Is it stupid to quit graduate program after one year?

Are you paying for this MA programme yourself (e.g. with student loans) or do you have a scholarship that pays for it? If you are about to walk away with debt but no degree, you should strongly consider sticking it out for the second year, especially if the issue isn't academic and you feel that you can continue to do well in your studies. Even if you are not going to be walking away with debt, consider staying on.

While you may feel that you do not need a master's now and that it is just a piece of paper, you can't quite predict where your future will bring you. You might find yourself in a position where a master's degree (any master's degree!) will allow you to progress in you career in a way that is vastly more beneficial than if you only have a BA. To go a bit sociological on you and to whip out the Pierre Bourdieu, you are proposing you bank on your embodied cultural capital and are wanting to forgo the objectified manifestation of it; you are wanting to head off into the world without the degree. Yet this world likes degrees and may not always believe in you when you don't have them. In 10 years time, when you are somewhere in life that you can't predict now, how would you feel if not having the master's holds you back?

If you stick it out one more year you will be, at most, in you mid twenties if not still in your early twenties. You will still be young. Mid twenties abroad is just as good as early twenties abroad, and one year is not very much time to wait. Everything is the same, nothing is going anywhere, you'll just have a master's degree when you get back to it.


Can subjects studied in Master and PhD be different?

There is a self-evident answer, - yes, it's possible, no any official restrictions, no one care (maybe, except your advisor).

And there are obvious consequences when you're changing the research topic - you're starting something new with less experience. This can be good or not, and this is your, and only your decision.


Uninteresting research area and contacting potential supervisors

Your undergrad supervisor would be a terrible person if they tried to attack you in the future because you didn't want to work with them for your masters. That's just crazy, but it does happen. You'd be better talking to the supervisor and getting their advice about what you actually want to do. They may know one of the other potential supervisors in the other area and be able to set up and introduction.

Besides, even if your current supervisor did want to try to harm you later because you didn't want to work with them, wouldn't your rather risk that than get locked into research about a topic you don't like?

You should feel free to contact the more junior member of the potential research group. Do let them know that you've tried to reach the head, that you understand that they're very busy, and that you'd like to work with the group in the future.


How common is it to write out a script for a talk? What are the benefits?

I think a script is actually more harmful than good. It tends to produce very rigid talks, and it often forces you to concentrate on the script instead of the content and audience. Usually, you know what you are talking about well enough to not need a script, and just pointers. Below are the tricks I use for different kinds of talks.
Research talks
For technical talks on my research or guest lectures on topics I am intimately familiar with (these two have been the overwhelming majority of my talks), I do not make scripts or notes and just concentrate on making good slides. In the process of making slides, I produce an outline which I use to mentally check my timing. The day of the talk, I look through my slides carefully (hunting for typos and other minor mistakes), this reminds me of the exact details I was going to discuss. Since I tend to repeat similar talks, I have become very proficient at estimating my timing.
For some big conferences, I practice talks in my lab before heading to the conference. This greatly improves the talk, especially timing issues and comfort.
I find that this is easy to do because you are usually intimately familiar with your own research and unlikely to forget something. It also allows a relatively fluid and natural talk, and lets you answer questions during the talk without fear of losing your pace.
Usually, I have my final version the day before unless I rehearse in the lab.
Teaching talks
I have done a number of talks as reviews for large bodies of students (50 to 300) to prep them for exams, and smaller groups (20 to 30) during weekly tutorial sections. Here I was talking not about my research, but course material that I had taken years ago. The topics were physics/math and my style was one of interactive problem solving at the board of hand-picked problems that illustrated key concepts. To prepare I had to invest time to carefully come up with good questions and I quickly checked that I could solve the questions as I generated them.
I write down the questions one per page with a few bullet points of the main concept/technique I want to show in the question. However, I do not write down solutions and solve the questions on the spot at the board. This puts a certain amount of stress on me (especially if you are teaching first year engineers) but I find it produces much better pacing for the students (since I naturally slow down a little at the harder parts) and actually solving the questions as you present them instead of copying a solution from your notes to the board keeps you in the zone and actually reduces errors. Not having notes in your hand (except to write down the problem statement) also lets you worry about just two things: the board and the students.
The caveat is that you have to very comfortable with the material (but why are you teaching it if you are not?!) and you need to have the confidence to laugh at yourself and recover from occasional mistakes.
Usually, I have the final questions and plan a few days ahead of time. However, there is no 'final version' of the actual talk, since it depends completely on the audience.
Popular talks
My only opportunity to give a popular talk was at TEDx McGill 2009. This was incredibly different from other talks I am used to. Thankfully, all of the speakers were coached by the organizing committee ahead of time (including a full dry run through). The key message was to treat this not as a presentation, but as a performance. I did not prepare a script (and were were advised against preparing one), but I did make notes on cue-cards that I held during the performance. Except for the very beginning (where I was unusually nervous) I never looked at the cue cards, and mostly held them for comfort.
I had my final version about a week before the talk and my ready-for-dry-run version about two weeks before.


Is it academic misconduct to post assignment solutions on public websites?

I became curious that whether posting solutions to assignments of courses comes under academic misconduct or dishonesty ?

Generally, I would say that putting material online is not academic misconduct or dishonest. What is important in the question that you have linked is that the "dishonest" part for the student is not that he wanted to take material from the web (this may or may not be against the rules, but it is by itself not dishonest), but that he intended to pretend that he solved the assignments independently. Strictly speaking, I see it not as your responsibility to make sure that students that later on take inspiration from (or outright copy) your solution declare that they did so.

Of course, from a practical point of view, your behaviour may still be somewhat unpopular with your professors, as it clearly opens up additional venues for cheating for the next batches of students. Personally, as a lecturer, I was never bothered, because I strongly believe that you always need to assume that the solutions to an assignment that you "recycle" from the previous year are "out there" in one way or another. However, I know that other lecturers feel differently, so if you want to piss nobody off, you should check with the professors beforehand. In any way you should make sure that you are not uploading material that you do not possess the copyright for (for instance, lecture material or assignment descriptions).


Studying Abroad - do they need my high school transcript/diploma?

Yes, German universities oftten require an official copy of your high school certification, even if you already have a university diploma which implies the completion of a high school. The same happened to me when I was starting my PhD in Germany - I also was required to present my high school certificate, although I also had two university diplomas (bachelor and master). In a similar manner, both of my university diplomas were required.


Is there a more user-friendly way to download multiple articles from arXiv?

You can use JabRef for this. More precisely, there are plugins by Christoph Lehner that do the job:

arxiv-rss to browse the list of new preprints and import the ones you want;
localcopy for downloading the PDF and automatically renaming it (according to a pattern you can define).

This isn't 100% automated (you still need to manually click "download arXiv PDF" once you've imported the entry in your bib file), but this is still much better than doing it all by hand.


Why do some Elsevier journals use a single column format?

(Copy Editor speaking ;-) )

When designing a journal's typesetting style, there are several things to consider:

What are the paper size restrictions? Can you choose any paper size or choose from a short list, or is it fixed? For instance, Springer uses it's own paper size for many publications, The journal I typeset is stuck to A4 because it's the cheapest to print here, etc.
What font size and family is going to be used? The smaller the size, the more characters per line you get, as well, sans-serif fonts make it harder to follow a line of text in a long paragraph.
What are the typical contents of the papers? For papers with many long paragraphs, it's almost necessary to have narrow columns (I'll explain that later). For papers with lots of colour photos and graphics, you want to allow graphical appendices since colour printing is then cheaper and printer handling easier. For lots of math formulas, you prefer wide columns so that they fit better. For lots of very small graphics and tables, you might prefer two columns so that you can put more easily two of them next to each other.
Who is going to use the final template and how? Do you have a professional typesetter to carefully typeset all the papers? Do your audience use Word or LaTeX more? If they use Word, you think twice to make the journal two-column since you can be close to sure that people will mess the template up.

What is "narrow" and "wide":

Narrow is basically anything with less than 66 characters per line on average. It's been proved over centuries that this is the limit width on which the eyes are able to follow the line correctly and switch to the next line correctly. With sans-serif fonts, the width should be a bit less since the serifs significantly help to follow the line.
Wide is anything that allows you to conveniently typeset long formulas. The rule-of-thumb I know is: At least 50 characters per line on average. Remember that being too wide makes it difficult to follow the lines correctly. However, this is not much an issue if the only long text in the typical articles is the introduction and most of the other paragraphs are less than 4-5 lines.

The decision of Elsevier to make some journals one-column and another ones two-column on the same paper size might be, seeing the arguments above, quite justified.


In my view:

Option 1 is fine. You are not required to do what a reviewer asks - if you choose not to do so you just need to explain why.

Option 2 is not a good idea. You are required to respond to every comment made by a reviewer, regardless if you agree or disagree.

Option 3 is also fine. This may be the safest bet - I am guessing you could probably even add a single sentence and the reviewer will almost certainly say its fine.

Probably both 1 and 3 are ok and will get you past this reviewer. You can also go for a combined strategy like: "We feel this claim is backed up and discussed at length in section IV. Nevertheless, we have edited the manuscript to improve the clarity of the discussion on this point."


How to treat dual affiliation in a journal article

Where did you do the work that the publication is based on? You need to check the affiliation requirements of the publisher, as well as your contractual obligations with the Chinese institution. Maybe write to the journal editor and explain your situation. Most journals state something like "Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done)..." and "If an author has moved since the work described in the article was done, or was visiting at the time, a 'Present address' (or 'Permanent address') may be indicated as a footnote to that author's name. The address at which the author actually did the work must be retained as the main, affiliation address." (emphasis added, from Elsevier archaeology journals, e.g. https://www.elsevier.com/journals/journal-of-archaeological-science/0305-4403/guide-for-authors) and "The primary affiliation for each author should be the institution where the majority of their work was done. If an author has subsequently moved, the current address may also be stated." from Nature Publishing Group (emphasis added). The Chinese institution, which wants to be acknowledged for supporting you, is not legally the primary institutional affiliation for work done in a US institution. You should be wary of misrepresentation, which could violate publishing ethics.


What to put in a biography for a publication?

I would check a few articles of the journal you publish in and look at what other author are putting in their biography.

Mostly it will be about your degrees (BSc, MSc, PhD, when and where), the field of research you are interested in and what is your current occupation. In summary you can state anything that shows your experitise in the subject you are discussing in the paper.

If no one but yourself paid you for the research, you can state it like:

  beside a job as your paying job he/she is working on paper subject

or

  Since date has been working on paper subject


There are two sides to this; I believe that indeed you should have more supervision than you have, and that your supervisor doesn't give you remotely as much help as you deserve and should have a right to receive. On the other hand you may be right about not yet being independent enough and that there's some skill set that you need to learn.

There is a huge variety of supervision styles and supervisor behaviour and your supervisor is certainly far on the "hands off and rely on student's independence" side of things. There are supervisors who support their students much more, however your supervisor is by far not alone with his interpretation of his role. Unfortunately, for many PhD students this will not work (you are absolutely not alone with this problem).

"According to him, doing a PhD is about becoming an independent researcher" - that's fair enough, but surely it's not about being an independent researcher already, which he apparently expects you to be! A good responsible PhD supervisor should lead their students into such a position rather than assuming that the students get there on their own!

Not sure to what extent you already tried to get more help out of your supervisor. Surely "independence" also means that if your supervisor tells you "leave me alone and find your own problem" you shouldn't necessarily just say "Yes, supervisor!" Being "independent" as a researcher doesn't mean not to talk to anyone, not to admit where you are struggling, and not to ask anyone for help!

Maybe you can "milk" your supervisor better by telling him that and in what way you are struggling, and to ask him to talk more with you about the research he is doing and how a problem could be found for you that he is actually interested in and that may help his work somehow. Try to get out of him as much as you can, and if that means not accepting his initial idea about supervision, so be it. Also try to connect things that you already know to what he says. What do you like in mathematics, in algebra or elsewhere? What kind of problem do you like to work on (for a moment ignoring whether that would fulfill requirements for a PhD)? Can you somehow make a connection between this and what your supervisor is interested in? (You can also ask him whether he sees a connection.) There are by the way textbooks that have exercises that in fact are research problems in disguise, so looking at textbook exercises in the area might help.

Once you have a problem, obviously the first step is to look for literature and to find out how other people solved similar problems, and whatever you can find is connected.

In case you don't manage to get more out of your supervisor, I agree with another posting that you should contact somebody else in the department. Isn't there a person such as a PhD tutor to which PhD students can go with issues? Somebody more senior you trust? Student representatives? Ultimately the department should make sure you get enough supervision, and there should also be some point to go to for students who have problems.

The side of your own attitude is somewhat difficult to assess. Let's say I'm somewhat surprised that it only dawns on you 1+ year into your PhD programme that you have no idea what to work on. Would it be like this even in algebra or the area of math you are most familiar with/like most? Have you done a Masters project or something like that? How was it? Have you ever worked on a problem, even a set exercise or something, that made you wonder about whether something more can be done there than you were asked for, or where you even had an idea what else to ask or what else to do connected to the problem? You surely need some proper curiosity and drive for doing a math PhD. The problem of matching your interests with the supervisor better can in all likelihood be solved, as can the problem of generating suitable problems "between" your interest and the supervisor's. If your supervisor is not the best person for helping you in that respect, talk to others. However, if you don't have a genuine interest for research and some curiosity and drive, your position isn't that good.

I think in your position, without supervisor help, I'd have grabbed a sufficiently sophisticated textbook about something somewhat related to computational geometry and something that seems interesting to me, and would've started to work through the book, trying to understand more or less everything, do some exercises, with particular awareness for any hint what could be a direction for my own research.

Last remark about "waste of time" - it's an experience, and many PhD stories involve being stuck and feeling that it's not going forward for quite some time. If you manage to dig yourself out of such a hole, you will feel the success and with hindsight will probably think that this phase was a valuable part of the experience. Don't forget that as long as you're studying just the stuff others tell you about and solve the exercises they have solved already, you may learn, but you don't push science forward. If after three years you have spent half the time in a hole trying to find your way out, and half the time doing something that is really your own project, this is quite a bit more productive than learning stuff that was spoonfed to you and passing exams on it, be it with flying colours. Many PhD projects, particularly in math, don't lead to published papers in the first two years. When I got my PhD after 3 1/2 years or so, I only had a paper on some earlier work from my Masters project; it took almost a year more to get something from my PhD out - this was the old days when there was less pressure to publish though, but really still it can pay out to take time to try to get into things in some depth rather than going for anything that could be publishable on the quick.


I didn't ask permission before including figures in my thesis - now what?

I am not sure that one is supposed to ask permission to reproduce a picture from a book/article in their dissertation. From academic point of view, an citation is necessary and sufficient to properly acknowledge the source - otherwise it would be plagiarism.

IANAL, but I don't think there are any copyright issues here, since your thesis is a non-profit academic publication and a relatively small quote from another academic source should be normally treated as a fair use.


Is hiding publications in CV a good idea?

In most fields, expectations of publications are very small when applying for a PhD position. What the committee will be looking at is your writing. In most cases, they will have only the thesis to study but in your case, you will also have a few publications, including the one for the "good" conference. The benefit of all of these is that they show you have been active and pursued publishing your results. That the first publications may not be strong will not surprise most, after all one of the main goals of a PhD is to provide the background to be an independent researcher and publish.

You may be in a dilemma if your papers are of disputable quality since avoiding to list them may, if found out, look like you are trying to hide them; regardless of your original intent.

To take this a step further: I think that adding comments on papers you think can reflect negatively on yourself can turn a negative to a positive. The reason is that you can show that you have progressed in your thinking to a point where you can be self-critical. This means that the comments you make have to be insightful and not just a list of excuses, in fact avoid excuses at all costs and provide good arguments showing your new insights.

So, think about how you can use your experiences (good or bad) in a positive way to show your capacity as a budding scientist. We all make mistakes, but not all learn from them.


What are assistant professors called in North America?

In North America, one would only mention an academic's rank (assistant professor, associate professor, full professor, etc) in formal contexts where it is important to describe their exact job title (in a CV, business card, news article, etc).

Otherwise, the word "professor" is used generically to refer to any tenure-stream university faculty members, and in some cases also non-tenure-stream.  For example, "Susan Jones is a biology professor at Harvard."  That would still be correct if her rank is assistant professor.  Or: "The conference was attended by 300 professors from across the country."  They need not all have been full professors.

It is also the word used to address any of these people.  ("Professor Jones, I thought your paper was very interesting.")

"Doctor" is also used as a term of address, assuming the faculty member in question holds a doctoral degree.  ("Doctor Jones, please tell me more about your experiment.")  Whether "Professor" or "Doctor" is to be preferred is a matter of local custom which varies from one institution to the next.  But "Doctor" is not used to refer to the job itself.  You would not say "Susan Jones is a biology doctor at Harvard."

In North America, titles are never stacked.  One does not say "Professor Doctor Jones".


Seemingly-irrelevant papers, all with author in common, suggested by reviewer

Think of the review process as a debate between you and the reviewers, with the editor as jury. You would like to convince the reviewers, but ultimately, you want to convince the editor. The editor has called in the reviewers as domain experts so will listen to what they have to say. But ultimately the editor makes up their own mind. It's just that the editor is most likely to give their go-ahead if you and the reviewers come to an agreement. But it's possible that the editor decides to publish even if a reviewer is not positive.

Also, consider that editors are basically the experts on the subject of "reviewers".

I would write three responses. The responses addressed to the reviewers are also passed through the editor (after all, the reviewers are anonymous).

One to the first reviewer, thanking them for their good advice and noting how you'll apply that. This helps to show to the editor that you're taking the review process seriously.
A second one to the second reviewer where you explain why you don't think those seven papers are relevant to your paper. Don't put any accusations here, just give your considered, good-faith view on the relevance of those seven papers.
A third note to the editor only, where you express concern that the second reviewer's review was rather short, that you don't really see the relevance of the papers, and that you noticed that they all have a common author. Ask for the editor's advice on how to proceed.

At that point the editor will probably take a second look at the rather poor quality review, and compare the author list of the proposed seven citations to the name of the reviewer. And advise you on how to proceed.


Deferring admission to a computer science graduate program

I'm afraid I have contradictory advice.

If you've been offered a funded place, there is no guarantee the funding will still be there in a year.  What you know is that you are good enough to get into a grad school, but there is a luck component too.  The school I went to told us that 1 in 10 applicants was good enough to get in, but less than 1 of 3 of those "good enough" could have places any particular year.  This is both because of funding constraints & because supervisors can only supervise so many people well at one time.  So you are very likely really deciding whether to work before going through the application process again.
Nevertheless, I agree with Sylvain that it is not a good idea to do a PhD always wondering whether you would have liked industry better.  I worked for 5 years before doing my PhD, and now I'm an associate professor.  Two things make this route hard though: 1) getting used to making money (I addressed this by putting most of my salary in savings) and 2) getting used to being treated as an adult.  But there is a big win when you hit the hard parts of your PhD & think "would I be happier in industry?  Nah, that was boring."  Friends that were academically stronger than but lacked that certainty had a tougher time during the troughs than I did.


What is the purpose of chairmen at conferences?

Depending on how the conference is organized, the duties of a chair before the session can include:

Selecting the abstracts that will be presented within a given session.
Organizing the abstracts in the order of presentation.
Transferring unused abstracts to other sessions (where possible).
Advertising to solicit contributions.

During the session, the goals of the chair can include:

To introduce the speaker
To ensure time constraints are being adhered to
To moderate a question-and-answer session following the talk
If other questions have not been asked, to offer questions of her own.

The organizer of a session may or may not be the chair of the session. In larger conferences, in which you have many parallel sessions (some have 50 to 60 or more run simultaneously), it is entirely impractical to have a meeting organizer chair every session. For smaller conferences, however, this is done. In such cases, though, the organizer of the session is still called the "chair" of the session.

It is also possible, at some conferences, that the organizer is unable to attend the session, as a result of illness or conflicts, for instance. In such cases, an "emergency" chair is appointed to run the session. (I had to serve in such a capacity at the most recent conference I attended.)


Who has the right to bestow a professor title? (government or university)

In the United States, personal titles are almost never legally protected or regulated by the government.  This is a strong cultural tradition going back through the origin of the nation, and is in fact encoded in the US Constitution, in the "Titles of Nobility" clause:

  No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.

In the US, then, in general anybody can call themselves any title they feel like, including Professor, Doctor, President, and Emperor.  The title, per se, is only a matter of social convention and will be respected or disrespected based on whether other people believe a person deserves it.
The law typically only gets involved from a perspective of fraud, false advertising, public endangerment, etc. if a person uses such a title to give a false impression of your skills and certifications.  To illustrate the distinction: Dr. Dre is perfectly within his rights to use that name, but if he tried to give somebody a prescription, he could be arrested for practicing medicine without a license.

Thus, the US government does not name people professor (except incidentally, if it happens to be running the university, e.g. NWC).  Typically universities name people "professor" as a job title, but in fact, anybody can call themselves a professor or set up their own fake university to be a professor at.


Is it acceptable, as a Reviewer, to ask the Editor about another reviewer?

I have a very simple solution to propose:

Write a message directly to the other reviewer whom you would like to know. Address it to the reviewer, not to the editor.
In the message, identify yourself and give your contact information. Ask the reviewer to contact you if they are interested.
Send that message to the editor and ask the editor to please transfer it to the other reviewer, either immediately, or later in the review process (perhaps after a decision is made) when the editor feels comfortable doing so.

Note one important difference from what you ask in your question: rather than asking to be able to contact the reviewer directly, you are asking the reviewer to contact you. This is a very important difference because it gives other people more choice in the matter.
The editor will either transfer the message to the other reviewer (either immediately or after a decision is made, perhaps after you have sent a reminder) or will explain to you why they do not feel comfortable with your request. The advantages of this proposal are:

There is no moral concern because you do everything openly before the editor; you even show the editor the contents of the message, so the editor has no concern of anything improper going on.
You give the other reviewer the choice if they are comfortable with the contact. If they are not, the editor has not divulged their information to you. This relieves pressure from the editor.
You leave the editor free to judge the appropriateness of the contact. So, it is not your responsibility, but the editor's.
Even if the editor decides not to give you the reviewer's contact information, the editor should be able to respect that your intention was sincere, your approach was transparent without pressuring anyone, and the editor should not have any negative impression of you.


Under what circumstances would a lecturer 'bump up' a student to pass?

One of the things I like about teaching is that while we draw fine lines at numbers such as 65.0 and 89.5, teachers also get the final word on putting grades into the system, and the ability to look at a student's performance holistically to include non-tangible paper marks such as attendance (in class and office hours), intrinsic motivation, and future goals justifies "bumping" grades for particular students.

I don't do it often, but if a student is on the line and showed me high motivation but didn't quite get to the higher grade, I will consider bumping up the grade (but I won't do it because of grade-grubbing). Sometimes, it comes down to when I'm entering the final grade into the system, and I think, "You know, that 89.3% for Alice really should be an A-." I don't lose sleep over it, and it really is relatively rare.


When is the right time to tell my advisor that I plan on leaving my PhD program?

It seems to me that @Mad Jack's comment, though perhaps practical, is unethical.  Funding in a PhD program is conditional on one's intention to complete the program. If you accept funding under the expectation that you will take a certain long term action, then if you clearly realize that you no longer have the intention to complete that action then you are behaving deceptively, hence unethically, by hiding that information.  In an academic job by contrast, you sign a yearly contract.  Unless/until you have tenure, you could be dismissed at the end of any academic year.  Even when you have tenure you are rarely receiving university resources which would be wasted if you did not have a multi-year commitment, and if you do find yourself in a position of receiving those resources with the intention of leaving, then you are behaving unethically.

(Example: most universities which offer sabbaticals view them as investments for the future of the faculty member's academic career and their career at that university.  Many universities have a policy that one has to return to "active duty" for at least one year after a sabbatical.  Violating this policy would be unethical in a similar way, although it is also more explicitly against the rules.  A yet closer unethical faculty behavior would be to receive a multi-year grant to do X, to realize after the first year that you have no intention of continuing to do research on anything at all related to X but continuing to take salary from the grant in subsequent years.)

Moreover the suggested unethical behavior is in response to hypothetical undesirable behavior by someone else.  The OP does not know that behaving unethically is necessary in order to receive the outcome which is in her personal best interest.  In fact she does not definitely know that she wants to leave the program: rather, she has some good reasons to leave (lack of interest and enthusiasm for a future academic career) and other good reasons to stay for a while (a desire to get a degree).  The right thing to do is to talk to her advisor, be candid about her doubts, and get on a track that would allow her to gracefully complete a master's degree if she so chooses.

Someone who cuts your funding for expressing doubts about the future is not behaving ethically.  In all programs that I'm familiar with, funding is guaranteed conditional on satisfactory progress, and having a frank conversation does not make satisfactory progress unsatisfactory.  If the OP's advisor behaves so badly as to cut her funding following that conversation, then the OP can seek recourse from the director of graduate studies or the department head and has an excellent case.  The fact that she's scheduled to teach in the fall strengthens the case: if the funding is cut and she leaves because of it, who teaches the class?

The fact that not informing the advisor is setting him up for a crisis later on is also a significant consideration.  To accept mentorship and funding from someone while planning all the while to leave them in the lurch later is quite indefensible.  I'm not surprised that the OP is having feelings of guilt about it.  As she is learning, we know deep down at a visceral level when we are doing something that we think is wrong.  Doing the right thing has intrinsic rewards -- call it karma or neuropsychology, it's true nevertheless.  I think she will sleep far better at night knowing that she did the right thing and suffered financial hardship for no fault of her own than if she did what she knew was wrong for purely selfish reasons.  I know I would.

Finally, having a master's degree from a program and advisor who will only say negative things about you when asked is far from ideal. Being able to play well with others is valued even more in "the real world" than in academia, so burning bridges in this way is not a smart move.


What does the request to "benchmark your manuscript against recent articles" mean?

First, are you sure this is a reputable journal?  Avoid publishing with disreputable journals.

The editor is requesting that you compare your results to recent results published in the same journal.  It is normal to expect that you compare your results with previous work, however, it is a bit odd that the editor specifically requests that you compare with work from the same journal.  Perhaps the editor is attempting to inflate the journal's citation statistics.  It is also possible that the editor knows the journal has published multiple relevant papers you should have mentioned in your submission, but did not.

If you can identify similar papers from the journal with which you can compare your results, do so.  If you cannot find any similar papers, you may have selected an inappropriate journal for your work.


Concerned about REU eligibility given new graduation plans

Some research experience for undergraduate (REU) programs are available to students who have recently graduated. Therefore, while programs are by no means as plentiful as for enrolled undergraduates, they are still out there, and you can avail yourself of the opportunity to participate in one of those programs.

However, the important point is that you show participation in research; the mechanism is usually of lesser importance. The REU just might be the most convenient way to do that in mathematics.


How important is it for a professor to direct a thesis?

Advising a bachelor or master's thesis is just part of my teaching obligation. Most of the time it is an enjoyable obligation: now I get to accompany someone on their first steps in doing independent research. However, that is pretty much all I get out of it. Advising a PhD thesis is a bit more prestigious, but the added value drops quickly. However, with a PhD project the advisor may get one or two co-authored papers out of it, and in some disciplines the PhD students are an important source of cheap labor.


There are unfortunately numerous issues that I see with this.

Many research groups are small enough that anonymity would be next to impossible.
Similarly, most professors only advise a few students at a time and it would take forever to build up any sort of meaningful amount of reviews on any one professor.
Most research groups are transient. As students graduate, the group will be changing on what is likely a yearly basis. Just because Jim and Jill were great to work with in the Bonsti Lab three years ago does not mean that Jim and Jill will still be there now.
RateMyProfessor is somewhat of a cesspool at times. It can certainly show overall trends (such as 23 reviews that mention that the professor cannot write a clear test or 19 reviews that all mention how messy a professor is), but such trends would be too subtle to notice over just a few students.

One is likely best served by just speaking to current graduate students in the lab of one's interest. Students usually know if there is an overall troublesome situation in a given lab.


Could I choose a PhD supervisor from a different university?

It is very unlikely, probably impossible, that you could have a primary supervisor from another university, especially in a different country.
You also really need someone at your doctoral university to guide you through the rules and such of that university. Someone from the States wouldn't be very good at that.
However, some universities permit co-supervisors, so that might be a possibility. It would be easier if your primary supervisor has a professional relationship, already, with the person you would like from the States. It would be up to the primary (local) supervisor to agree to such a relationship.
And bad things can happen if it turns out that your various supervisors don't agree on things.


How am I supposed to go to conferences with a reimbursement system as a poor TA?

This is an unfortunate reality of life. I think at one point in grad school I had $5,000 in outstanding reimbursements because it took so long to process them. Many grad students don't have the liquidity to handle that.

You can, and should, ask whoever will reimburse you whether (i) they can book for you, (ii) let you use their payment card to book, or (iii) pay you in advance. It's often possible and there's no harm in asking. The situation is common enough that they will be used to such requests. For example, people traveling for academic job interviews will rack up a lot of travel expenses in a short time and will sometimes ask to have costs paid directly.

Unfortunately, some places have rigid bureaucracies that insist on operating through reimbursements or some other arbitrary policy. (I recently had a trip where they insisted that they book the flight for me, that I get the hotel reimbursed, and they gave me a per diem for food. Three different policies from one bureaucracy for one trip!) Ultimately, there is little that can be done about it if that's the case.

In the long term, the best solution is to save up a buffer to cover expenses like this. Alternatively, you could get a credit card or other loan to pay for it. However, that is more of a question for https://money.stackexchange.com/


Should I email the university admin to explain that one of my references is out of office until Monday?

The deadline is still three weeks away, and your letter-writer is back in the office in two business days. Emailing to let them know about a two-day delay would just be noise. In fact, I'd be somewhat surprised if anyone even saw your email response. They're just being polite and helpful. I never got any reminders from my applied-to schools!
Follow up with your letter-writer on Monday, but you shouldn't need to contact the schools you're applying to unless your letter-writer has some sort of personal emergency that means they won't be able to submit on time.


What are the strategies for getting feedback on articles?

When I have a manuscript nearly ready to submit, I send it (by e-mail) to colleagues who I think would be interested in it.  I politely ask them to read it and send me any comments they have.  Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't; it's understood that there is not an obligation.  Of course, some of them send me their manuscripts too, and they're more likely to read mine if I have read and commented on theirs.

The colleagues I send the paper to (usually about 2-4 in number) may include:

Senior people who have mentored me
Past coauthors and collaborators
People I don't know but whose work is essential to that in my manuscript

People in the first two categories are usually willing to assist based on our existing relationship; those in the last category are generally pleased to see their work being cited and built on.

I don't usually need very specific feedback at this point in the process.  If I was concerned, say, about the correctness of some part of the work, I would have worried about that long before I wrote the article.  Occasionally I may have a specific question about, e.g., suitability of the manuscript for a particular journal.  In that case, I would send the article to one of the editors of the journal or to a colleague who often publishes in that journal, and ask specifically.

Any colleagues who provide substantial feedback will be acknowledged at the end of the paper.  Providing this kind of feedback certainly wouldn't qualify one for co-authorship.


There's no single "correct" answer in the life of a graduate student—the culture varies from university to university, department to department, and even group to group. It's also a function of the PhD student as well.

One thing to note is that, as a CS student, you're working in a field where it is very easy for students to do their work in environments outside of the laboratory. (Compare that to, say, experimental biology or chemistry, and the freedom in work environment is pretty stark.) Consequently, you don't really have a good feel for how many hours the students are working in aggregate—they may be spending a lot of time working from home, or in the evenings or on weekends.

At the other end of the scale, I have known advisors who expected their students to put in a minimum of 70 to 80 hours per week in the laboratory. (Of course, since this is lab work, there's no way to do much of it "from home"—other than reading and writing.) And in my own experience, there are weeks where I barely worked 40 hours, and others where I put in close to 90 (usually right before conferences and when I was racing to finish my thesis).

In the long run, there are very few absolutes when it comes to the career of a graduate student, and you really do need to find your own "path."


crossroads between continue working or going to a PhD

First of all, nobody can tell you what the best decision for you in such a decision is.

That said, what you need to look at are the opportunity costs of your different options. What do you gain from each of the different possible choices? Equally important is to ask yourself what will you have to give up to pursue those choices.

For you, you need to ask yourself:

How important is being a researcher compared to being a lecturer?
How difficult do you think it will be to get a position when you finish your PhD?
Is your offer of graduate admission worth the upheaval it would cause in your life?

And other questions like these. Once you get a feel for how important these issues are to you, the easier it will be to make a decision. It will still be a very tough decision (these sorts of choices always are), but ultimately it will be your decision, and you'll need to be comfortable with the decision you've reached.


Can I mention that I want to pursue a PhD later, in my Statement of Purpose for a Master's course?

Yes, you certainly can mention it. Moreover, this is in many cases, a good sign. When I was on an admissions committee for a masters program, we  in fact looked favorably on people who wanted to do our program and go on to a PhD. This seems to be a common attitude; if students from a program go on to PhD programs that makes our masters program look good.


Citation or inclusion of name in conference paper

That's a delicate question. My own rule is to offer a co-authorship to anybody with whom I discussed the problem unless I use only the results they have already published and took the official credit for. However I don't insist and if they decline, I just give them extended thanks in the paper. So, I would definitely contact the (leader of) the previous team and offer to include all the names in the author line.

As to ow to approach your professor, it is not entirely unlikely that he is reading this very thread at the same time as you already, so once you decided to go public with it, just show him the replies you get here and ask what he thinks and what his arguments are. If he is a good man, he'll be straight with you and hold no grudges. If not, well, then you are in trouble already...


How much delay is normal in publication of a Special Issue?

From my experience, special issues are rarely published on the announced date. The review process for papers submitted to the special issue should be as rigorous as for any other journal article and thus, may experience all the usual delays (referees not answering, promising a review but not delivering, contradicting reports…). The only difference is that the journal has announced a time frame for the whole process which puts a little more pressure on the handling editors. However, this does not necessarily imply that the whole process is any quicker (also note that the guest editors of a special issue may not be as experienced).

I do not know too much about the usual delays for papers in computer science, but for math, the times you describe still sound pretty short.


Can you submit two different abstracts about the same data to two different conferences?

In most experimental fields (to which I would definitely slot medicine), it's rather common to present results more than once at conferences.  The obvious reasons for doing this are that different conferences hit different audiences.  Also, that the researcher may be going to the conference to hear other talks, or even enjoy some travel (do not bind the mouths of the oxen!), not ONLY to publish his/her results.

Also I strongly advise to publish your results in a "real journal", widely circulated, not a conference proceedings, only.  [In most fields, CS/Math excluded.]  The conference(s) may have some boilerplate about "original research" or "peer reviewed conference proceedings" (the latter often a very poorly distributed set of volumes).

You have to learn to play the game with that sort of thing (conference proceedings in experimental fields).  Your interests AND the interests of the field are much better served by eventually publishing in JAMA or some lesser but similar "real journal".  Give the conference enough so that it looks good, but not your whole case.  Maybe enough of the problem to flash the motivation (is of interest) and then a subsection of the results.  This is probably enough so that you can still publish the entire study in a real article (or set of them), in real, well-circulated and well-reviewed magazines.  Of course, cite the earlier conference proceedings (gives you as self cite also...woot!), so that you are not covering up doing the earlier publication.  But don't feel bashful about repeating the content from the earlier, page-limited conference proceedings, within your longer "real articles".


Whether to change supervisor in UK Masters degree when supervisor is not providing much feedback and says I can change supervisor if I want?

Just try to talk to your department chair/graduate program coordinator and see what they say. If they have no problems with you changing advisors, then just go ahead and talk to other faculty members.


Will a spent criminal conviction affect my chances of getting a funded PhD position?

I do not know about the legal situation, but from my experience from hiring and scholarship committees I would say that everything not affecting your work at university has little influence on your chances. So a pub fight gotten out of control or an excessive reaction to some perceived provocation would be no problem, theft of university equipment or sexual harassment would be a problem. In any case, not being open about whatever you did will bring you into trouble. Academia is a small world, chances are that I meet someone who knows you next time I come to England. Rumors do spread, and are usually far worse than the truth.


Is it ok to ask a professor if he/she is taking a leave of absence

You should ask whether they would be willing to take on PhD students, and, if yes, meet regularly. You suspect correctly that starting a new company does not make it likely for him to have much time the next years, so even if he says (means) yes, it may not mean that he can act on his promise, so handle with care.


Can a tweet be added to graduate research proposal?

You can quote any source, including Twitter. Cite it in the same way you'd cite any web source and be aware that it might disappear.


If someone doesn't have stellar grades in high-school, and in the bachelor's, does earning a PhD help much?

Check this out:

  Nobody in theoretical computer science cares where you got your degree. Really. We. Do. Not. Care. We only care about the quality and visibility of your results. Publish strong papers and give brilliant talks at top conferences. Convince well-known active researchers to write letters raving about your work. Make a good product and get superstars to sell it for you. Do all that, and we'll definitely want to hire you, no matter where you got your degree. On the other hand, without a strong and visible research record, independent from your advisor, you are much less likely to get a good academic job, no matter where you got your degree.

If people don't care where the applicant got his/her PhD, they are not going to care about high school or Bachelor's grades. Even outside of academia, it's a general rule that one's latest degree supersedes all the previous ones. Once a person earns a PhD, nobody cares about his or her Masters, Bachelor's, or high school results.

The real concern here is whether the person who didn't do well in high school and in the Bachelor's can still earn a PhD, but that is for a separate question.


What to do when visiting a lab or a university for prospective application?

Two options I can think of:

Simply email the professor and arrange a visit.
Some programs will have lab tours during the recruitment/orientation programs, so you can try to arrange to meet the professor on that visit.


Status of submitted article changes the date but status remain from 'With Editor' to 'With Editor'

I would not deduce anything from this. Most likely the system changes the date whenever the editor accesses the article (or the editor does not use the system in the way it was intended).

Also it happens that the state is not accurate (e.g., in reality the paper is already with the reviewers), but there is no way to know that.

Anyway, many journal have a processing time span that is much longer than two months. If after some time the state is still "with editor", you might politely contact the editor to inquire about the process.


How does a highschool student intern under a professor?

Your goals are laudable and do not be discouraged by naysayers who say high schoolers should not get research experience. I had research experience in high school working with biologists at an army base and National Wildlife Refuge when I was in high school.

Now, to answer your question. The short answer is do legwork and research nearby universities. Here are examples I know about:

Some universities have formal outreach programs for high school students such as this archaeologist program.
Some professor will take high school students as interns. For example, my advisor lists his high school interns on his CV. Note that CV is basically an academic resume.

Here are suggestions for finding these opportunities:

Try to find a "mentor" who is doing research. Ask them for an informational interview. This could be someone who works as a scientist or maybe one of our high school science teachers. You probably know someone who knows a scientist even if your personally do not. Ask your parents, high school teachers, family friends, scout leaders, people from church, etc. if they know anyone. Basically, tell them "I think I want to be a scientist. Do you know anyone who is one
that I could ask about their job?" Do not hound this person about their job or expect to get an internship with them. Instead, ask them how they would get an internship if they were in your shoes.
Browse and search homepages of universities and their academic departments and faculty. This will let you see what type of research exists at the school and might help
Look at the "Continuing education" or "public outreach" or similar programs such as Upward Bound.
Expand your search beyond universities. Look for internships at nearby industries or government facilities (e.g., government labs, state parks, wildlife reservoirs, fisheries centers, etc). All of these places employ scientists including chemists, geneticists, biologists, ecologists, and more.

Note in case you live in a rural area: Even if you are in a rural area or small town, people do research. You county likely has an extension agent (For example, Wisconsin has UW-Extension and your state if in the US likely has one too). Some people wrongly think of farmers as backwards people, but they are wrong. Modern farming uses lots of science. In addition to extension, look to ag for other scientific applications such as genetics and self driving cars. These companies have representation in rural areas. Even if you do not want to study these fields, seeing what they do would still help you to better understand research.


Joint appointments across different departments at a university are not that unusual, and at many schools are in fact quite common. However, such cross-appointments tend to be within "branches": a scientist might be cross-appointed in multiple science and engineering departments, but not likely in both a science department and a humanities department.

So it's unlikely that you'd get an appointment in both mathematics and African-American studies.

However, that doesn't mean that you wouldn't be able to teach both those subjects. You might be able to convince a university to let you offer an elective seminar course in addition to your "primary" teaching in mathematics. However, this is by no means guaranteed.


How to report on an academically required internship with a bad supervisor relationship

If the jury asks about my appreciation of the company where I did the internship: should I be honest in telling them what happened and that my advisor is too incompetent? Or should I lie and tell them everything was fine?

You should do the same as in any other case when a professional relationship goes wrong. You need to:

Focus on the facts. "The project was not going smoothly" is a fact. "We had communication issues, so I ended up delivering not what they wanted"  is also ok. "The project was going badly because the advisor is incompetent" is you trying to assign blame. Stay clear of that. You do not need to lie to the committee and pretend that all was great, but try to refrain from presenting your own interpretation of the events. It is understandable that you will want to make sure that the committee understands that the issues were due to no fault of yours, but by badmouthing your advisor (no matter how warranted) you are likely to reach the opposite.
Take the high road. If it is customary that students write an acknowledgement to their advisors, write a short, polite acknowledgement thanking him to allow you to  work in his team, if you can thank him for nothing else. Rocking the boat over something so minor seems unwise.
Whatever you do, stay professional. Acting out of anger and a lust to "get back" on your advisor for his insults will backfire on you.

Important Edit:

Based on your follow-up information:

(retracted - some racist comments as well as statements about unduly long work hours)

The fourth, maybe even more important point is:

If something really bad went on (like in your case), find out what the correct official action to take is. File an official complaint with your university, or even talk to a lawyer and have him look into filing a law suite (racist comments in the workspace are certainly grounds for a civil law suite where I live). Don't take a placebo action that does not hurt and does not help, such as not including him in your acknowledgements.

The other 3 points stay in place - even if something terrible went down, you need to stay professional and you need to focus on the facts, in your official reports as much as when you talk to your jury about the incident(s).


If your advisor has had a large enough impact on his field or sub-field, it may be possible to organize a special issue in honor of his birthday. For example,
Donald DeAngelis had a special issue of Ecological Modelling dedicated to him. The first article was titled "Next-generation ecological modelling: A special issue dedicated to Donald DeAngelis on the occasion of his 70th birthday".

The entire issue may be found here and a non-paywall press released here.


Is there a trollish/novelty/esoteric citation style?

May I humbly suggest footnote labyrinths?

Alt text: Every time you read this mouseover, toggle between interpreting nested footnotes as footnotes on footnotes and interpreting them as exponents (minus one, modulo 6, plus 1).


Is there any journal in which I can publish educational articles not a research article?

One example would be the American Journal of Physics published by the American Association of Physics Teachers. Quoting from their Audience and Mission statement (at the link above):

The mission of the American Journal of Physics (AJP) is to publish articles on the educational and cultural aspects of physics that are useful, interesting, and accessible to a diverse audience of physics students, educators, and researchers. Our audience generally reads outside their specialties to broaden their understanding of physics and to expand and enhance their pedagogical toolkits at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

They have quite a broad range of articles, many of which are of broad interest.


Would a legitimate journal send unsolicited email to an author offering to feature an article in their own publication, for a fee?

Absolutely not.

While open-source journals can charge authors to help recoup the publishing costs in the absence of paid subscriptions, it is completely dishonest for a journal to "republish" a work that has already appeared in print. It is even more dishonest for them to charge you to do it. At best this is just an advertising service; at worst it's a scam.

I wouldn't even dignify the email with a response. Send that email into your junk folder.


Applying for a post-graduate degree with an Italian three-year bachelor's degree

It is standard practice in the US for students to apply for graduate programs before they have received a degree, and the TOEFL exam is normally taken as part of the admissions process.

However, you should also be aware of the fact that you have largely missed the admissions "window" for this coming fall: at most American graduate schools, you need to apply during the previous fall. So, for instance, to apply for admission in September 2014, you should have applied during the period (roughly) September 2013 to January 2014.

It is unlikely you will be able to secure admission to any American graduate school starting this September. At best you will be able to apply for admission in the fall of 2015. The only exception will be schools with "rolling admissions," which accept applications at any time.

As for the acceptance of the "triennale" degree, you will need to ask the individual schools you're interested in; I'm not aware of any such master list (because the number of recipients of such degrees who enroll in any particular program probably isn't big enough to support such a list).


Are "how", "why" or "is it possible" good for a research question?

If you already have a lot of research in your area, and you can use that to build up a case of inference, then you end your literature study and inferences with a hypothesis stating that "if all we know so far is true, then the following should also be true". That's your hypothesis.

If you don't have any knowledge to build upon, there is not previous experiences in your field (highly unlikely, but still possible), then you would instead use a research question. Of course, you could also use a research question if you are too lazy to study and do your literature study properly, or if you don't have the ability to puzzle together information into a case of inference.

So if you're sitting in a closed off room and you have no idea what is outside the room and you don't have anyone to ask about the conditions outside of your room, then you can ask research questions. For example, is it raining outside of the room? To answer the question, maybe it would be possible to put a stick through a hole in the wall (assuming you are not able to look out) and if it is wet when it comes back inside then maybe it is raining.

But how do you know that rain causes sticks to get wet? In this case, maybe you should instead collect information about sticks, and how their properties can change, where you find a research article stating that if you put sticks out when it's raining then they become wet. So you would instead build a case of inference and say that "sticks become wet if they are put in the rain", "it is not raining in this room", "if I put a stick outside of the room and if it is wet when I take it back inside, then it is raining outside". Then you do your experiment to test your hypothesis in this case (not research question), and it turns out that when you open a small hole in the wall, water is just gushing in. So you have to put up a new hypothesis and say "water is gushing in when it has a high pressure" and you end up explaining that your room is 1000 m below the surface of the sea, after many new articles with many new hypotheses, etc.

So in your case, you are asking "what is a good research question", and the answer is "any question that examines an area without previous knowledge is a good research question". If there is already knowledge that you can use to build upon, you would use that knowledge to state a hypothesis, and that is a much more efficient and reliable way to go about research. So you really shouldn't aim to get a research question, you should aim to avoid research questions.


What is a reasonable rate to charge for editing someone else's thesis?

I don't have a better estimate than http://www.the-efa.org/res/rates.php whose rates work out to about 2 cents a word for basic copy editing or about 40 dollars an hour. For a thesis which is going to be very technical, I would expect someone with relevant expertise to get more. Grammar and form, probably is close to basic copy editing, but is probably more involved than that.


As a PhD student, should I attend group meetings when they just make me feel bad?

Most commonly, PhD students are required to attend group meetings.  Often, the supervisor can make whatever rules about group meetings the supervisor wants to make.  Ask them.
The group meetings ought to help you become less inexperienced.  If it's not working well for you, tell your supervisor about it.  If that does not help, discuss it with another faculty member who is familiar with local practices.  You might also get help from a counseling office or office for international students.


Is it a bad idea to do research with multiple different professors at the same time?

There comes a point where a person will be spread too thin – that's inevitable. Only you can really say how much you can take on before your workload starts to interfere with your academic goals and achievements.

If you're already doing the work of two students, I'd be cautious about expanding that to three.

  I'm spending around 9 hours a day on research right now with ~3 hours in class, 1 hour eating, and 4 hours free time, on week days, and even more free time on weekends

You make it sound like those four hours of free time are being wasted, when they might not be. Perhaps your brain is appreciating that rest more than you know. And I don't see any time allotted for physical fitness; besides being good for your health, fitness can be good for your mind.

If you decide you want to try a third project, you should be honest with yourself, and up front with the sponsoring faculty member from the outset. "I'm already working on two other projects, so, to be honest, this might turn out to be too much for me. But I'd still like to give it a try." Such a disclosure might make it a little harder for you to find someone willing to take you on, but it might help save your reputation if you find yourself in a position where you've bitten off more than you can chew.


How to symbolize that figure is cropped?

What kind of a figure is that? If it is a plot, and you want to zoom in to a particular range of it, then you may want to include full plot, then a zoomed in one. For the latter, you may mention that "plot of y from x{a to b}" in the caption. Plus, it would be much better if you say a few lines about why this particular range is important to be emphasized this way, in between your text.

This is not a symbolization, but an effective one to crop something out of a drawing. Thus, I'd prefer this if I were to read your thesis.


How to deal with a student who tricks a professor into accepting a late exam?

Don't leave the pile of exams on your desk. Simple enough, and good practice. Exams should probably be properly secured in some way.
If you catch them, reject the exam, or otherwise deal with it.
If you consider it a breach of an honor code, especially an explicit one, then they can be reported to the overseeing board, of course.


How much does having published in high IF journals as an undergrad counts in the masters admissions process?

This can only be answered by the faculty and admissions committee of the institutions you actually apply to. It depends on how they see the relevance of your work and also on the competition you face from other candidates.

However, it certainly isn't a negative factor. I'm not in the same field, and so don't know how common it is for undergrads to produce such papers. I suspect it is pretty rare. In this case, since you have an unusually positive application it would help you a lot - especially for a doctoral level application. How much it helps for a masters level depends on how research oriented the particular MS is.

But the only way to know is to make the application. But note that these publications won't be the only thing that affects your chances.


What should a PhD student do when he receives no feedback on his work except some reviews on his papers?

My first reaction is: why do you need a smack in the face? Research education aims to educate PhD students to become independent researchers able to perform research, publish it, write applications for new research supervise new PhD students etc. Once you pass the PhD defence the only smack in the face you get is when your papers are rejected, your funding application is rejected etc. Towards the end of a PhD it is normal that your knowledge in your topic stretches farther than that of your advisor. From this perspective, a smack in the face is not the most obvious test of your progress.

I can understand if you feel you do not receive feedback on your work. In an ideal situation you should be able to discuss your science and use such feedback to improve. Your advisor should be able to read your manuscripts and provide feedback and suggestions on how to improve it before publication (or if your write a monograph, before you defend). Now all advisor-students relationships are different since we deal with personalities. To some extent one need to adapt and find ones own way in that relationship, I know this from my own experience.

So although your situation is perhaps not ideal, it does not sound as it is truly problematic. It sounds like you get more feedback than you can expect after your PhD. If you need specific feedback on any part of the research process, you should look around to see if any other persons can provide such. For PhD students getting papers past peer review is the hardest hurdle to cross and as such the sign of the worth of your research. Most advisors try to help students reach this level so the worst smack in the face they consider is the dreaded rejection. If you get your material past peer review, you are really doing (perhaps more than) fine.


What exactly would count as copyright infringement in a replication paper?

After asking permission to Elsevier (I'm editor in chief for ReScience), they confirmed (in this specific case) that equations can be re-used without asking permission to Elsevier:

  Our Global Rights group has confirmed that these equations are not
  copyrighted;  therefore, you can merely acknowledge the 2012 Journal
  of Theoretical Biology as the source of the equations but do not
  require written permission from Elsevier.


Does a PhD by monograph make you ineligible to be a lecturer at a university?

I have never heard on a difference between the degree. If you've finished a Ph.D. in some subject, you have finished a Ph.D. on the subject. You've done the research necessary and was approved by your committee and the university's senate (or whoever approves it there).

Whether or not you get a job depends on the quality of the content of your dissertation, your reference letters, networking skills, and just plain luck with timing.

Even if we agree that Ph.D. based on publications is better, then the only difference is that it might give you a slight edge with regards to the content of your dissertation. But ultimately, it's about what's inside rather than what form it ended up in.


Quitting a postdoc: how to justify myself with my PI?

If he is a reasonable person then be honest. Something like:
I was happy and enthusiastic to come and work with you on the project, but it changed before I started and I don't see any advancement for me in the current situation. I've found another position that I think will be more productive and need to start it soon. I'm sorry that it didn't work out.
Hopefully all of that is true.


How can I set up a fund to support academic research at a particular lab using my own money?

Talk to your attorney or certified public/chartered accountant and the development or giving department at the university in question. Both deal with these kinds of issues constantly. You need tax advice in your location and giving advice in theirs. These are common questions for universities which like to receive charitable donations and want their donators to be best advantaged in their contributions. They may be able to recommend attorneys and accountants with experience in donation laws in your and their jurisdictions.


What does it mean "a dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction"?

This is a standard bit of text that means that the dissertation is submitted towards one of the requirements for the PhD degree. There are other requirements (e.g. coursework, oral defense), so the dissertation alone is not enough to earn the degree.

It says nothing about the quality of the dissertation.


I have no publications or professional experience, will my short CV look bad for US graduate admissions?

It definitely isn't unheard of to have a short resume/CV coming out of undergrad. Also, having just one page is perfectly fine and is actually about what I would expect from most people.

If you must fill space, I usually recommend adding course projects or personal projects relevant to your field.


Is it legally okay to photocopy solutions from a solutions manual when giving answers to students?

Legally?  Dunno.  I'm not a lawyer and the test for fair use is anyway not a bright line test.

Pedagogically, it will be far better to give answers that relate to how the course was taught, and it might be possible to generate those from the publisher's manual without much trouble.  Pick something discussed in class, relate it to the current problem, and explain how one gets to the solution.

Also, see both comments to the question by Nate Eldredge.


Is it self-plagiarism if I upload a paper in error, delete it, and then upload a modified version again somewhere else?

It's not self-plagiarism. Self-plagiarism involves trying to get double credit for the same work -- mostly in academic publishing, where the same author publishes old ideas as new ideas (without citing). In your case, you accidentally uploaded the paper somewhere and then deleted it -- this does not even come close to meeting the bar for "claiming a publication."

There is a possible concern that you might be wrongly accused of cheating -- either because your professor saw you post the work to blackboard and assumed you were trying to share it with someone else, or because blackboard automatically indexed the paper when you uploaded it, and will now flag it as a duplicate when you submit it. You didn't do anything wrong, so you should be fine - but if you are concerned, you could send a brief e-mail to the professor explaining what happened.


Easy way to see historical trend in keywords in publications?

If you have access to it, you can very easily do that with Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science portal. Run any query you want, probably starting with the simplest one: Topic=XXXX. Then, select “Analyze results” at the top-right bottom-left of the results list, and sort them by year of publication:


Value of light-to-none peer reviewed pay-to-publish articles

From your description, it sounds like the problem is more likely to have been the MSc supervior than the student.  As evidenced by some of the questions we've seen here, it's very hard for people new to academia to figure out which venues are reputable on their own---and the advice we give usually includes talking to someone in academia.  If the supervisor's name is on the publication, that presumably means the supervisor encouraged publication in these venues.

Especially if it's a journal which does a small amount of peer review, I wouldn't assume, without further evidence, that the student has any idea that the papers weren't fully peer reviewed.  If the supervisor isn't active in the international research community, I'm not sure I'd even assume the supervisor knows that.


Are academic papers required to have specific sections

That depends on where you want to publish. Some journals are strict on requiring a specific structure, e.g. IMRAD, or on the naming of sections, while others are more freeform. As a general rule, read any "Guide to authors"/"Author information" or just try to follow the structure used in recent papers published in the venue of interest.


What is a diplomatic way to tell a professor that progress hasn't been made because of their lack of communication?

You don't.

That is, I don't think that would be very productive, diplomatic or not. I wouldn't focus on their lack of communication in the next meeting you have with them at all; I would instead focus on using that next meeting you have with the professor to come to some resolution on the things that are delaying progress on the paper/project.

As you mentioned in the comments:

  I essentially have done everything I can, within reason. I've selected and done background on directions for the paper.

So, this is what you have, and this is what you show them. Additionally, any questions about the scope/direction of the paper, etc. should also be brought up during the face-to-face meeting.

To address additional information posted by OP:

  But I strongly suspect (and he seemed to say) that he expects me to have done more. For this question, assume that the professor will ask why more hasn't been done on the paper, so the subject will come up.

We all have limitations. You were in charge of certain aspects of the paper/project, but you were not able to achieve a certain level of progress that was set. Just be upfront about that. Specifically, tell the professor what it is you are stuck on and ask them during your face-to-face meeting if they have any feedback to offer.


I plagiarized in my Bachelor's thesis, and after a year,went back and redid it unofficially. Should I push for some official action?

No, don't push, and don't tell it to future advisors etc.

You shouldn't feel this obligation to offer up the truth, especially about bad things, to people who don't even want or need to hear it.

Lying and openly telling all of your problems are totally different (especially when not even asked about them, by people who don't even want to hear about them, who have the power to make decisions that will be harmful to you).

Your supervisor thinks you are a good person, and they don't want to make unnecessary problems for you. You've even shown your character by going back and re-doing it. If your supervisor thought you were lying or that you would keep doing it in the future or that other people would be harmed by you elsewhere, they would want to make official problems for you.

So what I mean about lying/deception vs openly telling everyone all of your problems: there are people who are always only thinking about getting to the next step, and will lie to their classmates/coworkers, or steal from them etc. If some interviewer asks you "did you ever plagiarize anything?" then you can tell them (but if you believe they shouldn't even ask that question, or that the answer is irrelevant, then feel free to lie). But if you apply for a PHD or something and they ask about it, then you should probably tell them, and tell them the whole story.

And I don't mean you have to let them ask exactly the right question. If they ask something that seems like it's related, and that they would want to know this, feel free to tell it. I just mean, if they ask some general question about your history, you shouldn't tell them every bad little thing. Would you tell some random people at the bus stop too? "Hey man do you go here?" "Yeah I go here, but I plagiarized this thing like 2 years ago, I thought you should know". You know what I mean?

Just forget about it. Even the people in charge of dealing with it don't want to keep going with it. Their job is to make official problems for people who are doing it as part of a pattern and who don't want to correct their actions, to prevent future harm to other people.


How to prepare for questions about the part of the paper that you didn't write?

couldn't say somebody else did it, and I don't know.

Yes, that is more or less what you should say.
It is completely normal for collaborative works that different co-authors are knowledgeable about different parts of the work.
In particular, works that span several otherwise separate areas, it is not unusual for experts to contribute their respective techniques to create an integrated solution together.
In such a case, the various co-authors basically see the components contributed by others as some kind of a blackbox. They should know what those components do, but they do not necessarily know how they do it.

In such a case, it is reasonable to answer:

  The ... algorithm is a work by my co-author ... who unfortunately cannot be here today. I recommend to direct specific questions on the algorithm to them.

You should be ready to provide some way of contacting the co-author (e.g. e-mail address on the slides).


Letter of Recommendation Without Contact from the Student

I would do the "third thing" of nothing. You're not under any obligation to write letters of recommendation, and to me, the student's signing you up to do this is similar in principle to your department head signing you up for an extra committee assignment, or someone signing you up to volunteer for a public lecture, without discussing it with you first. I write this as someone who puts considerable time and effort into recommendation letters -- two that I care considerably about in the past 24 hours, for example.

Of course, it may well be the case that the student has no idea that writing a recommendation actually takes work, and it would be nice to contact him/her, but you've already tried the simple routes to this. I would devote my time to other tasks.


One of the most important principles of academic writing is that you shouldn't write anything misleading.  If you present the result as a conjecture with no indication that you have already proved it, then you are giving readers a misleading impression (namely that you don't know how to prove it), so you shouldn't do that.

  Should I just remove the conjecture from the book because it is proved?

That's an acceptable option.

  Should I leave the statement in the book titled as a conjecture because it's proof is not yet officially published (and also may be not enough checked for errors)?

Don't just leave it there without comment.  If you are worried that the proof might be wrong, you can address this by stating things a little more tentatively.  As for whether it is officially published, most of your work seems not to be officially published, so why is that an issue for this conjecture?

  Should I write in the book that I am going to publish the proof (either in a separate article or the second volume of the book)?

Sure, why not?  It's probably preferable to deleting the conjecture: if it was worth mentioning as a conjecture, then presumably it's still worth mentioning as a theorem.


Best way to correct my name in the paper

Yes, don't waste time asking on the internet, but contact the editor as soon as possible. I don't know what the line "our proof corrections have been returned to Elsevier" mean exactly, but if you had dealt with production staff already (so, the article has been handed over from the editor to the publishing staff) you may also contact the production staff. More practical: Use the most recent communication channel that the journal used to contact you (could be the submission system, an email from the editor or an email from somebody at the production staff).


What to do when you plan to submit a paper and a senior colleague is independently pursuing the same research idea?

The fact that the colleague in question will be on your tenure committee seems to, on the surface, complicate matters. However, it's not like you had a conversation with her, made no mention of a possible collaboration, and took the idea and ran with it:

You reached out to her by proposing a collaboration on the research topic, which she declined.

Thus you should do with your manuscript whatever is normal in your field to disseminate the ideas contained in your paper; e.g., submit your paper for peer review, post the manuscript on your webpage/upload the manuscript to a preprint server (if this is normal in your field/OK with where you plan on submitting your manuscript), etc.

Also, if your conversation with your colleague was key in your research progress on the topic, then I think an acknowledgment in your manuscript stating that fact would be appropriate.


First paper published, follow-up paper rejected by editor as out of scope?

Yes, it is normal that articles get rejected as not in the scope of the journal. Yes, it can take a long time for the people in charge (often doing this pro bono) to get around to take a look at an article.

So you published something related before in the same journal. OK, maybe they just want "new results", not the elaboration/extra details on previous ones. Or they don't want "enhanced computation" (presumably more detailed results), and prefer description of methods. Without an awful lot of additional information, we can't tell. Besides, whatever the case may be, the powers that be at that particular journal have the last say. If we consider it normal or not, is totally irrelevant.


Is it inappropriate to ask a professor for multiple letters of recommendation (at different times)?

It is not a problem in principle to ask for letters of recommendation at different periods of time. However, one should certainly make an effort to keep the recommender aware of career developments since the letter was originally written. (However, the relevant time scale over which old letters of recommendation become "outdated" is much longer than one year!)

For the most part, in the digital age, we keep letters of recommendation "on file" and recycle and refresh the content as warranted, so it's not a herculean effort to write a "new" letter after a while.


My professor cancelled research for the summer, unsure what to do

It doesn't really matter why he did this, and it doesn't really matter to you that it might be unethical for him to treat you this way. What you need is a solution that will advance your studies.

I think the best advice he gave you is to find someone else. Do that. He may not be suited to advise anyone, and he certainly isn't fitted to advise you.

You have, I suspect, made some progress on the tasks that he gave you. Talk to other professors explaining what you have done and asking whether they will take you on as a student. You can also explore whether any of the work you have done is useful if you work under their supervision. Don't press it, but it is possible you can leverage it. They know what they are interested in, and you want to become part of that, rather than necessarily continuing what you've been doing. But the work you have done can be used to show seriousness of purpose to a new professor.

What you want in a professor is someone senior enough that he or she will have plenty of ideas, but also someone who will have the time and desire to help you advance. Very junior professors are too often working too hard to get tenure to be of sufficient help to students. But someone who advises too many students will have little time for you.

Also, it would probably be a mistake to complain about your treatment by the other professor, except to someone of real authority. As a student, you are unlikely to know what sort of politics there is in the department and speaking out, even if valid, might do you more harm than good. All you need is a solution. Focus on that. If you need to yell and scream, yell and scream at the moon.


Assuming from the degree titles you're talking about the UK degree courses, the biggest difference is that an MMath student meeting the residence requirement receives some government support for the whole 4 years of her course, so that tuition fees are capped the whole time. This isn't necessarily true for a separate one year masters, which can make the courses significantly more expensive.

It's certainly possible to go straight on to a UK Ph.D after an MMath degree. However, that's actually possible after a undergraduate bachelors' degree as well, since by world standards, the UK entry requirements are relatively lax. Precisely what's required of a student will differ by field and institution.


How necessary it is to have PhD students?

It certainly depends on the department you're in. Some departments have small PhD programs and largely focused on undergraduate and master's programs. In that case, you may get away with just not having PhD students. On the other hand, at most Research-1 universities, math departments have 1.5-2 PhD students per tenure-track faculty. Of course, faculty do not evenly assume mentorship roles for them, but there is an expectation that one does, in fact, supervise some. It is not uncommon to have an expectation that, for example, one has to have graduated one PhD student before promotion to full professor.

In general, the way to see this most productively is probably to remember that a university is an institution of higher education. If a department has a PhD program as an important component, then it is a reasonably expectation that every tenure-track faculty participates in it by (i) teaching graduate courses, and (ii) advising PhD students. If you actively try to get out of one or both of these parts of your job, you're not doing your job. The situation is no different than teaching and service: it's part of your job, and whether you do or do not like this part makes no difference in the expectations that are put on you.


Getting into an engineering or physics graduate program with a C in Calculus 1 and 2

Graduate admissions are generally based on a complete record, and depend less on the details of specific courses than they do on an evaluation of your potential for success. You need to build that complete record and a few C's are a negative factor that you need to overcome. There are various ways to do that. One is to just move on and do better, perhaps learning more about calculus on your own, perhaps just taking more advanced courses and doing well there.

If you continue to get C's in math it will be a problem. If you get good grades, especially in those subjects that use calculus it is less likely to matter.

But even more important is to impress your professors with your hard work and potential.

Short answer - the C's won't slam the door, but you need effective ways to open it wider.


Why journals ask for potential reviewers' details during submission of a manuscript?

The editor, who selects the reviewers, may not be familiar with the particular sub-area, when a journal is not hyper-narrowly focused. In that case, providing a list of potential reviewers directs the editor's attention to possible scholars in the area. Once your attention has been drawn to an individual, you can spend some time discovering whether they would actually be good in that area.


FERPA and confidentiality of information when university officials contact school

Some of the information you mention might be considered public information and not "educational" and so not covered by the law. Your courses, and similar are probably covered, but FERPA is more intended to cover your performance. But if you are concerned for your safety, for example, you need legal counsel. The university may be able to provide it via some office dedicated to student services. But for a serious concern you may need to contact a lawyer or even the police. In some situations, a university can bar a person from school facilities, of course.

It may be a crime for someone to use the university systems to harass or stalk you, but if they are willing to risk it, you would be at risk, so you need to take precautions. But for serious interventions, you probably need some evidence or corroboration by others. Some people are just awkward rather than creepy, but only you can really judge that.


Is my advisor being unreasonable by not approving classes in a different field than his?

It all boils down to your advisor’s estimate of your capacity to complete your PhD in time. Perhaps your advisor sees your newfound love for NLP as a distraction from what should be your main focus: successfully defending your thesis within the span of X years. If you are well on the road to graduation and are exploring a side project then the restriction may be unfounded, though not unjustified (perhaps further establishing yourself in your field would improve your career prospects).

Of course, no one can stop you from independent study or taking a Coursera class, but your advisor’s reluctance likely stems from the concerns I mentioned above. This should also be something you shouldn’t take lightly: there’s often good reason to listen to one’s advisor.

Good luck!


Academic Honesty for Teaching Staffs (Case Study)

I will assume that Peter's research proposal was used internally only.

It seems Susan did some slightly fancy juggling.  Unless Peter's university policies say otherwise, I don't think anyone would get in trouble for this.  Peter's options (not all mutually exclusive), as I see them:

He could let it be water under the bridge, reasoning that research proposals often undergo substantial changes before a project is completed and published
He could choose to avoid working with Susan long term
He could continue to work with Susan, but plan to be on the lookout in case Susan tries to cut any corners in future in projects he is involved with
He could have a frank, respectful conversation with Susan, share his concerns, and listen to her point of view
He could meet with the director of graduate studies in his department, share his proposal and the published paper, and ask if there is a problem

I have no personal opinion about what option(s) Peter should choose.

Now, your question:

  Most of the guidelines for Academic Honesty are for students only.  Can I assume all teaching staff understood these guidelines when they were students?

This question is really not clear to me at all.  Assume that all teaching staff understood which guidelines when they were students?

Please edit the post to make the question part clearer.

(I'm posting this as an answer rather than a comment because I needed more space for my bulleted list of options.  Even though you didn't ask what Peter's options are, I guessed that this list might be helpful for you.)


What are opportunities for academic math outside of academia itself?

If you are a US citizen living in the USA, you can work for NSA (which, if I recall correctly, is known to be the largest employer of mathematicians in the country) provided you pass their background check and satisfy their other requirements. However, your research will likely be classified, so you will not be able to publish it in the regular math journals.

Should you happen to be in the UK, their counterpart of NSA is GCHQ. Many other countries also have similar organizations.


What role do professors on a graduate student's PhD committee serve?

I think the variations here are national rather than by discipline.

In the U.S., the thesis committee's primary role is that of a review panel when all is going well, and as a neutral arbiter between student and advisor when it isn't. Again, there is no formal obligation on the part of the committee—except when convened by the student or advisor, but this typically occurs on a more frequent basis (every one to two years or so). As individuals, however, committee members may be consulted with on various topics (job placement and career strategies, suggestions for future research directions, and so on); however, this is voluntary and, again, not very frequent—probably one or two times per year.

In Germany, by comparison, the primary obligation occurs at the time of the thesis defense, when they serve as evaluators. Outside of this, you might never meet with the professors on your committee, other  than your primary advisor.


Are there any restrictions on applying to the same graduate school in two consecutive years?

A solid GPA and letters of recommendation is nothing to sneeze at—particularly if one of the people who wrote your letter of recommendation is a co-author on the publication.

You don't need to publish the paper on arXiv if you and your co-authors don't feel it is appropriate; however, you can mention that you have a manuscript available, and submit it along with your application (if the department to which you're applying permits it!).

However, I wouldn't wait an extra year just to "improve your odds." Apply this year—if you don't like the results, try again next year.


I would say, yes.

If the results are worth publishing, then the world should know about them.

That said, even if the paper is accepted, it is likely that you'll need to make minor or major revisions. If you do not expect that you will have the time to do this, then ultimately the paper will be rejected (or simply just vanish). So you need to consider whether you will, in 1, 2 or 3 years (or whatever the journal turn around time is) be in a position, mentally and otherwise, to address the review comments.

The other option is to archive the paper on arxiv.org and hope that interested people find the work – for the good of science.