texts: What to do when your student is convinced that he will be the next Einstein?

texts:
As an adviser, I have found it to be a detrimental motive for a student to focus solely on surpassing Einstein in achievement, for many reasons. One student in particular has busied himself with the deconstruction of relativity and strives to break it down and replace it with a much better system. Not only that, he's attempting to construct a theory of quantum gravity and the refutation of string theory, among many other ridiculous sounding tasks.

The student told me earlier that "Einstein's physics will soon come to an end." when I asked him about his work on his thesis.  Then when I saw his thesis, it was complete gibberish, wrong in many aspects. I tried to tell him this but he simply wouldn't listen and told me "You do not understand anything."

He then went to looking for a different adviser but failed, since nobody wanted to work with a man who wants to "surpass" Einstein. When he was rejected by everybody, he came back to me and we were on equal terms again. But now, he's trying to write another thesis. And he told me AGAIN that "It'll be something that will break string theory."

Every student that does physics today at least has a feeling, however slight it may be, to be the next Einstein, to have a revolutionary impact on science, but it's quite saddening that only 1 out of 900,000 people would actually do so. And for this student of mine, I know for sure that he'll soon fall into a well and never get out of it again.

This situation can be likened to a very similar situation in mathematics, as if your proof of a famous conjecture turns out to be wrong, say good-bye to your reputation forever.

I must mention that I do not want to drive him away completely from this. If the student indeed finds a "real" problem in fundamental physics, then let him work further on it. But this must not be the only thing that he should work on, which he is doing with the most robust motivation.

A big problem is that the student has a highly peculiar personality and is introverted; if you tell him something, he has a distaste for authority and considers himself to be the "smartest" and superior than all of everybody he knows, including me. He says that "People in physics today lack imagination" and things of this sort.

I am rather confused. What should I do? Should I try to leave him, or should I tell him in some way to quit doing this and focus on something more plausible and if he doesn't do this then I should do something else?


texts: Dropping a Course in my Field Before Applying to Graduate School

texts:
I'm currently a Senior Undergraduate planning on applying to MS and PhD programs this Fall.

Between my current research job, TA position, and courses I believe I'm over committed time wise this semester (only 2 weeks in and I'm very stressed). I was looking to drop a course to free up my schedule and unfortunately the best candidate seems to be a course in my research area in which I'm applying to graduate schools.

The class takes place during night hours, it's poorly taught/structured, and I seem to know most of the material already. I have publications in the area and I feel as they should make up for not taking the course, but currently dropping the course would show up on my transcript (as a withdrawal).

Would a withdrawal from a course in my related research area negatively affect my graduate application? If so, severely?

Currently I am having a discussion with an advisor, but I'd also like thoughts from others who are familiar with graduate admissions processes. There are several other related questions on this site, but all seem to address a large number of W's or W's in areas not related to their proposed research area.


texts: How do PhD admissions look at A- grades from a Master's student in Math?

texts:
I'm currently graduating with a M.S degree in Mathematics and looking into applying to PhD programs in Mathematics this Fall.

My GPA overall is in the 3.90+ range. Course grades are either A- or A. About 30% of them are A- with two or three courses I would assume to be critical.

I was wondering how PhD admissions view these A- in general. Talking with some of my professors and adviser, either admission committees would take A- as an A (not care) or have some concern, especially in those critical courses. Within the department, A- is more of "you did what you're supposed to, but you could've done better".

Overall, I think I have a strong application (great recommendations, high Subject Math GRE score, some experience in research), so I'm not too concerned, but how concerned should I be?

I will admit I'm being nit-picky, pedantic, and need to worry about more important things in life.


texts: Etiquette for reaching out to previous students of advisor

texts:
I have a question that isn't immediately relevant to me, and I'm not sure will be important in the future as I am quite happy with my situation. It is however something I have thought about at length and I've yet to come up with a set of general guidelines. I am a graduate student in the United States studying Mathematics, and am currently working with an advisor who has graduated ~10 students in his career. He has in the past mentioned a couple of the students, both in the context of research and current careers.

Is it appropriate to ask my advisor's former students questions regarding my relationship with said advisor? If this is a normal practice (as the question below would suggest), what is the etiquette to use in this situation? In particular, I am asking in the case where the previous students have all moved on and already graduated so email seems to be the best method of reaching out. Also, given that these conversations could contain sensitive information (i.e. questions regarding funding options given to the student, or grievances with said advisor) what would be the "kind" way to prevent the "sensitive" parts of the conversation from being relayed back to the advisor? Finally, would it be wise to reach out to some of these former student's at some point in my studies just for introduction and networking purposes? It is unlikely that our research interests would line up exactly, but it is an opportunity to contact people who have been through the same experience.

A specific case that is could become relevant in the future:

One of my advisor's recent students went into industry, and if this was something I considered in the future, would it be intrusive to email them and ask about their transition from graduate school to industry? In particular, would asking questions specific to my advisor's thoughts on this transition be appropriate? Also, related to the sensitive part, if for whatever reason I didn't want the advisor to know this was something I was considering would it be okay to ask the former student to keep this between us?

Note, I thought there would be many threads with a similar question, but the closest thing searches brought up was this link.


texts: How to present a degree that was earned abroad on a business card?

texts:
I live in Australia and hold a M.A. degree from the University of Hamburg.

That degree doesn't exist in Australia, so I can't get it acknowledged through the accrediting bodies.

What is the etiquette to present such a degree on a business card?

[Update] I refer to a particular degree in the area of child education and not to the term 'Master of Arts', which of course does exist in Australia.


texts:
I have dropped out of 2 MSc in CSE programs because of my health issues and lack of proper math background.
You can check the full story from my previous question.

What should I do now to go ahead and restart my aspirations to become an appropriate candidate for a Ph.D. program?

Some answerers suggested that I should go back to my incomplete M.Sc. degree. Another answerer in the comment suggested that even though my dropped master’s degrees were 2y in length, completing 1y or 1.5y programs will also be sufficient.
My new question is, does the reputation matter in this case if the program is accredited?
My previous universities were state-run mainstream universities with the times Subject-rank of 601-800.
Is it advisable/sufficient to enroll and finish my MSc degree in an accredited private university in the same country with no ranking in Times or QS?


texts: Should a speaker attend a conference where he/she is required to pay their own registration fee?

texts:
I have been accepted to present a paper at a conference in a recognised university.

There is no doubt about the 'legitimacy' or public standing of this university as it is recognised worldwide. In addition, it is the management department within the university that is organising the conference. The keynote speakers are recognised and leaders in their fields.

The conference has two streams: peer review and non-peer review. The non-peer review is more like practical / application of theories in practice.

I am located in the non-peer review section and was asked to pay my own registration of $500. There is no assistance for travel etc.

Is this normal for an international conference? (I always thought at least the speaker's registration was stand expense that was borne by the conference organisers).

What are the pros and cons of attending and presenting at such conferences?


texts: I want to know, are e-books (digital version) comparable to physical books in citations? Can I use only e-books instead of real books for finding citations, notes to put in my Bachelor thesis?


texts:
I am doing research on a topic related to an authentication technique. For my own convenience (and for the others), I'm doing all my research and putting everything on a webpage which I'll host on my personal website. I am more organized when there's an anchor link which takes me from text to the bibliography and when everything is online.

It would be an added benefit and convenience if I can also put all the papers I refer to on the same website. Is it permissible to do so? For instance, I heard a professor even encourage putting the paper online (which was originally on arXiv. But then I actually paid for a paper from Springer, and I was wondering if I can use the same logic and just assume that it is legal to do so. My intention is only to aid myself and anyone else interested in my research to access the papers I referred to in my research.


texts: Is the math jobs wiki around this year (2013)?

texts: For the past few years there has been a math jobs wiki with lists of posted jobs together with "rumors" about shortlists, interviews and offers. This year the website hasn't been working. Does anyone know if the website will be available this year?


texts: How do you cite from a presentation or poster at a conference?

texts:
For example, a presentation whose PDF is listed at http://www.astro.ex.ac.uk/exoclimes/2012/pdf/talks/Day02_Ferreira.pdf?

And what if the presentation doesn't have a publicly available URL? How would the citation style differ from that of a poster?


texts: What to include for a strong research statement for a faculty position?

texts:
An application for a faculty position normally needs a strong research statement, but what is included in a good research statement?

Highlighting the past successful research projects evidenced by
publications?
Giving novel ideas for future research, although there is no evidence
that the applicant can be successful in this field?
Including technical descriptions and graphs or writing for a broad range of readers?
Emphasizing potential collaborations for prospective research
projects?

In general, what are the eye-catching points of a research statement? What does the search committee look for in a research statement, and what can extraordinarily impress them?


texts: Why bother publishing papers in journals?

texts:
Read this: Why publication in an academic journal matters

It says:

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

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

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


texts: Serving sweets at an oral qualifying exam

texts:
What are your opinions on serving sweets at an oral exam. The only people attending would be the exam committee members.

For my master's degree I was at a school where it was customary for everyone to bring cookies and coffee at oral exams or presentations. However, now I'm at a school where generally nothing is served at seminars unless the speaker is visiting from another university.

My lab-mates mostly only brought some bottled water to the exam for the committee members. One, also made a pot of coffee and brought it to the exam.

My exam will be later in the afternoon and I know that two of my committee members will have been in another exam prior to the start of mine. I feel like it would be nice if I brought a box of candy or something along with water and maybe coffee for refreshment. I'm a little worried about them getting impatient or in a bad mood as the exam draws on. One of my lab-mates however thinks that I would be taking it too far and I may offend the committee members.

What are your thoughts?

EDIT: this was marked as a possible duplicate. I believe it is different because the other question was referring to a defense where anyone could attend. Providing refreshments in such a case could be seen as an attempt to get more people to attend. In my case no one was allowed to attend and I was afraid that a committee member could see this as me giving "gifts" in hopes of swaying them.


texts: How to read 2 academic papers a day without confusion?

texts: Assume you are reading two academic papers every day. What strategies can I use to decrease the possibility of confusion between the two?


texts: Can you appeal to the associate editor when given unreasonable requests for revisions?

texts:
We submitted a paper and got two rejections (from reviewers 1 & 2) and two acceptances (from reviewers 3 & 4) after the first round of revision. Now we have received a letter from the associated editor asking us to again revise the paper, and to include a response letter addressing the concerns of reviewers 1 and 2. Hence, the paper is not rejected or accepted.

We feel reviewer 1's comment to include a new case study is not reasonable, and reviewer 2's comment fundamentally changes the problem structure. We explained our reasoning in both cases in detail in our original response letter (especially in response to reviewer 1).

Is it reasonable to appeal to the associate editor at this stage (i.e., before rejection)?

UPDATE: The paper got published in the next revision. We took a middle path strategy: I wrote directly to the associate editor and briefly discuss my objections with the reviewer 1 & drafted my response letter to reviewer 2.


texts: Postdoctoral fellowships/calls to work in Europe for scientists/mathematicians/engineers that are similar to Marie curie?

texts:
I was wondering where I can find any information on the postdoctoral fellowships/calls to work in Europe which are similar to Marie Curie? I'm doing my
basic internet search on this, but don't seem to succeed that much. I'm especially talking about the fellowships that are offered in the areas of pure or applied sciences or engineering areas.

Any information, site or blog that you know of, I'd greatly appreciate if you could please pass it onto me.

Thanks a lot!


texts: How can I mentally prepare for grad school?

texts:
I'm starting grad school in the Fall and what worries me isn't the material. I'm good at my subject, I know I will be fine. What worries me are the stresses. Grad school is stressful. Even the impending stress is stressful.

I am planning on studying more of my subject before entering which is the easy part, the hard part is learning to cope with the stress. Can you recommend a book, meditation practice, etc.?


texts: How do I ask my professor to recommend me to a few specific industry positions?

texts:
I am working in the US for a professor as a contracted research staff, and my contract will soon end. The professor holds daily meetings with the bosses of several companies, over a project we collaborate on. These companies have several public job listings that I consider myself a good fit for. Unfortunately, the scope of my job doesn't allow me much interaction with the staff from these companies.
However, I can see on LinkedIn that at least 500 people are applying to each of these positions every week. I am worried that if I file my application the conventional way, then it will get lost in the sea of HR paperwork, or even not get past the automatic filter. These companies also have a preference for PhDs, which I do not have at the moment.
Is it appropriate for me to persuade the professor to speak to the bosses directly about these jobs on my behalf? Are there any potential downsides?


texts: In email applications should the text of the cover letter be stated directly in the email or be attached in a separate file?

texts:
When applying for example to a postdoc position, is it appropriate to write the text of the cover letter directly into the email, or should it be attached as a seperate file?

One advantage of stating the content of the cover letter directly in the email I could see is that there are good changes that the potential future employer reads it before opening any other ducuments, such as the curriculum vitae, list of publications, etc that might be attached.


texts: What are the pedagogical and institutional implications of implementing a Lecture Capture system?

texts:
My university is about to roll-out a Lecture Capture system (Panopto in this case), and I am in the business of promoting and supporting it.  In case it makes a difference, I am in the UK.  I suppose there might be some degree of cultural specificity here, but my suspicion at this point is that the technical environment is a more significant factor.

In principle (being something of a hardened technophile by nature) I have no problem with championing this kind of system, but I want to be able to anticipate both the opportunities AND the challenges that it represents.

Therefore I am interested in people's direct experience and/or theoretical observations concerning the real-world consequences of adopting such a system, AND in the real enthusiasms and anxieties (even if they are ill-founded) that such an adoption tends to raise.  Those will be real and must be managed positively, whether or not they are initially well-informed.

For example, I am pretty sure that such systems can be used poorly, just consuming effort without observable benefit.  I can imagine them generating perceived requirements that achieve little, imposed for political reasons by administrators who neither use nor understand them.  (I am not at all prejudiced against university administrators as a group:  I am a long-time administrator, and only more recently an active teaching academic as well.)  In turn this might conceivably increase the pressure of fee-paying student demand ('I want you to do it like this...') perhaps without really benefiting anyone at all.

On the other hand, I can also easily imagine the possibility of enhanced and enriched educational delivery, presumably with a suitably tuned sort of preparation.

Most broadly, my immediate instinct is that use of this kind of system will necessitate at least some extra considerations (and presumably effort) in preparation... but that a well-planned implementation could pay off in terms like scaleability of provision and replicability of material.

Then again, that also seems automatically to raise the idea of maintenance.  In a way it's rather lovely to think that a 'captured' lecture could just be presented over and over again... but in practice both the subject matter and the institutional context (course structure, audience, whatever) will change over time.  Surely there will be conflicting pressures to create material that will last through many presentations, but also to update it dynamically from one presentation to another.  Even if we have the time and resources to do that, how do we do it with credibility, when (for example) I might go grey from one year to the next (that happened), or might simply no longer possess that jacket?

So...  As a long-time technogeek (I have built all of my own PCs, for 25 years) I am vividly aware that simply adopting a potentially clever system does not intrinsically produce cleverness, and might in fact produce nothing but headaches.  At best, it seems inevitable that niggles like my guesses above will arise.  At worst, decommitting from a poorly-conceived implementation and its associated expectations can be costly and even catastrophic.

Pretty much the whole point of asking this group this question is that I am bound to have missed loads of issues or possibilities; and the ones that I have thought of so far might not be the most important ones at all.

Any observations specific to Panopto would be splendid, of course, but I am also interested in the cultural effect (and/or comparisons) of any analogous systems.  I will welcome both idealistic and suspicious assessments, anything from hymns of praise to bitter war-stories.  In the end, the well-being of thousands of students will depend on us getting this right, so we need to get it right for staff from the beginning as well.


texts: How can an undergraduate Computer Engineer start making publications before his Thesis?

texts:
I am interested in getting involved with research, but I don't know exactly how or what I should be doing to achieve that.

What would be the best moves to do towards the campus, teachers and/or other groups inside the university?
Are there other ways of getting started?
What should I be doing to get noticed?

Thanks in advance for your responses.


texts: What is the correct form of conferences/proceedings/transactions name in a citation?

texts:
I usually try to get citation from publishers website and import it into a reference manager like endnote. I have doubt about the correct form of conferences/proceedings/transactions name in citation. As an example, the provided citation for this paper in IEEE format is this:

  D. Bi-Ru and I. C. Lin, "Efficient Map/Reduce-Based DBSCAN Algorithm
  with Optimized Data Partition," in Cloud Computing (CLOUD), 2012 IEEE
  5th International Conference on, 2012, pp. 59-66.

It seems to be misplaced but as you could see in the "published in" section of IEEE webpage of the paper, the conference name is the same as this citation.

The same holds for proceedings and transactions.

Is this way of citation correct?


texts:
I am preparing a paper for proceedings of a conference in the domain of engineering and physics.

Is it formally acceptable to add a figure in the introduction?
The idea is that I am explaining something that is already done/known, and I would like to keep it in the introduction as a part of the bibliographical paragraph. This idea should explain the experimental setup, and clearly this will be much clear by using an illustration.


texts: How to find less-difficult-than famous unsolved problems?

texts:
When I was in my high school I studied 14 undergraduate books with almost all their exercises. I am about to begin my undergraduate in mathematics this week. I love to do research in mathematics. I met a few professors during the last few months and asked them if they can accept me as their 'unofficial' research student but they all refused even if after I become officially an undergraduate student but without taking "research for undergraduates" course or I have be their graduate students.

Trying to do research on my own, I found a book that includes many unsolved problems. My question is that if I choose to do research like most students, that is adding knowledge to mathematics by expanding it gradually and in smaller steps, I can't because I don't have a adviser to know the frontiers and if I want to be an independent researcher I just know the problems that are famous to be impossible to solve!

How can I take a win-win with both; that is how to find 'smaller' unsolved problems like the problems students publish papers on, as an independent researcher when nobody willing to share them?

Also I found out that if learn mathematics along doing research I memorize the materials easily after analyzing them. That's a good side-effect of research compared to only studying.


texts: Should you recuse yourself from the hiring committee if you have had a past romantic relationship with an applicant?

texts: If you are on a hiring committee and find out that one of the applicants is someone you have had a past romantic relationship with, should you recuse yourself?


texts: What type of Grad School if I'm interested in Quantum Computing?

texts:
I'm currently an undergraduate at a prestigious private university in the U.S. I'm majoring in Physics, Math, and Computer Science and currently am a junior. I've taken 5 graduate level courses so far (including Real Analysis and Algorithms) and have undergraduate experience working in a lab in a field unrelated to quantum computing (for which I'm in the process of writing a paper about). I've also taken a course in quantum computing, 2 semester of undergraduate quantum mechanics, 2 semesters of discrete math, and a course on complexity theory. I plan to take 2 semesters of grad quantum in my senior year as well as 2 semesters in mathematical logic.

I'm interested in going to graduate school for theoretical work in quantum computing and quantum information theory. I'm wondering if I should be aiming to apply to Computer Science, Math (Applied I would guess), or Physics departments if I want to do research in those fields.


texts: What steps should I follow in order to be able to start conducting research if there's no sign of support within my department?

texts:
My understanding of research is that it's a way to find solutions/answers to questions/problems in a certain subfield of a bigger discipline, which in my case would be Computer Science (honestly, it'd be more like Computer Engineering).

I think I know, however, that if these problems and solutions are too simple or banal, the whole process of doing research is irrelevant because

surely somebody else has already worked in that, and
there's no sense in working in something that won't contribute a significant amount of knowledge to the discipline.

This means that in order to get worthy (or at least relevant) problems to research, you must be at the cutting edge of the field so that you have an idea of what's not yet known and you can start working on it. Am I right?

If I am, that sounds kind of complicated. I have heard that I should read lots of papers in an area of my interest and work from there, but I'm sincerely not sure about how to start doing even this. I have access to the ACM Digital Library, for example, but I don't know what to search for, what to read, or in what order to do so.

I am alone in this, for my university is weak in research and no professors seem to be interested in it. Do you have any tips, or any specific set of steps that you followed to get into research?


texts: How do postdoc proposal and PhD proposal differ?

texts:
I am particularly interested in postdoc proposals in the social sciences and in the humanities. In these fields, the applicant usually has a thesis manuscript that they want to turn into a book or a few articles or both. This task requires revisions; it may also require some additional research, if the manuscript is to be substantially augmented.

Since it is mostly (say 75% for a one-year postdoc) about extending and revising an existing manuscript, there seems to be a large overlap between the dissertation exposé and the postdoc proposal. How to avoid a proposal that is overly «backward-looking», i.e. that mostly repeats the PhD thesis? Since some kind of summary is probably necessary, what is a good ratio between the summary and the description of the proposed future work? Finally, how does a PhD exposé – which typically explains the state of the art, the research puzzle, then the methods and hypotheses – differ from a postdoc proposal in terms of its structure?


texts: Seeking PhD students on traditional job sites

texts:
I am considering seeking my first PhD student through a job site (indeed, etc).

I am starting an assistant professorship,hope to attract a PhD student this fall, and lack the name recognition to have students banging on my door. I would, nonetheless, like to have a certain amount of choice.

Edit: I should clarify here that I am an Engineer, but also have training in the social sciences. As such, my students will necessarily be interdisciplinary.

I have seen postdocs advertised this way. Thoughts on doing it for a Ph.D. student? Tips from those that have done it?

I am also curious: if this idea bothers you, why? Practically, why is this not commonly done?


texts: How to Help Commuter Student with problems at home

texts: How do I help a student being controlled by his parents? He has a lot of potential but his parents give him projects over schoolwork and discourage him. What role can I play in helping the student?


texts: How to overcome "No Research Experience" in CS Ph.D applications

texts:
I am a 4th year computer engineering undergraduate student who will apply for Ph.D. programs this winter/spring, for the next fall semester. I have decided to become an academic 2 years ago, and head of department said "keep your gpa high and you will be fine". Well, I have increased my gpa, from 2.5 to 3.5 but now I see that I need research experience to be admitted to good programs. ( I can't afford masters program)

I thought I didn't need a research experience, yet while I was thinking that, I see that undergraduate students all over the world were doing research. I admit I was naive to think so but I was guided that way. So few months ago I am trying to learn about admission process and I see many people over the internet with tons of research experience and even papers waiting to be published, or already published. And the most important part of SOP is research experience.

And guess what? There is no lab at my university. And not a single instructor that does research in the field I want. It is a very small department (5 full time assistant professors).

So obviously, I cannot get into a top or very good program with these conditions, and they have every right to decline me. But I believe it is my right to get into a good valid program that matches my interests. I shouldn't take the whole responsiblity of non existent opportunities that other students had in other universities.

I would like to know, from experienced people, about what I should do to get into a Ph.D. program without direct proof of research capabilities. No lab work, no research, nada. Just reading many papers in the field I am interested in for last few months, and high motivation.

Or is it a point where I should say "That's life and never fair" and have plan B and plan C?

Thank you


texts: Do I have to sign a copyright transfer agreement to publish an article?

texts: In my experience with publishing in some journals, those journals require a signature on a copyright transfer agreement before an article can be published online or in print. Do I have to sign this agreement in order to publish or are there alternatives to this? What do I gain and/or lose by signing (or not signing) such an agreement?


texts: What is the difference between open access and open archive?

texts: In Elsevier ScienceDirect search, there are two types of access type filters; Open Access articles and Open Archive articles. What is the difference between these two? Is there a notable difference between the terms themselves?


texts: Can you describe a required online science course that used discussion well?

texts:
I am re-designing an introductory biology course for an online summer session - five weeks of hard work for the students. They are mostly lower-division students who are re-taking the class or are adding bio as a minor.

I can transmit content no problem with videos and outlines. What I'm hoping to do is also present students with problems to solve and encourage them to work together through these difficult, new presentations of the material and help each other. I'm using Moodle, so this will likely happen in the discussion fora -- though I'm open to using a third-party tool.

Generally, students are not motivated by the joy of discovery, particularly in a double-time online environment. But they are willing to do work if it is clearly related to how well they will do on exams. I'm looking for data - has anyone taken (or taught) an online SCIENCE class that had group and application work they felt really improved their understanding of the material? If so, please describe.


texts: Accused of Cheating during an online exam

texts:
Today, I got accused of cheating on an exam I took yesterday. It was a lockdown browser exam, my exam as well as several other students exams were also flagged because of the following reasons.

This was a 20 multiple choice question exam, and here is the response I was given,

the answers were identical
the time the answers were submitted is identical

The vice chair for my university emailed me stating “there is absolutely no way this can happen by chance  The odds are 1 in 10^1000 or something to that order”

The vice chair also explained this will go through due process so I will have a chance to explain my side.

I don’t know how to feel about this, I feel as if there is nothing I can do and all my hard work put into this class is going to waste.

What action should I take? How can I respond to this claim?

Note from comments: I did not cheat.


texts: Publishing several research papers in the same journal

texts:
In some cases a specific journal is one of the most important and relevant places for a research topic. So, is this normal and acceptable (for a pre-Ph.D. researcher) to have several papers published in that journal? I once heard from a professor that it may affect the CV in a destructive way.

If I have several papers published in the same journal, will people think that my papers were published not because they were good, but because I was somehow able to bypass the peer review process?


texts: I am a PhD candidate and I have been offered an internship that I want to take. My advisor objects. Should I take it anyway?

texts:
I am a PhD candidate in computer engineering. I've just finished my 2nd year. I finished all courses and passed the comprehensive exam. Currently working in a nice research project in collaboration with a big company but I haven't published yet.
I applied and got accepted into a one-year-long internship at the same company (20 hours a week) in the very same topic. I see it as a great opportunity because I want to work in the industry after my PhD and the internship fits perfectly with my research and thesis. But my supervisor disagrees with me and doesn't want me to take it. He thinks that it will compromise my PhD and told me if I take it, that will be at my own risk.
What should I consider when making this decision? How should I weigh this opportunity against my supervisor's advice?


texts: What do mathematics researchers do if they aren't good?

texts:
I am a high school student so I don't know much about academia, but I would like to clear up some confusion I have over research in mathematics. Please excuse my naivite/ignorance on this topic.

I get the impression that mathematics research at the graduate and post-doc level is hard. It could take months of getting nowhere before you make some progress on a problem, and depending on how good you are and the difficulty level of the problem, you could go an entire year without publishing any papers. I get the impression that proving interesting or important results is even harder and is really only for the best - the real mathematicians. By important I mean results that will be noticeably useful to other researchers in the field.

I am guessing that not every person who gets a PhD and goes into research is good enough to prove interesting or important results, and I'm guessing that the percentage of PhD's who go into research and who will become successful mathematicians is less than 50%. I'm wondering what do these people do? If they can't publish enough papers and they aren't successful in solving any problems, they can't continue like this forever right? I mean at some point the university they are employed by will reject them? Do these people leave academia entirely and go into industry, or switch fields into physics or something like that?

Please let me know if my understanding is correct.


texts:
I am still in the process of choosing which major in the SEAS of my school I should pursue.

I want to go into an applied math PhD program after undegrad, so must I choose applied mathematics as my major? Or can I pursue electrical engineering or mechanical engineering? A double major isn't an option.

Any thoughts?


texts: Should I still consider this person as an advisor?

texts:
I was discussing some matters with a potential MSc thesis advisor. However, when I pointed out a mistake they had made, they kept on stubbornly denying it and just dismissed my claims. This annoyed me as I had spent a lot of time verifying that
 it was in fact a mistake and building up strong evidence, and this professor didn't even seem to make an effort to listen to my arguments. In the end I had to give up because I was not making any progress.

In your opinion, should I still consider this person as an advisor? The thesis will take up 2 semesters of work. I fear that if my advisor is not able to admit their own mistakes, this could seriously compromise my work. Should I interpret this episode as a red flag that tells me not to work with this person? Or is it possible that as time goes on they would start trusting me better and consequently be more willing to accept my remarks? Keep in mind that aside from what I just said, this person seemed the ideal advisor for me right now.


texts: Using a figure from a journal article on a personal website

texts:
I'm writing an article on a personal website and in some of the reference material that I'm already citing, there are a few good figures that I'd like to include in the article.

This is probably a silly question but I'm wondering if this is allowed under copyright laws. Specifically, if I cite the original paper/source, would I be violating any copyright laws? Should I be contacting the authors of the paper for permission?


texts: Length of Supporting Statement to Faculty Position application

texts:
I'm currently applying for one "entry-level" faculty position in the UK (CS). Differently from other applications I have seen, in this one they ask the applicant to address each of the items listed in a "Person Specification" section of the job description.

There are 15 points, ranging from simple yes/no questions ("Do you have a PhD?") to more elaborate ones ("Evidence of Teaching excellence"). I've addressed everything I can think of in my document so far. However it is quite long, 3.5 pages.

My question is: how long is a statement of this nature expected to be? There are no page limits that I have seen. Should I try to shorten it?


texts: A professional reference letter for pure math graduate school

texts:
I'm applying for master's degree in mathematics (pure math) at Canadian universities.

I already found two professors to write academic letters for me, but it's hard to find the third one who can write a strong letter.

All schools mentioned on their websites that they require 3 letters with at least two academical references which means the third one could be professional.

I've been working as a math tutor at a community college  in Toronto for past 3 co-op terms. She has supervised me for 2 co-op terms and knows me very well (even more than my professors).

Her position is Learning strategists - math specialist which means her job is to support students' learning and deal with their academic concerns. Before the current job, she earned her master's degree in mathematics and statistics and worked as a lecturer/teaching assistant at a university for 5-7 years and was an instructor at the current college for few years. I don't want to reveal too much about her, but at least I can say she went to/worked at top Canadian universities.

I have built good relationship with her as a co-op student & supervisor and I have some impressive achievements in a college tutor level. So I believe she can write a strong letter for me.

My concern is she doesn't hold PhD. Would committee take her letter seriously? Do you recommend to get a letter from her rather than from a professor who barely knows me?


texts: When to publish a journal article versus a scholarly book?

texts:
In some fields, original research is reported almost exclusively in journal articles, but in others scholarly books are more common.

In the latter fields, how does one decide whether to publish a journal article or wait and introduce the research in a longer book?


texts: How relevant are (journal) papers for the valuation of one’s work and results?

texts:
I am a PhD student at an engineering department in Europe. At my department, and at most others in my university, research papers are the main benchmark of a scientist’s productivity. It seems like this is also true in other institutions.

For instance, last year the faculty considered the number of journal papers for each department a key performance indicator, and when a PhD student is at the end of his/her studies, he/she is often judged by colleagues based on how many papers they have published.

There is no threshold of a number of papers required in order to obtain a PhD or a senior position, and conference papers are also relevant and encouraged, but counting journal papers is the key point. In the end, a PhD thesis is just the sum of published papers during the PhD studies, and itself is not that relevant.

Naturally, I feel pressured to publish and to have lots of papers to support my upcoming degree. It seems to make sense - if you have a result, why wouldn't you publish it in a journal? Why wait for the thesis, when it's not really published and nobody will read it? And after all, submitting research to journals and conferences is also beneficial for getting a review of the research from someone who is outside one's department.

However, recently I realized that a friend of mine, also an engineer in a related field, received a PhD from another university with 0 journal papers, and just 1 conference paper where she was a second author. Her university is well regarded, and on almost all world rankings in the top 100. She was accepted for a post-doc position at another top university. I have seen a few other similar cases, and other people just not caring about papers.

I cannot judge the work presented in her thesis, but I found this shocking, and it made me reconsider. How can one be well regarded with hardly any publications? Why would anyone choose not to publish (not counting the thesis as the bare minimum)?

Hence my questions: How relevant are (journal) papers in terms of valuation of a fresh PhD, and for their future career?

EDIT

I would like to thank everyone for their reply, especially @Superbest for the edit (sorry, I am not a native English speaker), I didn't expect that my question would generate such a discussion.
I'd like to clarify some things:

In my field conference papers are less relevant than journal papers, and are used to present research in progress in order to get comments and advices.
The graduate didn't publish a revolutionary paper which is worth like 10 other average papers. We are talking about a zero. I see no reason why would anyone choose NOT to publish at least one paper about a PhD.
Even if the graduate had very good recommendations, why would anyone in academia, which depends on publications, hire someone without any publication record? Why would a professor think that the graduate would suddenly start to be productive?


texts: How to formulate in academic writing when one comes up with a novel approach

texts:
In my project work I came up with a new method for solving a certain problem which has not been used before, by extending an already existing approach.

What type of wording should I use in academic writing to express this fact.

I wrote something in the lines of, but would like to have something more elegant:

  Furthermore, in my project work I propose a novel approach by
  extending X and incorporating an xyz mechanism to it in order to
  get better Z metric

EDIT:

I would also like to say, that "something similar has never been done before to our knowledge"


texts: Who should I ask for reference letters for academic positions?

texts:
I am planning to apply for tenure track academic positions, and I already got 3 letters from people who I have worked with during my PhD, including my advisor.

Do you think I should seek out letters from my former supervisor (masters) and a few that I have published paper with during my master's program? Does it add value to the application?

Also, I have worked with a few fellow students who are now assistant professors in other institutions. Does it make sense to ask for letters from them?


texts: What to wear to a tenure track faculty Zoom interview (men)?

texts:
This interview is at a liberal arts college and will be 15 minutes. Is it necessary to wear a suit to this sort of interview or is it okay to wear a dress pants, dress shirt, and a tie?
Update: There seems to be some confusion about what I mean by 15 minutes. I meant that the interview is scheduled to be 15 minutes long. This is a math TT faculty interview at a SLAC.
I appreciate the good answers that I received below. Thank you.


texts:
I am not an English native speaker and I wrote my thesis in English. If in the title page of my thesis I would like to write

Advisor: "The name of my advisor"

M: "My name",

then what should M most commonly be?

My choice for M is "student" but am not sure of that.

Note: The common culture of my country makes me write the title page as what I show in my question. I may very well be considered "improper" or even "rude" if I do not do that, and consequently would incur unnecessary judgements.


texts: Adding affiliation due to a 1-month visit during a salary gap

texts:
I worked at University A and did a research stay during one month at University B; I was not paid by them, but I got funding (from a third agency) thanks to them for accepting my visit during a salary gap, before going to University C.

About 80% of the paper I want to submit I wrote in my university, but I finished it at University B during said stay, even though my original aim of being at University B was another research topic.

I would like to put U A and U B both as affiliations, since the environment in U B boosted my research (and I don't want to be less thankful than I ought). Is it justified to write both affiliations? Or should I write only University A as affiliation and thank for hospitality to University B and my host there?


texts: As an undergraduate, is it alright to get help finishing my paper?

texts:
15 months ago, I improved the bounds for an open math problem which I think is worthy of publication. Later, 9 months ago, I came up with two further results that I also would like to publish. I have even confirmed with the authors whose work I have improved upon that my results are interesting and my techniques seem valid.
However, I have gotten myself hopeless lost in the editing process for my papers. With the pandemic, professors I know from college and REU have been too busy dealing with shifts in administration to take a look at my work. I’ve written drafts for two the results which I feel are “mostly there,” but I’ve been floundering when it comes to wrapping things up. I have some learning disabilities, and so on a number of occasions I’ve been stuck for an unreasonable amount of time on something basic such as clearly phrasing a particular definition. I have become frustrated with myself and the writing process because it doesn’t feel like I’m making progress anymore, which just drives me to write less.
Obviously, something has to change. To the best of my knowledge, my school does not have a writing center. I’m thinking I will have to pay a technical copy editor look at my work, and perhaps advice me on how clearly express some definitions. I was wondering if this would be looked down upon, and would devalue the worth of my papers. I am also interested to hear where I can find technical copy editors, and if there any other options I should consider.


texts: How should a thesis be structured in this situation?

texts:
My project is generally combining many of the existing techniques into a pipeline with minor modifications in computer science. And this thesis is expected to be my degree thesis, not a journal/conference paper. In this case, should I introduce all the existing theories/techniques in the literature survey/prior work part, or do this in the main part with my architecture? Can you also provide some other advices for such kind of projects.

Thanks in advance!


texts: How much effort does it take to modify a reference letter for different applications?

texts:
I am in my early PhD years and encouraged to apply for scholarships/fellowships that would boost my funding. All of these applications ask for recommendation letters from previous supervisors, and while I had a good relationship with my supervisors, I am no longer doing work for them, so feel guilty asking the same people several times a year to submit letters for me (this is after all of my grad school applications have asked for letters from them). Especially (I presume) when some of these awards may be asking for specific qualities/information about me that might require some updating of both the letter's content and format each time.

Since I have never written a recommendation letter or seen what requests specifically ask for before, I was wondering:

How much variation is 'typically' encountered between different fellowships/scholarships? Do referees need to make major edits between different applications or is it possible to mostly copy-paste the same letter once you have it written for the same applicant? How long does it take to adapt a pre-written letter for each new application? How much effort is it comparable to? Sending a regular email? Holding an office hour? Grading a problem set? Putting together a final exam?
Is it reasonable for students you have supervised in the past to keep asking for recommendation letters? Does this become tiresome?


texts: How to turn down an offer if you aren't sure where you're going yet?

texts:
I'm a PhD applicant. I recently got an offer from a school I will not be attending.

The Professor that I spoke to politely asked that, if possible, I give an answer as soon I know if I'm attending the university.

I've already determined that I won't be attending, as I'm deciding between a couple other offers that I like better.  What's the best way to turn down the offer without explicitly mentioning where I'm going instead (since I don't know yet).


texts: What is purpose and meaning of "Propositions" in PhD thesis?

texts:
I found a weird and intuitively strange document that is submitted with the thesis. It is called

  Propositions To accompanying a dissertation on the.....

and it is such a strange thing included, that maybe it is a cultural thing specific to Dutch academia? Its content is as follows:

  To cycle up a steep hillside one needs to accumulate strength beforehand. This is a similar process to planning one’s work. Democracy is forbidden in science. Doing science is similar to the Chinese martial arts (Kungfu). Alongside learning and practice, both are capable of creating physiological or psychological disorder.

In the end, this proposition finishes with

  The contention is that these propositions lend themselves to opposition and are defendable, and have been approved as such by promoter [promoter’s name] and co-promoter [co-promoter’s name].

for me, this is so strange and not understandable. Why would this be submitted with the thesis? Please, can someone explain me the meaning?


texts:
I'm wondering what the minimum amount of rows and cells (i.e. cells) for tables in a thesis is. That is, above which amount of cells should I switch from continuous text to tables. Obviously, it also depends to some degree on the size of the cells, i.e. the amount of text.

I currently have a table with two columns and four rows. The first column contains cells with one word each, the second column has cells with 2-4 words. It looks really dumb on paper, but I resist writing continuous text because there really isn't more to say on the four rows and it would sound "jerky".


texts: First published date vs Issue date: Which do I cite?

texts: I need to cite this paper https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1088868311417243 . However the year it was first published (2011) and the year it was published in an issue (2012) are different. When I cite it, I will provide the issue and volume numbers, so what year do I cite it by, the first publish year or the first appeared in issue year?


texts: Can conference papers use the original words in published papers?

texts:
Conference papers are often only about 10 pages. When I was writing conference papers, some words seemed unnatural. Can I directly use the original words in someone else's paper? Not a conclusion or opinion. For example:

In this paper, we investigate and present a new type of hardware vulnerability to covert timing channels exposed by [Other people's methods]

I changed it to mine in the thesis:

In this paper, we investigate and present a new type of hardware vulnerability to covert timing channels exposed by others + [my method]

Is this feasible? I just used its sentences to express my idea


texts: How hard is it to get an academic position in Australia/New Zealand with a PhD from the US?

texts:
I am originally from India, currently a PhD student in Mathematics in the US. As such I don't have very many ties to the US and I was wondering whether it is common for PhDs from the US to get academic positions in Australia and New Zealand. I have seen some jobs postings on http://www.mathjobs.org/ advertising positions in Aus/NZ universities, but I am not sure how many US PhDs apply to them.

  Are most faculty members in Aus/NZ universities 'homegrown', or is it fairly common to see PhD's from other countries? Is a US PhD the norm, an advantage, or a disadvantage when applying for an academic position in Aus/NZ?


texts: How to get a new personal academic webpage to show up in searches

texts:
I recently create a new google sites-powered webpage for my academic page (after seeing discussions at this question and others).

However, being a brand new page, it won't come up at all if you search for my name (even with qualifiers such as 'math' or my institution).

What steps should I take to ensure that others can find my website?

I am specifically looking for answers that apply to academic pages, as I've heard that they may be indexed in a different way from normal webpages.


texts: Is it correct for a PhD holder to sign as "Dr. J. Doe, PhD"?

texts:
I have seen some of the PhD holders sign as "Dr. [First Name] [Surname], PhD".

Is it academically correct to write "Dr. Frank Amoani Arthur, PhD"?


texts: How to ask PhD advisor to work remotely on thesis for extensive periods?

texts:
I am in a PhD program in a top US institution but my SO,family,friends are somewhere else. I am considering a thesis that would require minimal/no field or lab work. This would be a big compromise as I was hoping to do intensive field work but there is no funding for field work. I thought that a compromise would be that I can work on it remotely. I haven't mentioned yet to my advisor that I am home sick as we don't really connect on a personal level, but we have a good connection on a research level.

How do I approach my advisor saying that I would like to work remotely for 6 months out of the year? I have worked remotely before and it has always worked but I don't know how this type of setup is seen at a top tier US institution.
How do I approach my advisor about this issue?


texts: Is it possible to recover after a career setback such as this?

texts:
I'm sorry, I'm not a mathematician--I'm the wife of a very frustrated and depressed mathematician.

My husband got a math PhD in 2009, and could not get a research post-doc in his chosen field.  We had young children at that point, and he spent two years as a lecturer, applied for hundreds of jobs, and finally took a tenure-track job at a teaching university. Now, he honestly believes that a research position is impossible for him.  He loves to teach, but hates the endless grind of "administrivia", the low pay, and the mental laziness of the students he's required to teach. (I wish I could give more details, but his research area was a fairly small community, and I don't want to give any aspect of his identity away.)

I hate watching this brilliant man say things like, "Well, since I didn't get a post-doc, I'm stuck on this path, and there's nothing I can do to get out of it."  I hate watching him spiral into depression.  I am insisting on him getting counseling, but he refuses to take anyone's encouragement that other jobs are possible, saying things like, "You just don't know the academic world.  If I go to the NSA, no one will hire me in an academic position.  If I become an actuary (because we do need more money) then all of my time will be sucked into studying for exams, and I still won't be able to do research." In his mind, no one in our circle of loved ones has the authority or experience to give him accurate encouragement.  So I'm looking to anonymous strangers at this point. :(  Is a research position possible after spending time at a teaching university?  Would he be able to get back into academia if he had to leave to do actuarial work/industry/something that helps pay the bills?

I wanted to give a brief update.

To begin with, THANK YOU to everyone who replied.  My husband's eyes lit up after seeing that 1) This was a fairly common problem, and not somehow indicative of his skill level;  2) There were solutions, other than being miserable; and 3) The solutions did not a) condemn him to a life of administrivia, or b) require him to leave academia all together.

After getting the hope he needed from you guys, he spoke with a mentor of his from undergrad, and was given incredibly specific guidance on where to go from here.  His teaching load is so heavy, (4/4 or 4/3) and the mentor gave him a few places to apply to in his field where the teaching load is more conducive to some research, but is not at a research-specific university.   (3/3 or even 3/2!!!) He plans on speaking to his advisor, getting some glowing letters of recommendation, and starting a job search soon.

Thanks so much.  It was nice to see his face light up again. <3


texts: As an undergrad, how to leave a research group that I told them I will do my PhD there

texts:
I am a 4th-year undergraduate student and have been working in two joint research groups (voluntarily, no credit from a course, no pay) for more than a year. I have applied to some Master's and PhD programs but while I was doing that I have talked with PIs of the research groups and they said that they want me to stay in that university to do my Master's and PhD there. At that time, I was getting rejected from some of the PhD programs and I feared that I will get into any program, so I told them that I will stay (I didn't lie, that was my actual intention at that time).

But, now I have been accepted to the PhD program that I wanted most and accepted the offer directly.

Since I have started working with them, they have been great advisors, very generous, kind and they definitely have changed my entire life, let alone my academic career. The research environment and the post-docs have been also quite good and we have even published an article which I am also a coauthor.

Given that I have (prematurely) told them I will stay there (at that time, the applications hadn't even started) and now will go elsewhere, I feel like I am cheating them and thing that this will "burn the bridges", which I definitely don't want.

Question:

Given the situation, how to approach my PIs and tell them I will not stay there for my graduate studies? They even asked me how I was doing in this epidemic multiple times, so I cannot simply write a cold, professional email.

Note that, the field I have been working in there and the one I will work during my PhD are quite close, so we (me and my advisors) could possibly collaborate in the future, and in fact I would love to be in contact with them and help in any way if I can (my expertise on the field is limited but I am learning new things every day).


texts: Review response to quite positive review comments - first grant

texts:
I recently received the review reports for my first grant. All four scores were 5 out of 6. The comments are also mostly positive. Two criticised a bit about the pathways to impact and the support from the department, but nothing major.

What do you think I should write in my response? I've drafted a version and made a response to each point raised by the reviewers. However, my mentor thinks that probably the reviewers were not enthusiastic enough or something like that - and that’s the really serious thing, and that I need to emphasise my proposal is great, not to answer the "lazy" questions from reviewers.

I am a bit confused. What shall I write then?


texts: What questions should I ask a PI in a PhD interview?

texts:
I am going to attend my PhD interview online. The PI asked me to present my previous work and a research proposal in 10 min. I made a 8 slide presentation. Is it very big for 10 min?

And the other thing he told me is, at the end he is going to give me some time so that I can ask questions. What kind of question should I ask in this case? Related to subject? What other areas (other than subject) should I consider to ask questions?


texts: How much reputational value is added to a journal by being indexed in various abstracting and indexing (A&I) databases?

texts:
I'm co-editing a small communication and media-focused OA journal published by a regional scholarly association. We are in the process of being indexed in selected research databases of EBSCO (just signed the licensing agreement). My question is how does being indexed in EBSCO add to our value as a scholarly journal? As far as I know the publish-or-perish system, the real ground-breaker in terms of being established and respected is being indexed in Thomson Reuters' SSCI or Elsevier's SCOPUS and having an IF. We are still very far from that. Is EBSCO indexing competitive in the current "reputation market", or only good for increasing the visibility of our content?

Now it had come to my attention that many researchers are pressured to publish in faculty recognized journals. Which, I suspect, may differ from the list of SSCI/Scopus-indexed journals in our field. My question is that how bad the idea would be to write to specific departments asking for approving our journal? We can back up our request by showing that we are internationally recognised, question is how strong an argument of being indexed in EBSCO would be in that situation?


texts:
It is possible to obtain two PhD degrees (various fields) on the basis of one interdisciplinary PhD dissertation? Is this something feasible (in Europe)?

Or maybe there must be two different 'physical' doctoral dissertations?


texts: Submitting a thesis without being a student

texts: In what academic cultures is it possible to submit a doctoral thesis without being enrolled into a doctoral program?


texts: How long to wait after sending an email to a professor before I should assume that I will never receive response?

texts:
I have sent  an email to a professor at a local university. The email asks for assistance with a fairly large science fair. I have done much of the work and the email was asking about how I could improve it.
After 4 days I have not received a response yet.

Usually people check their email on a fairly regular basis (Once a day, usually) and so I am naturally worried about it.

Is it possible the professor has not read the email yet or should I email other professors?


texts:
We developed a new method to calculate a characteristic value from measurement data. In my thesis I call the existing method 'Original Method'. However, I am not sure how to name our new method. 'Current Method'? 'Present Method'?

Is there an established standard for this?


texts: What are the impacts on learning of allowing students to eat in class?

texts:
My school has a recommendation, but not a requirement, not to let students eat during class. I am wondering if I should make this a rule or not for the classes I teach. I am concerned about my undergraduate students.

On one hand, the noise from rustling bags and crunching chips and bottles falling on the floor can be distracting. On the other hand, hungry students are distracted by hunger. This is a particular problem for my classes which start before 8 AM as students often skip breakfast and want to eat it during class (because they do not want to wake up early enough to eat before coming to school).

Since my main concern is on the learning, I would like to know how the issue of allowing eating during class actually impacts student learning.


texts: Submitting a paper based on another yet unpublished paper

texts:
I am in computer science. I am currently working on an applied paper that is based on a certain algorithm, let's call it method A.

Method A has been explained deeply in a my previous paper, that now is under review. So it is in arxiv, anybody can read it, but it has not yet being published on a peer review journal or conference.

I am now going to submit the applied paper to a conference, and I have a doubt: even if the results are interesting, how affected are the chances of being accepted for the applied paper, by the fact hat Method A has not yet been reviewed/published?


texts: What does it mean to have a low quantitative but very high verbal/writing GRE for stats PhD application?

texts:
I am applying to statistics and biostatistics PhD programs for next year, and I just got my GRE scores back, and they weren't at all what I expected.

I ended up with a 159V/156Q/6.0AW, which corresponds to 83rd/61st/99th percentile in the verbal/quantitative/analytical writing sections, respectively. So, I have a combined score of 315 with a 6.0 writing.

I understand that most statistics programs place a premium on the quantitative score, and so I am a little worried about my low quantitative score, but I am wondering if the relatively high verbal/writing can offset the weakness there.

For some idea of what kind of student I am, I have about a 3.5 GPA with an applied math major, with a full course in real analysis, mathematical statistics and some graduate level regression theory, and potentially an honors thesis (pending). Since my scores are so atypical compared to other applicants (who typically have much stronger quantitative and lower verbal/writing), I am unsure of what my score means for my application as a whole.

I suppose the question of "do stats programs care?" can be generalized to "do quantitative programs care?". While I see there are some threads on low quantitative scores, there aren't too many about a low quant score combined with a high(er) verbal/writing score.


texts: Paper got rejected, should thank original referees when sending it to another journal?

texts: I got a paper rejected even if the associated editor and the referees liked the paper - it was more of a question of fit. Now I am sending the paper to a similar ranked journal that might be a better fit for the paper. The anonymous referee gave lots of good constructive feedback. Should I thank him in the new version? I am reluctant to it for two reasons. First, the referees or editor at the new journal might correctly infer that the paper was rejected elsewhere and that might bias them against the paper. Secondly, even if the referee was anonymous, given his tastes and comments, I am almost sure he is someone I already thanked in the paper but of course I can not be 100% certain of it.


texts: How much time should I spend on reviewing a paper?

texts: I never tried to avoid becoming a sub-reviewer, and still, this question made me wonder. How much time should I, as a PhD student, spend on a review of a paper that my advisor gave me to do? Does the answer depend on whether I'm getting credit for the review or not, that is whether I'm a sub-reviewer or not?


texts: Impact on PhD application omitting a recommendation letter from research advisor in that field?

texts:
If an applicant has research experience in a field that they are applying to and includes it in their application, would there be negative impact on the application if they chose not to include a recommendation letter from their research advisor for that research experience?

The reasons that they don't may be misconstrued as negative, but it could just be that there are others who could give stronger letters of recommendation, for instance from other research advisors in another field or a teacher with whom the applicant had a very good relationship with. Would not including the research advisor as a recommender be cause for speculation?


texts: What social skills should I practice to make a successful doctoral application?

texts:
I've been applying to doctoral positions in mathematics with a strong background. BSc and MSc in math, and a MSc in computational math/engineering. I've got research experience in my field and connected fields, a paper in preprint and more to come (with novel results), solid references, teaching experience, participated in international competitions representing my university/country, good grades. Still, most of the time I don't even get an interview. I definitely understand that there are people who are better than me, and I'm not mad about it. However, often when they publish who got the positions, and it can be someone who did their BSc over 6-7 years, or who had an adjacent degree (such as computer science or physics) but studied more mathematics, or who hasn't done any teaching or research otherwise.

A few professors I know have told me several times that it's not really fair, so what I have left are social skills. I just don't know what to say. I've had my CV, statement of purpose, application letters reviewed and they said it was really good.

How can I write an application that broadly speaking appeals to such a recruitment committee? What are some interesting forms of describing my ambitions? What catches the attention of a recruiter in terms of research ambitions? I have clearly stated my research topics, as well as why I want to do research in it and how, but I don't know how to spice it up.

Just to be clear, I'm in Europe, so I didn't drop out of any PhD program to get my master degrees. Also, most of the positions were open positions, so I just sent my application and then they will decide on what advisors should get new students.

EDIT 1: I'd like to clear out that I have a BSc and MSc in mathematics, and an additional MSc which is much more applied and incorporates a lot of physics and computer science. Thus, I do have the required courses to apply for a pure math position, which I even have checked up on on their websites.


texts: Possible causes of confusion and mistakes in technical terminology in bilingual settings

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Disclaimer: This question is probably on the brink of off-topicness; maybe, it is also opinion-based and I don't exclude it is way too broad. Nonetheless, I'm asking this out of curiosity: so, if you close this question, I won't complain; but if you answer, I'll appreciate.

To try to stay on track, let me state clearly the rules of the game.

First, I'm interested in the following bilingual settings or situations:

Courses which are taught in a language which is not the local language (e.g. a course taught in English at a German university).
Courses which are taught in the local language that adopt textbooks written in a different language.
Students, researchers and professors who collaborate with people speaking different native languages.

Second, here is the question:

Have you got any example of technical terminology or symbology (from whatever field) which has been, in your experience, cause of confusion, misunderstandings or mistakes in the above given situations?

Let me give you a few examples I've come across:

In English, the term voltage denotes a common electrical quantity. The Italian term for voltage is tensione. Many Italian students who have been exposed to English classes, however, instead of using the correct term when speaking in Italian, use the mistranslated term voltaggio, which looks similar to the English term, but is incorrect.
In German and in several East European countries, the symbol used to denote voltages is U instead of the more common V. But this wouldn't cause much trouble were it not for the fact that the symbology employed to indicate the polarity of a voltage is opposite to that employed in US or in many other European countries. It took me a while to realize this, but now, if I have a technical discussion with someone from those countries, it's the first thing I point out to avoid many headaches to everybody.
A Czech researcher told me that the common low-pass or high-pass filters are actually called high-reject and low-reject filters in the Czech technical literature, and this was a major source of confusion when he started reading the English technical literature.

Note: I'm not interested in common words that can sound awkward or rude or offensive in another language, just technical terminology which can cause confusion.


texts: Guidelines to follow if my adviser suggests that I work on dead-end projects

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I generally chase after whatever my adviser/supervisor tells me to do, although I know that it's sometimes a project that they don't want to spend their time on. I know that I can learn a lot even when I go after such "wild goose chases".

I recently talked to a PhD student though, and he advised me that I should learn when to say "no" to an adviser, to recognize that sometimes those suggestions can lead to "wild goose chases" that aren't worth the time.

What are some guidelines when an adviser wants you to chase a problem that might not be worth its time investment?


texts: How much should a supervisor expect from students who have graduated?

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I have recently completed my PhD and taken up a faculty position at another institution. My new job is busy and I regularly get emails from my PhD supervisor asking me to write protocols or for information which would take only a small amount of effort for her to find (e.g. where things are in the lab; where to order things from; which product was used for a specific experiment). I left my lab books; wrote up detailed methods in my thesis and papers and showed a lot of this stuff to her new employee before leaving. She is quite aggressive about getting this information back quickly,but is slow (weeks-months) responding to my sending her revisions on submitted papers from my thesis.

What is the etiquette after leaving a lab? For example, would it be unreasonable to remind her where the methods are written up, rather than writing out protocols with all the dilutions etc worked out? I am not looking to continue to work with my PhD lab but I would prefer to maintain a cordial relationship.


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Question : Should my advisor know if I am auditing unrelated courses?

Motivation : I am a PhD student in Computer Science and at times, I wish to audit courses which are not at all related to my thesis or research.

For instance:

For Fun : Italian Food and Art
For probable post-PhD jobs (but not related to thesis) - Econometrics, Quantitative Finance.

In general, my advisor is cool and won't mind the hour(s) I spend in the classroom. He allows me to work from home or wherever and doesn't care about "seeing" me in my office so long as I keep doing my work on time (which I do).

If I tell him about the courses, he unnecessarily might get freaked or worried and might question my intentions (which I can obviously clarify), If I don't it seems as if I am keeping something important from him.


texts: Master's Thesis unexpectedly going south but admitted into PhD program next fall

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I was recently admitted into a PhD program, and am currently a MSc Student. Both me and my advisor expected me to graduate this spring, which would mark the 4th semester. Because of that, I applied to PhD programs, and got into a good one. But now I think I might need a bit longer to complete the Thesis portion of it; I could switch to MA which is course based and head on to PhD 1) I am not sure if they will still accept me if I do not have an MSc (the strength of my application was the skills I learned during my thesis) and 2) I want to finish my thesis, because well, I want to publish the results and am interested in it.

What are my options? Many programs do not allow deference, and getting into a PhD program is so hard to begin with.

Thank you for your time.


texts: What are the chances of degree revoke if an unrelated plagiarized paper was published during the course of Phd studies

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The Phd Thesis and course work all are un-plagiarized; degree completed through all the normal procedures of the university.
However, a plagiarized research paper which is un-related to the doctoral thesis and coursework was published during the PhD tenure.

What are the chances of degree revoke (the degree has long been granted).

Regards.


texts: Journal Club - How to encourage students to ask questions to the presenters (peers)

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We are running a journal club online due to the current COVID-19 situation. The students have to pick a paper and present it online to teachers and their peers. However, I would like to make the experience a bit more formative for the students. The main thing that is missing is an interaction among the presenters and the other students.

Do you have any advice on how to get the students to ask questions to their peers?

EDIT: This Journal club is part of a master's degree course and there is an evaluation of the journal club. However, we only evaluate the students for their presentations.

I found this question that is somehow related but not exactly what I am looking for.

Thanks!


texts: How should I state my masters degree in my CV if I finished the program, but the ceremony won't be held for several months?

texts: I'm currently updating my CV because recently I finished a master program. although the ceremony is going to be on March, I don't have the diploma yet. How should I state this in my CV?


texts:
If I am a biology major from a lower tier liberal arts school, and I wanted to make myself more attractive for future applications( ie: grad school, job listings), should I bother obtaining a minor in a related field?

In this case the minor I was attempting was chemistry, but my last semester of undergraduate school is one I want to be "lightish", so I can study for GRE's or hopefully line up internships.

Ideally, I would hope people see my chemistry minor as me having more laboratory experience than other biology majors, since while obtaining the minor I took mostly chemistry courses with their corresponding laboratories. And that laboratory experience maybe could land me in a laboratory internship of some kind. Or look attractive for potential graduate assistance-ships.


texts: Donating money to scientific research after my death

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I'm lucky - I probably won't have to provide for any loved ones after I die (they can take care of themselves). That means I can use my assets on whatever I want, and most likely, that will be science. The exact amount I can spare depends on how much longer I have to live, but an order of magnitude estimate is $10 million.

I understand that most funding requires proposals from the scientists, which are then peer reviewed. I'm not particularly interested in that. Instead I'm thinking of finding people working on what I'm most interested in (cosmology) and funding them to do whatever they want, trusting in their integrity to use the funds appropriately.

Questions:

Is it better to use the funds as a one-shot lump sum, or make it sustainable (that is, keep the principal, and use only the interest on that for funding)?
What is a good amount to provide a single professor? Is it better to provide one researcher with the $10 million, or ten different researchers with $1 million, or some other number?
How do I go about this? Can I just ask for the professors' bank account numbers, and write in my will to transfer $X into that account?
I'd like to talk to the professors, preferably face-to-face, to assess their character. Are the professors likely to be willing to talk?

EDIT: Thanks for answers. I'll need to think about it. I'm not keen on funding PhD students since there're already too many graduates and too few permanent positions. I'm also not keen on funding a fellowship because when I wrote my own applications there were so very many fellowships, many of which required their own separate application. I'm hoping to make things easy.

I also want to free some scientists from spending so much of their time writing funding proposals. Endowing a chair is a possibility but that ties the money to a single university, which is again something I need to think about. Hopefully there'll be many more years before I die to sort all these out, and thanks again for answers.


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As a new semester of school approaches I have begun updating my syllabi for the classes I teach. I have lately used a clause in the syllabus about no children in the classroom as I feel it is a distraction to both me and the other students. Having been in classes both as a student and as an instructor where children are present, I find it necessary now to have such a written statement.

However, there are a few parents who dislike such a clause. Some of these young parents feel that they should be able to bring their children to class, as they otherwise would need to drop out of school because they do not have enough money to hire a sitter. I feel that this is just "how it is," and is part of being a responsible adult.

Do other universities have policies about children in the classroom? How can I reach a happy medium of not coming across as a complete jerk, but still maintain a level of education in my classroom?

Added: I am of the feeling that we many times need to make a rule because of that "one person" who ruins it for everyone. My stand as it is right now is that we need to come down firmly in writing, then adjust with leniency as people show they can handle having their child in class. I am not ridiculous about my classroom rules, but I prefer to give it straight, then relax the standard if needed.

Also, as a matter of scope, I teach at a conservative Christian university. Many of the students married young and have a child or two.


texts: Applying for a postdoctoral fellowship in the UK, how can I find a host institution

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It's been hard to find postdoc and I found a postdoctoral fellowship (in the UK) that I want to apply to. Since I do not live in the UK, it is required to find a host intuition within the UK that should agree by sending a formal approval.
Research Fellowships must be held at a UK higher education institution/university in a  department that can show it is capable of fully supporting the research project and researcher. It is the responsibility of the applicant to contact the host institution and gain the formal approval from the relevant head of department or school before submitting an application.
I am not sure where to go from here, should I reach out to professors (as potential PIs)? or I should email the HR of universities and get more information?
If I get the fellowship, will I be the PI of the project or I will have supervisor?


texts: Main result unpublished at the end of the PhD

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Before giving the context of my situation, I sum up my questions:

- As a 3rd year PhD student, what would you do if you have a nice result but cannot publish it because your advisor is too busy and doesn't help?

- If the main result of your PhD is not published by the time you apply to postdocs, can you still talk about it in the research statement? Will it have much less impact than if it was published?

I am currently a third year PhD student in the field of mathematical physics in a small unknown university. I will graduate before June 2019, but I will apply for postdocs this year.

For the last 1.5 years, I mostly worked alone on a theory A, and I found out that there was a correspondence between this theory A and a theory B. Each of them have raised a lot of research in their own direction since 30 years, but I never found anything on the literature about a possible connection. So I guess it's interesting.

The problem is that I got kinda far from my advisor research interests: he is a specialist of the theory A, but B sounds esoteric for him. The first time I asked his opinion, he was suspicious "no no, it has nothing to do". When I came back with more "proofs" (one year ago), he got much more enthusiastic. He wanted to publish a paper by the end of summer 2017, and  sent me an outline for the paper. He even discussed with the "boss" of the theory B (who knows almost nothing about A), and he seemed really surprised and intrigued.

Since one year, NOTHING happened. I did further and more precise computations, but he is very active in his own fruitful research and travels a lot. Since last summer, I sent him several versions of my notes and asked about discussion, but every time we discussed a little about it (maybe 3 times in one year?), I realize that he didn't read anything. Several weeks ago, he said it would be nice to publish the paper before I apply for postdocs, but that maybe he is too optimistic...

Today, I feel kinda discouraged and powerless. I am in a weird situation where I think I have nice unexpected results which raise many new questions, but I have on the bottom of the bottom of the list of my advisor priorities. Besides him, scientifically I am completely isolated in my university. I am supposed to apply for postdoc in September/October, and I put a lot of hopes in those results. I have 2 other papers but I find them way less interesting. I don't know what to do.

I would be interested to know if someone have been in a similar situation, and how was it during the postdoc process.


texts: I'm writing a paper on a side project with a friend, should I involve my supervisor?

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Some months ago I was contacted by a friend who works in my scientific field, regarding a collaboration project (we're both postdocs). We exchanged some emails and considerations. He provided me the dataset, and I developed a simple program able to make some interesting scientific discoveries (at least, from my understanding).

We've not given too much importance to this project, but now it turns out that it could lead to a scientific paper to submit to a good journal.

Even if I dedicated to this side project a small amount of time (~3 hours / week), it surely took away some time from my main project, which is much more important.

Now in the writing phase, I wondering if I should tell my supervisor about this project and this paper.
On one hand, I'm worried that he might not like that I dedicated some working time to it instead of my main project... on the other side, I think he would be happy to collaborate in writing this paper with me and gain a new journal publication.

What do you think I should do?

What do you think my supervisor would say about this side project and its paper?


texts: How to deal with an unhygienic human subject?

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The human subject that I really depend on is extremely unhygienic. Not simply sweaty way, but full-on stench, black teeth and dirty clothes.

I feel responsible for the lab equipment and space that I am going to use for my audio recording with him and I don't know what to do in such situation.

Anyone encountered such problems in their research? Is there any way professionally and politely ask someone to clean themselves up?

Any advice on how to deal with such a situation will be very appreciated.


texts: How reasonable is it to ask my referees to send their recommendation letters to me?

texts: I am applying for a junior faculty position (i.e. tenure track assistant professor level) at a research-intensive US university this fall. As a part of the application process, the university asked for CV, cover letter, employment application letter, a list of referees at the initial phase. Now they have contacted me again and asked to submit three reference letters, a teaching statement, and a research plan via email in order to complete my application.  Most interestingly for the reference letters, I have been given the options of having my references email them directly or I can forward them their letters. I can do whichever is more convenient to me. My concern is with the second option. If I ask my referees to send their letters to me, I can see what they are writing about me. Will they feel secured in such a way? Please advise how I should proceed in this regard.


texts: Is there any appropriate way to offer cash to a lecturer or TA for private tutoring?

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Due to financial issues, I've had to work in order to support myself alongside my degree, and unfortunately due to work obligations I've had to miss some lectures and classes.  Due to not spending much time at the university, I also don't have many friends who would be willing to help me catch up.

Would it be appropriate in any way to ask the lecturer or the class TA to help me on a 1-on-1 basis?  I think I've managed to fall behind sufficiently far that I would need several hours of help to catch up -- could I possibly suggest to the professor that I can offer you £50/hour for your time?  I don't want it to be construed as bribery or anything inappropriate -- I just want to pay the person fairly for his/her time.

Is there an appropriate way to do this?  I know that in my high school some students paid teachers for 1-on-1 tutoring, but I'm not sure how it works in university?

For context, I'm in the United Kingdom, I'm doing a master's degree, and the end-of-term examinations are administered anonymously (i.e. the person grading does not know whose paper he/she is grading).


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I'm currently an undergraduate student at a university in Canada. Over the past couple of years, it has become very clear to me that I want to pursue teaching as a career. My issue is that the level I want to teach at is the university level, as I feel that I am more likely to encounter students who are interested in and passionate about the material they are learning, just as I have a passion for knowledge and sharing that knowledge with others.

I have been fortunate enough already to have had opportunities to teach and lead study groups ranging in size from one-on-one sessions to larger groups of 40+ individuals, and I have experienced firsthand the joy of helping someone come to a realization, of using a great illustrative analogy, and facilitating someone else's discovery of knowledge. I mention this in an attempt to illustrate the passion I have for sharing knowledge with others.

I have also been lucky enough to develop good relationships with faculty at my institution, including instructors who have a definite focus on teaching above research. However, my understanding is that these faculty are still required to dedicate a significant portion of their time to working on research, and generating output. I have discussed my ambitions with them, and they have been supportive, but I also worry that they are perhaps painting a more fanciful picture for me than reality would warrant.

I have not yet had an opportunity to take on undergraduate research projects, but I hopefully will be able to do so in the next year or two. I am pursuing a double major in biology and physics (with an emphasis on biophysics), and am hoping to be able to undertake research projects in both disciplines.

My concern is that the academic world is very competitive, and I am not certain that I will be well-suited to the networking and politicking that such a career would require. I am aware that it is possible to get contract positions as a sessional lecturer without a PhD, but these positions are inherently unstable, and perhaps not as rewarding.

The other area I have considered is attempting to find work as an educator in the public or private school systems. However, I worry that this work would not be as rewarding, being as many high school students do not have the passion for knowledge often found in higher-level undergraduate or graduate students.

As mentioned above, I am in Canada, but I am not adverse in concept to relocating, either for purposes of study or permanently. English is my first and only language.

So, at the end of it all, my question is: what advice would you give someone hoping to find a stable, secure job teaching in biology or biophysics at the university level?


texts: How can I obtain the necessary quantitative knowledge for admission to a masters in business analytics?

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I intend to pursue a masters in business analytics in the United States. However, since this is a highly quantitative program, I doubt I will stand a chance to be admitted given that my undergraduate degree is in accountancy.

What are the options available for me to obtain the requisite quantitative knowledge? I think the Quantitative Studies for Finance program offered by Columbia University would be suitable but it is quite pricey.

Are there similar programs in other universities or alternative modes of study that can give me sufficient quantitative background to apply for grad school?


texts: Is there a database of publications for nearly all major disciplines?

texts:
Google scholar is an excellent service for looking at basic metadata about publications (e.g. authors, title, abstract, and papers it cites). But they do not offer an official API (free or otherwise).
Is there also a non-commercial database of such publications? I'm wondering because this is something that perhaps libraries in universities would require to organize information about publications across disciplines.
Since there are non-profit systems like doi.org and cross-ref which let publications get an identification numbers, I'm wondering if all disciplines use them. Or is it the case that universities get this metadata from a variety of publishers (like Springer, Elsevier, etc) and there is no single central index?
To avoid bikeshedding on what a "major discipline" is, we could limit ourselves to what's already found on google scholar, or perhaps to what top 100 (or choose your number) university libraries in the world might index.


texts: What tone to use in the personal statement?

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The guide in Berkeley states:

  The personal statement should give concrete evidence of your promise as a member of the academic community, giving the committee an image of you as a person.

So what tone should I use here? If as a person is as yourself, then is it better to use informal voice, like writing in a blog? Or should I keep the formal voice as most statements require you to be professional?


texts: Important factors for hiring a young mathematician

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Let's list important factors for evaluation of a job candidate (for research post doc, assistant professor, tenure track, etc):

Research experience (research articles, research talks, expository articles, perhaps books).
Teaching experience (tutoring, undergraduate courses, graduate courses, etc).
Academic background (grades, the university of graduation, current affiliation, etc).
Reference (who is writing reference letter and how he is writing it).
Personal (natural) features (nationality, race, language, etc).
Social and family status (connections, marriage, etc).
Other factors (you name it).

I have been in job market for several years. I was always wondering how do the above factors affect my job application in different academic institutions? I would like to know the approximate percentage of importance of these factors in different institutions.

And my second question is How the hiring committees evaluate a candidate? Is it based on reference letters, CV, list of publications, research statement, teaching statement?

My impression is reference letters are very important at least for the first job after PhD. Am I right?


texts:
I have submitted a paper to a conference with a rebuttal phase.
I have received the first round of reviews, and should be writing
an answer which addresses issues raised by the reviewers.

I have received two very positive evaluations, with one accept and
one weak accept. The third review however was -2 (reject).

The reviewer that rejected the paper did so under the argument that the
paper defined a nice problem, but "without interest for the community
of the conference". He also tried to shift the focus of the paper from
the main result to a very auxiliary result by treating the auxiliary result
as if it were the main.

1) Would it be worth to send an email to the conference chairs asking for
a fourth review?

2) What would be the likelihood that the chairs would do that?

3) In case the fourth review is positive, would it have the potential to be taken into consideration when accepting/rejecting the paper?


texts:
I am an undergraduate student and I am writing my CV which I am going to send to my professor for a position as a junior researcher. My questions are:

How should I present my education (including the bachelor that I am going to finish in a year) ?
I am currently doing my thesis which I am going to finish in 6 months. How should I present it given that I haven't finished it yet ?


texts: Should I agree to teach a class for my supervisor even though I don't get any acknowledgement for it?

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I'm not contractually obligated to teach in my postdoc position, but she just asked me as a favor... I don't mind of course, but I'd rather be formally acknowledged as co-teaching on the syllabus, etc.  It's good for my CV, etc.

Is it expected that I comply with my supervisor or am I within my rights to expect formal acknowledgement?