Should I care about using Sci Hub over the university network? So a friend who is at another institution emailed me this morning to ask if I could get a paper for him as he didn't have access and didn't want to use Sci Hub at university. I obviously just used Sci Hub at home to get the paper as it's actually easier than our library anyway. However, this does make me wonder, should I care about using Sci Hub over the university network? I am a huge advocate for Sci Hub and fully believe they are forwarding knowledge in the interest of humanity against the giants like Elsevier but do we have to be careful as users?

I think it's safe to say that our students are using every possible (legal or otherwise) source for PDF downloads, and it goes entirely overlooked by IT. That said, I prefer to do a proper library request or ILL just to keep them busy, so they don't cut subscriptions or services.

How do you work efficiently? And how did you build the discipline needed to maintain a good work/life balance and truly focus during your "on" hours? I've been trying to only study and work from 9-5, which many people have apparently had success with. Indeed, it seems like a very optimal strategy for studying efficiently. I've been trying my best to do this, but no matter what at some point I start zoning out and working ineffeciently during the 9-5, and as a result I have to work into the evening. I think it's a matter of discipline and staying focused, which I can't seem to do consistently. What has worked for you in terms of staying focused and working efficiently? Any input or advice whatsoever is greatly appreciated!

My advice would be not to try to be something you're not. For instance, I would love to work efficiently from 9 to 5 and go home, but it never happens. It's not who I am. I wake up late. I get to the lab around 10. I leave for an hour every day to go home and eat and recharge, then I come back. Yeah, I end up having to work late, but I like my schedule and it's how I'm most productive. The point is, you need to do you. If others can grind from 9 to 5, good for them. If you can't, that's fine too. As long as you're working and doing what you need to do, who cares.

Is it Unethical to be a Law Professor at a Very Low Ranked Law School? My friends and I have recently been discussing whether it is ethical to be a law professor at a very low ranked law school. This quandary comes from two sources. First, these schools generally have absolutely atrocious employment prospects. As such, law professors are directly taking part in a system that saddles students with large quantities of debt while giving most of them no method of utilizing their law degree to pay off that debt upon graduation. Second, these schools have incredibly low admission standards in terms of grades and test scores, which are used as surrogates for assessing student ability. Thus, law professors are also directly involved with the bestowal of law degrees and the churning out of attorneys who likely shouldn't be practicing law and will not provide good or even adequate service to their clients. I believe these concerns apply to fields outside of law as well, but law school seems like a very good example through which to explore them. Would love to hear others' thoughts about this.

I think your ethical responsibility as a law professor is to actually make the best of the students you're given. Focus on maximally improving your teaching and, through that, ensure those future attorneys sitting in your class achieve the minimum level required. There's always plenty of opportunity to improve your teaching quality. Join the educational boards at your school, push for policies that improve the quality of education, and you'll increase both the ranking and quality of your school's alumni. There are lots of ways professors can influence the quality of their school. Act in a way that you're not part of the problem, but actually make an effort toward solving it.

Can I email a professor just to talk about his research interests? There's a new professor in my department whose class I'm enrolled in for the fall semester and I've spoken to him once already and found out that our interests are very similar in a broad sense. It being the summer, neither of us are on campus much, which prevents me from popping in to talk about his research like I normally would. Is it okay to email him and ask about his research a bit more in depthly? He doesn't have a good webpage for his research, and I'm honestly curious to find out what kind of work he's doing and read some of his publications... I just don't want to be a bother to him. What do you all think? Note: I have no other motives to do this other than sheer and honest intellectual curiosity.

Most professors, and most academics, will jump at the opportunity to tell someone about their current, past, and future research endeavors. I don't think he'd mind at all if you emailed him about it, especially if he already knows that you're interested.

When is it okay to include humour in emails to professors? Specifically asking in a North American context. By humour, I don't necessarily mean actual jokes, but more like small, non-serious elements: making a reference to course material or a small quip about the weather, or something like that. I'm from a country where it is considered standard and often even the polite norm to include a bit of humour in an email, as anything else will be seen as impersonal. I've been struggling to figure out the social norms at my North American university, however. My professors will often make joking remarks in classes or office hours, but it seems like email culture is very professional. What are your takes? It is it acceptable when you have a good relationship with the professor, or does it entirely vary from person to person? Should you always just go with a professional, straight email?

I may seem harsh, but I am not your friend, even if I am your advisor. After you graduate, we may become friends, but not while we are in this academic relationship. So, an occasional joke or banter is okay, but mostly I prefer, as jccalhoun wrote, that you get to the point, especially the reason you are writing to me and what you would like me to do. “Please” and “thank you” are highly valued. “I need...” doesn’t work well with me.

Is it bad form to bring your partner to a conference with you? I’m a grad student and just got my first conference proposal accepted. The conference is being held in a somewhat touristy city that’s in driving distance, and my partner would love to come with me, as he’s never seen it. Of course he would occupy himself during the conference sessions and such, but would like to grab dinner with me, see a museum, etc. I’ve never been to a conference, so I don’t really know what’s frowned upon and what isn’t. Would it be bad to bring him with me and enjoy some sightseeing together in my downtime? Or is that a no-no?

Definitely allowed, but make sure you leave time for networking after the conference. As long as your partner understands those expectations, this works really well—and it's so nice to come back to the hotel after a long day of conferencing to your SO!