How to interpret reviewers comments for an accepted conference paper?

This can depend on the venue.  You didn't mention field, so I'll discuss Computer Science, with which I'm familiar.  Many conferences simply accept a paper, provide reviews, and expect "best effort" to address the comments.  They don't really enforce them.  Some have shepherds who receive an updated draft and comments on the reviews, and then "approve" the final version for the conference.  In practice, most of these are also best effort, but the effort is greater, as multiple iterations may be needed.  Only a very small number of conferences actually have shepherds who can truly stop a paper from being published -- usually this happens at those few conferences where the list of accepted papers is kept confidential until the shepherds approve.  This prevents the embarrassment of having a discrepancy between the list of papers and the final program, and I don't know that I can point at an actual instance of this being done, though I've heard rumors.

In your case, it sounds like you have a very good case for limiting your changes to those that fit, and addressing them in an extended (journal) version in the near future.  Your position here would be weakened if the conference allows extra pages after acceptance, with or without an explicit over-length fee, as some conferences do.

The one thing to watch for would be the tone of the reviews.  If a reviewer says "I think the paper should also do X" you are free to not do X.  If it says "this paper can really only be accepted if it does X" then there is greater pressure to address it.  If in doubt, it is probably reasonable to ask the program chair(s) to weigh in.


Is there any way to find Donald Knuth's undergrad/master's thesis?

Finally, I contacted CWU's library and was told by an archivist that Knuth indeed graduated from the Case Institute of Technology with a BSc and an MSc simultaneously in 1960.

However, he didn't need to present a thesis. It was not a graduation requirement at that time.

What a shame!


I got a B- in Math. How bad is that for Econ?

Is there anything I can do about this?

I presume you mean "can do to change your grade"? No, grades are final (perhaps with an exception for mitigating factors).

  Does the B- condemn me to eternal graduate school hell?

I don't understand how a grade can condemn someone to "eternal graduate school hell," nor what "graduate school hell" is. If you are concern about graduate school admissions, then one grade will have little impact.


What can I do with a research project that is my university’s intellectual property?

First, it would be good to know if that is a claim they can legally make where you are. It is possible that it is an empty claim.

Second, if it is a proper claim, you should learn how it is interpreted by the university. A place making such a claim should have an office at which you can learn the consequences. I suspect that all it means is that you need permission from them to publish and, perhaps, include a reference to the university in the acknowledgements.

But forbidding publication would be unlikely except in extreme circumstances and assigning it to another "author" would be unethical.

My guess is that you have a way forward for nearly any sort of publication. It is actually to the university's benefit to have students publishing.


Do international students need to take the SAT and TOEFL to study in the US?

No, you don't need to take the SAT.  The SAT is for students going into undergrad.  Instead, you'll probably need to take the GRE, which is a similar exam for students going into grad school.

Yes, you'll probably need to do the TOEFL, I'd guess.  That seems like a common requirement for international students.

Both of these requirements vary from institution to institution, so you'll probably want to check with the specific institutions that you want to apply to.  Depending on the program you want to go into, you may even have to take a GRE subject test.


What would be a good strategy to avoid being scooped?

Submitting the manuscript to institutional repositories, and if the field permits it, publishing at arXiv, before sending to a journal are the most common ways to guard against scooping. Another line of defence is storing all communication with the journal you submitted to, so that if any malpractice is found later, you can bring it to the editor's notice and get justice.

The strategy you suggest is flawed based on two reasons:

(1) Many high-ranking journals will not touch a fluffed up version of something published in a low-ranking journal. It is possible that it may not even go to review. There is a high premium on brand-new, original research now; I have come across cases where high-ranking journals reject papers that even use data from previously published work.

(2) This doesn't really prevent someone from scooping your work. As you said,the first publication will not have all the details. Someone could still use your work and claim that they independently expanded/improved upon that initial version.


My PhD Supervisor is founding a startup based on my thesis work and wants me to be first hire. Unsure if want to join

You may find you are an initial ideas person, not someone who enjoys taking an idea through into practice and commercial success. If so, you need to think in terms of getting money for your ideas, rather than for your follow-through work.
Depending on what contracts you have signed and other legalities, it may be too late to get money from your current idea, but look into it. If the devices are not patented, see if they should be, with you as an inventor. Depending on how much he contributed, your supervisor may also be an inventor.
Your objective should be to be compensated for allowing the new company to use your prior work, for example by granting you equity in exchange for a license. Most start-ups fail, so your equity needs to be high enough to allow for that. The net present value of a company that would be worth 20M in a few years if successful may be 2M, assuming 10% probability of success. 2%, even ignoring the job issue, is not enough if the technical basis depends on your thesis work.
Being underpaid by 30K for at least two years would cost you 60K, and it does not sound like you would take the job for fun. Committing to 2 years should result in higher pay to compensate for loss of flexibility. In any case, negotiate separately on permission to use your devices, and pay/benefits for any job offer.


When asked to clarify a point to the reviewer, should I do so in the paper itself or the response to reviewer?

It doesn't matter what the reviewer wants - you need to do what's best for your paper.

... which is to clarify things in the paper itself.

Think about it: a reader of your paper - one who was trying hard to understand it -was not able to understand your paper, or at least was unsure enough about it that it was worth mentioning. Since they are a reviewer you have a chance to explain things privately to them, but that's not going to be the case for most of your other readers. Some of them are going to hit the same roadblock, but instead of contacting you, they're just going to toss your paper aside. At best you lose a possible citation, worse, they could come away with a low opinion of your rigor and of you as a researcher.

Remember that the paper will need to speak for itself, without the additional comments to reviewers. If one person found the paper confusing, then others are likely to as well.


You'll very quickly learn that being an academic involves more than just writing research papers. Your time as a postdoc is when you can start learning about these other aspects, while building your own profile.

A postdoc needs to do the following:

Build a publication record. This will involve both what you are paid to do and your own line of research.
Get involved with supervising students. Help with the PhDs in the lab, and get involved in supervising masters students.
Get involved with obtaining funding. This can either be by helping your employer or (ideally) obtaining your own funding.
Build an international reputation.
Start collaborating with external parties.
Gain some teaching experience. This is absolutely crucial if you want a faculty position.
Learn how to manage projects and a lab. This includes overseeing the progress of projects, allocating your time (and others), presenting results at meetings and  writing deliverables. If you are in a lab setting, you will need to learn how  to fix/calibrate/maintain critical equipment and software so that you can start your own lab some day, and you will need to become proficient in teaching more junior members on how to use that equipment.
Start to devise a strategic research plan. While it is fun to do opportunistic research, solving a problem that comes along or investigating any idea that pops into your head, a better long term strategy is to formulate an interesting long term research plan and follow it, building result upon result.

Be as proactive as humanly possible, without being annoying. Talk to everyone in the department, especially people whose research interests are close to your. Go to conferences and sit down and work with interesting people (not necessarily the superstars).


High Latency Communication with Potential Thesis Supervisor

They sound sincerely interested in working with you. There's no right answer to this; you're right that there's a balance between staying engaged and giving them polite space to reply. It's likely they will be coping with various life events, not just work; who knows what may be filling their time and attention. It's normal that people may be responsive in one period and then less so.

I recommend perhaps lengthening the time between check-ins, so 1 week for the first follow-up, and then 3 weeks, and then maybe 6; and then stop. Alternately, you could call as much as once a week, if you don't leave a message. Most of the risk of too much contact is because of making them read or respond to a message, so if there isn't one, that's less of an etiquette problem. Ultimately, there's no way to control whether they experience this input as pushy or annoying. I would also continue exploring other potential advisors.


My accepted paper now appears as "under review" - could it still be rejected?

It seems to me that the conference committee accepted your paper to be presented.
The related proceeding is then  subjected to its own revision according to the journal standards.

This is what I get from your Q - in which is not that clear who has accepted what - and it is a common work-flow for many conferences when the proceedings are to appear in a journal, albeit in a special issue of it.

Alternatively, the editor at the journal could have decided to consult one more referee. This can happen, of course.
But in this situation you shouldn't have received any acceptance letter from the journal, yet, but only that coming from the conference organisers and regarding your actual presentation at the conference only. Hope it helps and good luck.


Do universities in US contain rooms for discussions between students

There is, but it will vary by the university and the department. Some anecdotal examples that I've experienced:

University #1: When I was an undergraduate (some time ago), our new building had explicit meeting spaces at the end of each floor. (But not rooms; just a semi-encoded area with furniture.)
University #2: When the library of my previous university was rebuilt about 6 years ago they put in many custom meeting spaces for students to work. These rooms have monitors built into the walls to facilitate meetings and discussions, and the rooms could be booked by students and/or faculty.
University #2: When the building that I worked in at my previous university was built, about 4 years ago, they also put in several custom meeting rooms for students on each floor. The rooms were similar equipped with monitors.
University #3: My current university added a building to our department about 15 years ago that has desks in an open area with several cubical-like meeting rooms that can be booked by students. (These are very rarely used by faculty.)

I've visited other universities that have similar spaces. From the discussions that I heard around these buildings, creating space for students to meet seems to be a common value in current construction. But, I haven't typically seen such space available in older buildings or buildings that are highly space constrained.


How should I feel about a professor using an entire online course for his own course?

Copying an entire course from Coursera is definitely not commonplace. Some parts of ML courses are fairly 'standard' (there are only so many ways one could define linear regression), but lifting material without proper credit can range from annoying, unethical to outright plagiarism. It's fine to take some examples and use them (with proper credit), but it's generally expected that an instructor adds some value of their own.

I don't know how you should feel about this. Sounds like you already are feeling pretty annoyed (I would!). I can answer what you can do about this.

The minimum I would do is report this in the student course evaluations. Write a detailed report of everything that went wrong. If you school's administration cares in the least about their teaching, this will get someone's attention.

The best thing you can do is rally the entire class. If it's just you - well, you're just an angry student who's not getting the material and is trying to squeeze a good grade. If a significant number of complaints come in (even 10 students is a good amount), that's going to get people's attention. Does your university have a student union? An ombudsman? If you go through them this will also get people's attention.

You can also try to (discreetly) reach out to the person in charge (professor in charge of curriculum, the department head etc.). I would not confront the lecturer directly if I were you, unless you don't mind getting a bad grade. It is very unlikely that this instructor will be removed from the class, and if they find out you reported them they may be very biased against you: reporting paints a target on your back (this is another reason to have more people complain, the instructor can't fail all of them and get away with it!).

The likeliest outcomes here are that the professor will not be teaching this class in the future, and that's about it. Alternatively, they'll be required to stop this bad practice in future iterations of the class (say, if your department is understaffed). I don't foresee them facing disciplinary action, unless this is not the first time that this has happened.

Good luck!


Academic publishing: advanced questions about figure/table positioning

The simple answer is that it doesn't really matter, as long as you're consistent about how you do it.
If you stick with the LaTeX defaults, the figure will always go to the top of each page, and that's a perfectly reasonable convention. If you shift to placing things "nearest", that's fine as well, but will take more care on your part, since it's easy to end up with unexpected shifts caused by distant upstream changes.


Taylor and Francis Manuscript Status "Under Review"

Under review implies it has been sent out for peer review and has passed the initial check. T & F primarily uses ScholarOne Manuscripts but also have their own electronic submission system. There may be slight differences between these but I would think they are set up similar to each other. I am familiar with the ScholarOne system.


Will pursuing master degree increase the chances of Ph.D. admissions if the Ph.D. is in different field than Undergraduate is the goal?

I assume you mean a master's in CS.

This might depend somewhat on where you are, but in the US it would probably have little effect. The way to learn if your background is adequate for doctoral admissions is jut to apply to a program or two. There are aspects of your education that would be good to have when studying AI.

In the US, I think that if you could get in to an MS program you could also get into a doctoral program with the same background. It might be different in EU or elsewhere, of course, especially in places that have strict rules.

But everywhere, you need to make your best case that you are qualified to begin and are a good candidate for success and that you have shown success in the things you've already done. You will find a lot of competition, of course, but no single thing will be determinative. Make your case.


What open access journal can I submit with almost no money

I recently published a conference paper (fee was around $500). The paper received good feedback and was well regarded in it's field. After a few weeks, I received an invitation to extent the work for a journal publication published by the same organisation. As I was invited, there'll be no publication fees for the journal.

It's a bit of a long shot, but if you target a small conference with a specific interest and an associated journal, it might be worth a try.

Disclaimer: I didn't publish at the conference for the journal and the outcome will depend on many factors, such as your research and how it is received.

Wish you lots of luck in these hard times.


My current LOR is "good but not great". Should I switch to a LOR whose doesn't know me well, but certainly thinks I'm a top student?

I think professor "you're good but not great" is doing you a great service by letting you know in advance that his letter will not be one that you want in your application.  If you are applying to an insanely competitive program, then indeed such a letter would jeopardize your application.  I've done graduate admissions at the 50th best math department in the US, and we can do better than "good but not great".

A letter from someone in an adjacent field is definitely not as good as a letter from someone in your field, but getting a letter from someone who was responsible for "many of the awards" you got is certainly strong.  The sentiment that you have award-winning mathematical skills should be a positive one on an application to graduate school in the sciences.

I would definitely switch the letters.  Also remember that the first professor really helped you out.  It is not the sort of help that is worth an effusive thank-you on your part, but it is worth keeping in mind and perhaps remembering to do for someone else someday.


Who draws the good diagrams for the motivation of an article

The illustrations that are included inside a journal article are essentially always created by the authors.  This may entail getting somebody else to do the actual graphics work, if none of the authors are skilled in that area, but the design concept is created by the authors.

In some higher-end journals, some articles may be specially highlighted (with graphics about them appearing on the cover, for example).  In these cases, the graphics are typically produced (or at least heavily edited) by the journal's design staff.  The authors are involved in decided how best to illustrate their work, but the journal professionals create the actual images.


If I receive written permission to use content from a paper without citing, is it plagiarism?

It doesn't really matter that the author gave you "unrestricted rights to use any portion of their article" without the need of citing it. We, the readers, want to know that you're using it.

  Because I have all the rights to do this, would this be considered plagiarism?

Yes.


Do universities have a comprehensive reference document for all their policies and regulations?

Yes. It will be called a "Policy and Procedures Handbook" or something like that at most universities in the US. The reason to have such a handbook is to ensure that employees follow proper protocols about a range of different issues. This protects both the employees and the universities legally.


All positions require multiple code development and machine learning proficiency. How do I address the knowledge gap? I am worried about my future

None of the missing skills you mention strike me as "seriously underqualified". Those are tools that you can learn reasonably quickly. You can learn C++ and Python, and you can learn machine learning algorithms and try them out. This will not take you longer than a couple of months. The important thing is that you are an expert in your field: that is what requires years of study.

the posts require proficient knowledge in C++, Fortran, Python, code development in Finite element analysis, development of machine learning algorithms, molecular dynamics simulations, phase field simulations among others.

How many candidates do you think that will be experts in the postdoc topic and also experts in all those other things, in the sense of having year-long experience with all of them? Probably none.

I have not done extensive code development.

I do not know what you call "extensive code development", but I suspect that what you have in mind is not what most academics have ever done. Academics write code for themselves, to quickly try out approaches to a problem. Many (most?) of them do not write tidy, modular libraries that can easily be understood and maintained.
Also, not everyone is an expert in machine learning. Many researchers try it out as a tool, and for that you do not need so much time. I have seen many students in my department finish their PhDs and get hired for jobs that involve machine learning, even though some of them had never touched machine learning before. For a postdoc position it will be even easier, as the real bottleneck is "being an expert in the research topic", not "being able to code a neural network".
So I suspect you will be just fine. You can familiarize yourself with C++, Python and/or machine learning to increase your chances if that appears often in position descriptions. But I do not think you are "seriously underqualified".


Is it ethical for a lecturer to mis-indicate exam study material?

I will address the final question you ask—if it's fair for instructors to write an exam but point to other material to study.

The primary ethical issue here is the question of intent: why did the instructor tell you to review the particular material. If this was an intentional effort to mislead students, and to feed them "false" information in order to catch them unprepared, I would say that it is somewhat unethical. (In other words, if you were told you wouldn't be responsible for something on the exam when the instructor knew it would be, that's wrong.)

However, if the instructor gave "recommendations"—along the lines of "it might be good to know X, Y, and Z"—then there's really nothing wrong with that. Telling you exactly what to do defeats the purpose of a university education, which is to learn how to learn! Ultimately, the instructor should not be spoonfeeding you information which you then regurgitate on the final exam. And I would further argue that if all you're doing is memorizing information, as you suggest, then you're also not really accomplishing much, since such information is very likely to be "dumped" from memory once the semester is over.


You can get involved in a COST Action through various means and steps, as explained in http://www.cost.eu/participate

In short, you can join as a member of a workgroup of the Action (wide open), as a management committee member (or substitute) - nominated by your country for an already accepted Action, as a proposal submitter - almost automatic nomination, as a (usually Ph.D. student) researcher participating in short-term scientific missions (STSM), etc.

If it is interesting? I think yes and that's why they are there (and receiving funding) for some 40 years now.

IMHO: Being involved as an external expert (e.g., to evaluate proposals) is the hardest path as your role assumes that you understand how the whole thing works so as to provide a fair evaluation. While there are guidelines in place to help you with this, having first-hand experience by being involved in some Actions is much more useful.


What's the net income of a W1/W2 german professor?

The rules for a German professor are quite different than for a typical German employee. The first thing to note is that you will be a Beamter, which is a very special class of government employees. In particular, you are automatically exempted from the public healthcare system, as well as having to make direct payments into the social security system out of your paycheck. Instead, the pension payments are covered by your employer (the government of the Land in which you work), while the Beihilfe system helps to defray part of your insurance costs (the rest of which you pay for through a private insurance contract). In other words: you get billed for your health care; your private insurance reimburses you for 50 percent of your costs, and 30 percent of the costs for other family members. You submit the remainder of the bill to the university, which reimburses the remaining 50 percent (70 percent).

The net result of this is that you get a much higher percentage of your income as take-home pay relative to a traditional government employee. Your tax status depends on your marital status, so as a W1, you can expect to take home somewhere between 2800 and 3200 euros per month, as reported by the Öffentlicher Dienst website. There are some differences due to cost of living in different states. However, expect to pay about 200 € per month for health care, or more if you have a family.

However, I should also note that just this week came down a new ruling from the German Federal Constitutional Court stating that the salaries for professors hired since 2005 are too low, and need to be adjusted. This has the potential to adjust salaries upwards somewhat—although it is not yet clear by how much. (The state of Hesse, against whom the ruling was made, has until January to adjust its salaries upwards.)

To answer your other questions:

There are no ranks between W1 and W2.
The base salary is nonnegotiable, as it's set by the state government for which you will work; however, you can negotiate some terms of your "package" (support for students and other workers), and you may be able to get some "performance bonuses" negotiated into the contract.
Teaching duties are set by federal law, and are similarly nonnegotiable (although you can negotiate the ability, for instance, to teach in English rather than German)
Bonuses are not available for single people with no children; instead, according to German law, they're actually taxed at a higher rate.
There is no difference in salary based on nationality.


What's a proper title when I started a post-doc position but not received my PhD degree yet?

I would use research fellow as your title in English and in German use whatever your contract says or research fellow as well. That leaves out the slightly awkward postdoctoral part.

In general, unlike a doctorate, using the title 'postdoc' is not something that people in academia worry a lot about (and outside academia many people will have no idea what it means). So using postdoc to describe your role wouldn't be outrageous even though linguistically it seems wrong because of the implied doctorate.


How can one find a promising research project that doesn't just fall apart?

The fact that your projects failed should not be a bar to your continuing on to a Ph.D. program. The reality of research is that most research fails! Remember that Edison tried over a thousand combinations before finding one to work for his light bulb. Nobody is 100 percent successful in research and projects end up falling short of expectations or failing altogether a substantial percentage of the time. It's how you persevere through the failures that distinguishes a successful researcher from an unsuccessful one.

Moreover, projects working or not working can be a matter of luck, and sometimes it can take an extended period of time to make a breakthrough. During my Ph.D. project, I had basically nothing but failed approaches to show for two and a half years (!) before I had my "Eureka!" moment. I wrote six papers in the remaining three and a half years after that.

So I wouldn't worry about finding a "good" project: ideas that seem sound on first blush can fall through, and a "high-risk, high-reward" type project can lead to big breakthroughs in the long run. Focus on doing something that interests you, so that you can keep going when you run into rough patches (and they will come).


PhD adviser moving to another school - Should I follow?

Having a good advisor and working on a subject you're interested in are the most important things during a PhD in my opinion. I've seen many fail because they were fed up or just didn't click with there advisor for whatever reason.

Also consider your long term goals. If you moved, set up a new lab and worked closely with your advisor for the next few years, could that be the beginning of a research group at the new university, which you could be a part of? Otherwise if you're looking to move out of academia afterwards, does either university have partnerships or close contact with employers that you'd be interested in?


Is the promotion of meditation activities by my university a form of religious discrimination?

On the basis of the following definitions, I see no basis to consider meditation nor mindfullness to be solely associated with a particular religion.

Meditation is a practice where an individual uses a technique...to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state (Wikipedia).

Mindfulness is the psychological process of purposely bringing one's attention to experiences occurring in the present moment without judgment (Wikipedia).

I do not consider the origins of these activities relevant. (I will note that Wikipedia discusses meditation in the context of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.)


strategy to divide the class of large number of students

Typically, in the US, large classes are divided into sections and scheduled at different times throughout the day. Then the students pick which one best fits their overall schedule when they register. Registration times are typically done by class, nominally seniors, juniors, sophomores, and freshmen, with a later period nearer to the start of the semester to give students some time to rearrange. The enrollment in each section is capped, and students may fail to register for their preferred time, but that's just how it is.

Typically undergraduate students are not divided up into sections by grades, but there may be entirely separate classes organized for students that are on some sort of Honors track. Good grades and other things are required to get into the Honors track, but after that, there's little use of their grades to separate them from non-honors students.


If you are applying to graduate schools while you are still enrolled as a student, you will normally be asked to provide the most up-to-date transcript you have at the time of the admissions process—and may have to provide a mid-year report if a quarter or semester has elapsed between the time of submission and the decision date. So, the only courses the school may not see may be the ones in which you enroll after such a mid-year report.

Now, in general, if you're not leaving too many classes until the very end (in other words, the "standard" load for someone in the field), there won't really be any questions asked—people know that different departments have different ordering and sequences for classes. However, if you are leaving "standard" courses normally taken earlier in the program for the end, you may need to explain why. However, your local academic advisor should be able to guide you on whether this will actually be necessary for your particular case.


Why is it extremely difficult for me to concentrate, and why do I yawn repeatedly?

It could be many factors: lack of interest, screen time, poor sleep, inconsistent sleep, lack of hydration, too much sugar in your diet (causes crashes), eating before class, not eating enough before class, poor habit formation early in life, lack of physical exercise. There are many, many factors. However, to begin with, you should examine a few things in your lifestyle:

1) What is your diet like? when do you eat? do you eat consistently the same times each day? do you eat a carb heavy diet?

2) Do you get physical activity? Are you hydrated or always drinking diuretics?

3) Examine your sleep schedule. Inconsistent sleep can be worse for you than less sleep.

4) Do you care to be in class? Are you treating your classroom like a job? If not, you should be.

5) Journal your day so you have a record. After two weeks, identify poor patterns in your lifestyle.

6) After you take a deep look into your lifestyle, and the consistency of your lifestyle, consider speaking with a profesional about trying ADHD medication and integrating those medications holistically into your lifestyle.

Nobody here will know why you are the way you are, but those are some key areas of life that you can personally make changes to.


Are there any strategies one must bear in mind when preparing proposals to decrease the chance of it being misunderstood?

In my organization, we address this challenge with two rounds of internal review before a proposal is submitted:

Pink Team: reviews the ideas and storyline of the proposal, typically as a fleshed-out outline but before significant effort has been invested in writing.  This is intended to identify major gaps and allow course corrections to be made before major effort is invested in writing.
Red Team: reviews a near-final draft document, reading in detail and checking for compliance with proposal requirements.

We'll typically use 2-4 people for these teams, of which one should have expertise in the material and one should not be an expert, in order to provide an outside perspective.  Often we'll use the same people for both teams.

Doing this makes proposals much stronger, but generally requires that you start them earlier, in order to be able to have time to really incorporate feedback.


How can we check if a book is a sequel edition of an older one with different names?

I don't know if there's an easy way to track this. The Library of Congress catalog, for instance, shows no trace that the second book was an earlier edition of the first. However, if the edition numbers are consecutive, there's usually no "intervening" edition.


Should continue PhD or leave after 2 years and no progress?

True answer: we do not know. It really comes down to the cause of the lack of progress, but from this distance, it is impossible to know the true cause. I would recommend speaking with a trusted advisor -- maybe your supervisor, or another professor that you trust.

Speculation: less than a year is a reasonably short time. Are you learning anything? My experience is that students spend the first year or so just learning the basics, so your advisor may be leaving you to your own devices for now. I would speak to older or former students who have also worked with your advisor to see what they think. In any case, I think a year is long enough for you to address this with your advisor. I would ask him for a time when you can block off 30 minutes for a formal meeting, rather than just dropping by his office, and candidly explain your concerns, and ask him what his plans are and when he sees you graduating. You may want to discuss the technical reasons for lack of progress, but make sure the conversation focuses on your pathway to graduation rather than just the technical difficulties you've faced.

More speculation: I would focus completely on making things work out at your current university, and not think about or mention transferring out. You may consider trying a different advisor if you think that is the problem, but do so ASAP. Leaving with a master's degree may be a good solution if you can arrange it, but (at least in my [Western] experience), it is pretty unusual to get a PhD after getting a master's from a different institution.


If you can't afford it, you can't afford it. Do not lie to another school, just tell them the truth, without the words "sham" and "bait-and-switch" etc.

Tell them you attended for one month and withdrew, and can prove that, but there is now a dispute over tuition, which you thought was waived. They want you to pay 20K, which you are contesting, so they will not send you a transcript for the one course you signed up for and dropped after a month. Also tell them there will be no grade for that course, you formally withdrew, and that is all the transcript would say.

Lying to a new school will get you into trouble THERE too. Be honest, with just the facts, so they can't say you kept this a secret from them.


It really depends on the context and the reasons why you feel that sharing such assertions contributes to your own essay.

Generally, the first option you mentioned is best, which is citing each assertion according to its original source: Roses are red.[1] Violets are blue.[2]

In some cases, if you have no access to source 2 cited in 1, it may be acceptable to cite only 1, particularly if 1 is a meta-analysis or a review of existing assertions: 1 notes that roses are red and violets are blue.

Similarly, if you are using a direct quote that was itself directly quoted in source 1, it is generally acceptable to simply explicitly make note of this if it is difficult to track down the original source 2: "violets are blue"[2, cited in 1]

Your second option could falsely imply that both source 1 and 2 independently demonstrated that violets are blue (which they do not in your example), and your third option misleadingly cites 1 when you have already cited 2 in the sentence, which is confusing to the reader.


I am nominated to Community Contribution Award. Should university financially support my travel?

Sadly, what the university should do, what it can do, and what it is willing to do might all be different.

In a perfect world, yes, they should fund you. However, there may be limited funds or even regulations that bind their decision. Also, your relationship with the supervisor might be an issue if they don't think that this is worthwhile for you or them. Or even, if it would be your supervisor providing the funding under a grant, the grant itself might have rules. Finally, note that not every university will provide funds for students in any case. It might be harder to justify an unusual expense than a common one.

It wasn't exactly clear if you sent the email you were already asked to send and were then refused or if you haven't done that yet. Don't push the issue to the point that your advisor is angry and unyielding, but a formal request is probably appropriate. But try to make your case on the merits of the award, both for yourself and the university. And, there may be things of direct interest to your current studies at the conference also.

And if you have to self-fund for this, it may still be worth it for you in the long term if you use the time well at the conference to extend your circle of contacts for the future.


These kinds of grey literature are often included in CV's but it's important to be clear about the nature of the publication.  I would put this after any peer reviewed journal articles and conference proceedings papers in a section titled something like "technical reports and other manuscripts."   If you don't have any other publications, then it may make sense to simply describe the project (and what you did on the project in particular) and mention in passing that you were a coauthor on the project report.

For someone just applying to a PhD program, this will look good on your application and certainly shouldn't hurt.


How would co-authoring a paper whose main subject isn't about what I'll do in the future help me?

I'm a freshman in high school

And you’re already sure about what you’ll do in the future? I’m impressed. In any case, you shouldn’t worry too much about what your future research topic would be. I was sure I’d be a chef and ended up with a PhD in math. People’s interests vary wildly over time.

What does matter is that you have the capacity to do research at a very young age, which is impressive to anyone reading your CV when considering you for undergraduate programs or hiring you for a job. If this is a legit opportunity I’d take it even if it’s not 100% within my field of interest.


How long will the status "awaiting decision" after minor revisions last?

To summarize the comments: as long as it takes.  The AE is not solely employed by IEEE, but also has a faculty position (usually) and other obligations.  Although it's frustrating, your manuscript is probably one of many they are responsible for and they have their own stuff going on.  Don't email them. They know they have to make the decision, and your email will not make them do so any faster.  Unfortunately, you will just have to wait it out.


Are there any trustworthy Mathematics fee-based open access journals?

I'll try to link to pages which describe the open-access policy of the respective journals.

Both Proceedings of the AMS and Transactions of the AMS allow the author to pay a fee to make their article freely available electronically from the journal.  If the author chooses not to pay the fee then the article is not freely available from the journal (but the author may post the final preprint on the arXiv or their personal website).

The (few) Elsevier journals I have looked at have a similar fee for publishing open-access.  One example of which is the Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications.  You might try their Journal Finder, which has a checkbox to only search for journals with open-access options.

Springer offers a similar program for some of its subscription-based journals which they call Open Choice.  Not all of its journals have this option (e.g. Acta Mathematica doesn't).

We also note that Elsevier and Springer both publish a number of purely open-access journals, but I can't comment on their "trustworthiness".


The only way this can offend your existing advisors is if you choose the third one without telling the first two in advance.


How should I ask professor for letter of recommendation?

If he's really your only option, e-mail him and ask if he'd be willing. Keep it short and to the point, just tell him you're applying for a program and ask if he'd be willing to write you a letter. Be sure to mention you'll supply him with a CV and any necessary info to write a proper letter if he agrees.

Hopefully, he'll respond quickly and you can send the necessary info. But as @Roboticist mentioned, you'd really be better off finding someone else if at all possible, especially since he's ignored you in the past.


Sources of information about postdoctoral/PhD grants and funding

As a PhD student trying to find a good postdoc position it's in my interest to help you find funding for places. These links may help as they all currently have open calls for projects/fellowship funding:

Google Awards http://research.google.com/university/relations/research_awards.html
Marie-Curie Actions http://ec.europa.eu/research/mariecurieactions/
ERCIM https://fellowship.ercim.eu/

Please let me know if you manage to get some funding ;)


Is it appropriate to give university lecturers Christmas cards?

The religious connotations of word "Christmas" can be confusing and depend on the region. My UK university has Christmas and Easter vacations while most US universities now call these winter and spring vacations. In the US, a Christmas card implies a religious celebration while a holiday card is secular. In the UK, a Christmas card that says "Merry Christmas" would be seen as secular and the same as a US card saying "Happy Holidays". There are of course religious Christmas cards in the UK.

The level of appropriateness (or inappropriateness) of a Christmas card depends on the level of religiousness and the recipient. While I would not say giving a secular holiday card is inappropriate, it is pretty rare. I teach probably 500 students a year and I receive on average of 1 holiday card a year from my students.


How do schools determine their curricula?

(This applies to US universities; not sure if the rest of the world is similar.)

Textbook decisions are, by default, made by the individual professor teaching the course, based on what they feel is most suitable for the course.  They would of course consider how the course fits into the degree program(s) that require it, but there usually isn't a concerted effort to have consistent textbooks across all courses in a degree program.

For "standard" courses that are taught regularly by many different professors, the department may choose to adopt a standard textbook.  This decision would typically be made at the department level, led by the professors who teach the course most frequently, with input from others in the department, other departments whose students often take the course, etc.  For courses in which a particular piece of software is central, the choice of software might be similarly standardized.

Higher administration usually has little or no direct role in such decisions.

Supplemental materials (additional software tools, videos, extra reading, etc) are usually selected by individual professors, and are not usually "standardized" like the main textbook can be.

Bookstores will by default stock all books and other materials that are listed as "required" or "optional" for the course.  Everything beyond that is at the discretion of the bookstore manager, based on whether they feel it makes business sense.


What are the differences between these kinds of articles: original, review, letter, and short communication?

This will vary pretty heavily depending on the journal in question. But generally speaking, in broad strokes:

"Original Paper" - This is a generic term for a full-length, original research finding paper that doesn't fall into another specialized category.
"Review Paper" - This is a paper summarizing the state of research on a topic. These can often be somewhat long, are often but not always by invitation only, and this category can include meta-analysis, but doesn't have to. This may also be the umbrella that commentaries fall under, but again, not always.
"Short/Rapid/Brief Communication" - A shorter version of "Original Paper", whose methods, findings, etc. don't justify a full length paper. They still contain original findings, but are general much more straightforward.
Letters - Possibly even shorter original findings, field reports, single observations, etc. This can also include arguments about previously published papers, which involve either opinion pieces or snippets of contradictory or supporting research.


Can PhD students publish papers as sole author without including their supervisor?

If the supervisor does not actually write anything or contribute in
  the paper, can a PhD student write as a single Author?

Yes. If for no other reason than I did, which suggest its possible

  Would this be a faux pas and cause a strained relationship with the
  supervisor?

It depends on many, many factors. Is this a side-project that's been taking away from your actual work? Then it probably will. Have you talked to your supervisor and decided that it's the right way forward? Then it probably won't.

  I know they expect their name to be on all papers related to the PhD.

This is not universally true. While I expect to be an author on most of my graduate student's papers, that's because I expect to have done work on most of them. With an upper, and potentially likely bound of "all of them". But if a student wrote something independent, then no, I don't expect my name on it.

  Also, does using their lab mean they have a right to have their name
  on the paper?

It depends on what you mean by "using their lab". Generally speaking, just providing equipment isn't enough to warrant authorship, but if I did use someone's lab, I'd take a long look at the "did nothing" assumption and make sure it's true.

That's also potentially the source of a strained relationship - if you're using my space, equipment, and potentially reagents for a project I'm not participating in, I'd be less than thrilled unless it was discussed ahead of time.


Is it normal for collaborator to rerun experiments himself?

I don't find that behavior strange at all. If I want to understand problems with algorithms (I don't do experiments with anything other than algorithms) I need to run them by myself and sometimes even implement the method from scratch. It's not that I do not trust other people's code, but if I want to understand all the mechanisms well, it's much easier to get a grip on it when I've done it myself.

The other way round, I do not have any objections if a coauthor of mine re-implements a method I already provided just to see how it works. On the contrary: Usually I benefit from this in one way or another, e.g. by learning new tricks or getting rid of bad programming style…


Supervisor does not give a research project

Now that you've written three papers, you've shown you can solve problems. But you still need to learn the other important side of research: coming up with problems to solve. We can't know your advisor's motives with certainty, but I would guess he expects you to spread your wings and become more independent. Instead of asking him for projects, I suggest coming to him with project ideas of your own, and asking what he thinks.


Contributions of indirect research toward getting a post-doc

There's a thresholding effect for software. If you create a piece of software that has a huge number of downloads and has visible impact, that will count for something. However, with papers, you wouldn't need to have the same level of impact to have the same effect on interviewers.

The problem really is that academics don't know how to evaluate the impact of software development, and would need help doing so. I imagine that if your potential post-doc advisor has used your software, you won't need to do much explaining. But if not, and your research credentials are otherwise weaker, it might be difficult to justify.


In my experience it is usual (and useful) to explain awards in the CV, even for well known awards (well, maybe not the Nobel prize; but otherwise not assuming that everyone knows your award and not assume that they should just google it seems quite polite.)

Do not use the self-description ("outstanding achievements bla bla") but the set of eligible candidates and the frequency and number of awards (e.g.: "One prize each year awarded by the Belgian Academy of Sciences to a biologist working in Belgium.")

As Roland commented: If the name of the award does not imply it, or if the award is not in some obvious way for "the overall best among the eligible candidates", then add what the award is for.

So I would write

The golden srcub (for the cleanest laboratory, one prize each year awarded by the Belgian Academy of Sciences to a biologist working in Belgium.)

But just

Prize of the Belgian Society of Biology (awarded biannually to a Belgian biologist under the age of 30.)

In that case I personally would not say "to the best Belgian biologist under the age.."; it seems clear that this is implicitly the aim of the prize, and claiming to be "best" sounds pompous.

Btw, I just saw that the question seems to be answered here already.


Dataset of commercial binaries: release possible?

(We're not lawyers here, and this may be off-topic, but I've had similar situations and will hazard a response).

This all comes down to the license agreement of the software you are using. The license will specify:

whether you can distribute it
whether your code is considered "derivative" (or allowed at all)
whether you can make the software available as a service through an API.

It sounds like you are using commercial software, so the answers to the above are likely to be in the negative. If the license agreement does not prohibit doing what you're doing, it is likely OK to publish your code and give instructions for how to acquire the proprietary software and what to do with it after it's acquired; however, it sounds like in your case, there may not be a lot left after you remove the proprietary stuff.


How to cite a method that I describe in my paper since it is not standard in my field

I suspect you're overthinking this. I would just write something like:

II. Related Work
A. Statistical Model
Our work uses a statistical model from X et al [44]. As this model is of fundamental importance in our work, we will present a thorough summary of their work in this subsection.
...
B. Something Else.


How harshly will a potential project supervisor judge me for doing poorly in his course?

When in doubt, communicate.

That is a golden rule that I have learned that works well in virtually any scenario. If you explain what you think your issues are, the prof can try to help you. Not talking to him won't magically make this go away.

If anything, he would probably think higher of you for discussing this with him.


Publishing research software that was developed by professional programmers - attribution ettiquette

If the software engineers made a direct contribution to the research product, then the should be listed as authors on the paper.


Undergrad CV – listing posters you presented but did not author

Yes, it is acceptable. However, I would not list it in my "publication section", rather in a separate section called "Paper/Poster Presentations".

If you received any certificate (or letter) after the presentation, then that is a plus.


Why does professor prohibit me talking to people?

There are several possibilities for this behaviour.

You're good, he knows that, and the collaboration with the other research group is more formal than you may know (maybe they are in the same funded project because it was the only way to be funded, while the two groups may be in competition). In this case, he doesn't want you to go “behind enemy lines”.
You're not the one he was looking for, he recently discovered that. He is very close with the other group and he don't know how to tell you that you are not a good fit for his group and relatives. So instead, he changed what he said in order to make it unacceptable for you, hoping that you will leave, and that you will also not go to the other group.
He's not reliable, he had a weird idea of what is a student.

By the way, except if you are a recognized genius, this is unlikely that the other team will accept you if they are close to your current advisor and want to stay that way.

In all three cases, only one option: run far away.


Dangers of allowing students to resubmit assignments

Should I be offering it in the first place?

Dangers:

You spend even more time on assignments, limiting your time for other endeavors.
Students might get into a "grade grubbing" mode where they simply re-submit marginally better answers in order to improve their grade.
Students do a poor job initially because they know they will have a chance to re-submit, and they might as well take their chances that you'll give them decent marks for inferior work.

Benefits:

Overall, students spend more time on the assignments, leading to better knowledge and ability to do the work.
You can provide helpful information to guide them to better answers (because you're seeing first-attempts). This level of grading also takes more time.
Students are happier because the stress of a hard deadline isn't so bad.

I think the benefits outweigh the dangers if you're willing to put in the extra time to re-grade. As I've said in other threads, I've used auto-grading homework for a some classes (probably not relevant in your case), but I've used the strategy that I'd have deadlines for all the assignments but that the week before the final I'd re-open all the assignments and tell the students they can re-do any questions they missed. I don't tell them I'm going to do this until I do it, in order to keep students from simply waiting until the end to do all the assignments.

  Are there dangers in 'pre-marking' assignments

I think it's great that you're being creative with the assignments (e.g., pre-marking, resubmittals, etc.). Again, it comes down to your time -- if you have motivated students who want pre-marking and you have the time, I can't see a problem with it. It wouldn't surprise me if the best students are the ones who want pre-marked work, but then again I've had some less-capable students jump at chances like that to do better.


How to handle relevant, but disruptive, questions

As a student, I find that waiting to ask all questions in office hours or the end of class is not a great solution. I don't mind delaying non-urgent questions, but sometimes if I don't understand something presented in the first ten minutes of the class, I might then miss out on the rest of the lecture if I don't have a chance to ask a question. So I appreciate when instructors give students some chance to ask questions during the lecture.

A good way to allow this and also control when and how many questions are asked is to invite questions in each class at times of your choosing (and let students know you'll be doing this).

At the beginning of the lecture, say, "I'll pause and ask for questions at regular intervals, so you'll have a chance to ask your questions then."

Decide ahead of time where you will pause and ask for questions (at convenient places to break the lecture, or places where you know students often have questions).

During the lecture, pause at the predetermined places and say something like:

  "I'll pause for questions now. We have time for three or four questions."

(and you can decide how many questions to take depending on how the lecture is going, time-wise.)

Students with too many questions in office hours are an entirely different issue. You should ask these students to schedule a separate appointment, and determine whether the questions are a sign of a problem (i.e. they may need tutoring or similar services) or a good thing (i.e. they are looking for enrichment and need some pointers on how to find it).


Copyright date or publication date, which one should I cite?

I have actually asked a librarian about this issue as it came up for me in the past.

She told me to cite the exact copy that I am reading. If what you are reading is the first paperback edition (usually the inside left initial pages will have information about this), then do cite that.


Can I opt for traditional manuscript submission instead of open access in a journal that offers open access?

Most journals labeled "open-access" are "open-access only". You don't have any other option for these. Because they are open-access, the journal can't make money in more traditional ways like selling access to university libraries - who would pay to access content that's already open? (I'm aware I'm simplifying a bit here) Be wary that predatory journals also fit in this category, so while there is nothing wrong in principle with open access you do want to make sure you're only paying for publication in legitimate journals.
Other journals use a more traditional model, but also offer an open-access option, often in part to comply with funding agency requirements that require authors to publish with some level of open-access. These journals will give you a choice when you submit, but make sure you are complying with the requirements of any funding you've received. Also note that many journals (including reputable ones) require some page charges for authors whether they are open-access or not; open-access costs more, but non-open-access isn't necessarily free.
If you want to publish under a different model than a journal offers, you need to find a different journal.
Two other things to think about: 1) PhD students shouldn't ever be paying out of their own pocket to publish; funds that pay for students to do research are often also available to pay publishing costs. Talk to your advisor. 2) Some journals have some sort of discount for financial hardship, which you should be aware of in case you can qualify.


As a contractor you may have explicitly or implicitly given over all of your intellectual product to the company. If that is the case then what they did is (minimally) acceptable. But in human terms it may not be proper. Certainly not "neighborly".

Since you indicate that there is a difference in how contractors and non-contractors were treated there may be some underlying justification, valid or not, for what was done.

I suspect that the practice is pretty common, but not universal.

However, it would be reasonable to ask for an acknowledgement at least, and maybe authorship. You can ask, at least. You might be refused and you might be given reasons why refusal is necessary, but you gain nothing from silence. At a minimum you will learn whether it is in your best interest to continue under such a relationship.


TA struggling with how much time grading takes

One thing I might do in your shoes is to grade all the answers to the problems one at a time.

That is grade problem 1 on the assignment for all 74 students, then grade problem 2, and then add up the scores for the seven problems at the end.

That way, you can "prepare" for one problem, grade it on an "assembly line," and then forget about it after you go on to the next problem.


How do I re-plot my results against existing results?

There are two ways to about this. The first is to contact the authors of the paper containing th graphs and ask if they can supply the data. Otherwise you can search for digitizing software on the web. I have one (open source) that comes to mind Engauge Digitizer but that is not the only one by far.


Will a professor get annoyed with frequent requests for recommendation letters?

It is fine; don't worry about it.

This is a very common situation: many graduates will apply to more than one program that needs recommendation letters.  They almost certainly are going to be asking the same few people for multiple letters, because they are unlikely to have a large number of contacts to draw on to ask for recommendations.

I think the question you have linked very much applies to this case.  Particularly the top answer, which points out that this is part of professors' jobs, not some kind of exceptional favor you are asking for.


Should the editor's name be included in a rebuttal letter?

One thing to do is to write two documents:

a short letter to the Editor, summarizing your rebuttal in a few sentences;
a detailed Answer to Reviewers, including line-by-line response to all comments and suggestions of the Referees.

Note that the Editor not necessarily has enough time to read through all the detailed response him/her-self, but the presence of this document re-assures that the discussion between Authors and Referees is going in the right direction. If you experience problems addressing Referees' questions, or disagree with them significantly, you should mention this in the letter to the Editor.


How to grade unequal contributions to group work as a TA bound by instructor's rules

I suggest that you grade "the project" for its value and assign every student the same grade. If any student objects, refer them to the instructor. This recognizes an important fact.
You may not recognize all "contributions", but the students might value some things more than others. Not every student needs to contribute to a "team" project in the same way. The same is true for real world projects.
If you try to change things or devise some "scheme", then you will be the bad person, disrespected by everyone.
The work is the work. Grade it.

I actually think that "dividing up" the work makes it harder since the integration adds another step. I think that the so called "best" students do everyone a disservice if they do all the work. But if I give a project to a team and don't instruct them otherwise on process, then the team process is up to them. Respect that.

I gave a lot of team projects. One thing I did was have peer evaluations of the form "Who were the two most helpful members of your team and why". That would be for a team of four or so. I once had the experience that the team was unanimous in praising one person who I thought was slacking because their contributions weren't visible to me. But he actually kept the team functioning and moving forward. It may be that you wouldn't want to hire him for is technical skills, but you almost certainly would as a manager of a technical team. But that is mere supposition on my part, so don't read too much in to it.
Don't expect every student to learn exactly the same thing from a course.
I once had another student in a class who I predicted would eventually be the manager of all the "geeks" since she asked the right questions. She focused more on "why" instead of "how". There are a lot of skills.


The first thing you should do is calm down, and realize failing a class, or even getting kicked out of school, is not the end of the world.  (Note administrative punishment for plagiarism will probably be worse than just failing a class, though I think most schools would not expel you for a first offence.)

The second thing you should do is make sure you understand what plagiarism is (see also, e.g., here), and understand whether you truly, intentionally or not, committed plagiarism.  Here the main question is: does it look like you were trying to pass off someone else's work as your own or not?  It seems that your professor thinks so, though it is possible he is being more strict with you.

After you do the first two things, you should apologize to your professor (in person) for what you have done wrong.  This includes (a) confronting him in a rude way about his policy, and (b) improper citations.  Your apologies should be sincere, explain your original intents (at least assuming you didn't mean to be disrespectful or dishonest), why what you did was wrong, and show that you know now what you should have done.  During this meeting, you should try to be as respectful and non-confrontational as possible.

If your professor then seems somewhat placated, and convinced of your sincerity, you can politely ask him if there is something you can do to make up for this, such as redoing your assignment.  If he says no, you have to accept his decision.  Unless it is clear from your assignment that there was no intent of plagiarism, it probably is a bad idea to take this issue higher up.


ppt presentation for postdoc position interview

The first suggestion: Ask the people interviewing you. There's nothing wrong with asking if they would like a deep-dive or a broader research context, or what kind of audience you'll be drawing from.

In a more general sense, if you Google academic job talks, you should get a fair amount of advice. In general, the goal is to present your previous research in a coherent narrative, establishing who you are as a researcher so they can put you in context. Tell a story, and supplement it with the results of your research. As it's only 20 minutes, my guess is they are intending it to be fairly high level, rather than a very detailed exploration of any one result.

As for "How Big"...it should be 20 minutes, and as big or small as you can cover in that time.


You are correct, there is a format for this.  See http://www.apastyle.org/learn/faqs/cite-another-source.aspx


If I reworked an idea published by a paper which has a fatal error, could I publish a paper on my work?

Sure, if your results are watertight you should publish them. When you point out the shortcommings of the previous paper, you have to do it with extreme tact. Ask somebody knowledgeable in the area of work, probably your advisor or respected faculty, to go over that particular part of your text (at least) before sending it out for review, and be specially careful with any suggestions in that area.


Is endowing a professorship less effective in a lower-ranked university than in a higher-ranked one?

An institution rank is a not necessary a very good measure of how strong its academic programs are. The ranks take that into account, but also consider how good business it that school, how good is the connection of the institution and industry, the endowment, what do the alumni get to do with their degrees, etc.

The strong institutions are strong because they answer a need of society. For example, my graduate school had a strong chemistry program because the graduates could easily get jobs at the nearby chemical plant which was a part of a giant corporation. On the other hand, we had a so-so physics program because there were very few companies interested in what we were doing. Those few companies, however, were in microelectronics, so the few experimental groups in my department were doing that. My point is, lack of local resources was a problem.

A much worse case is my undergraduate school. The physics program shrank from 150 to 20 undergraduates per year simply because the demand for low-paid school teachers dropped significantly over the last decade. The demand for physics graduates is very small in my city because most industry is low tech, or outsourcing. This means many people with physics degrees have insecure jobs at university, or have to move abroad for work and study, or simply leave the field.

Which brings me to the professor endowment at a low ranked school. I, and a few of my colleagues, got starting grants, or just regular grants that we tried to use to form a research group. We hired students, and even postdocs, but we couldn't retain even the average ones simply because there is little opportunity in this place for a young scientist, and the salaries are small in my field. So, we get to retain only people who don't mind salaries or aren't well enough prepared and those who have no choice because of family or other issues. I got to retain no one, thus far. So, three grants so far, no group yet.

Another problem with professor endowment at a low rank institution is the biblical problem of new cloth patch on old cloth. You can put a Ferrari tire on an old Ford Escort, but it won't matter at all. The Ford drives just the same. Worse even, a strong group in a weak university stands out and attracts jealousy, and lots of it.

As an anecdote, one of my friends had a million EU starting grant he won in a national competition. The department head simply blocked all his attempts to bring new people in the group simply because he could. Not to mention the titanic amount of paperwork that the grant generated -- about two big metal closets of signed papers and reports over 3 years.

What I'm getting to is that yes, the endowment of a professor at a low rank university means a lot less than at a strong one. The low ranked university most likely has a poorly performing bureaucracy, possibly a toxic academic environment, weak connection with local industry, or nonexistent local industry, is in a relatively poor area, etc. Then, the faculty ends up squandering his endowment, because he can buy equipment (often overpriced), but can't create a research group because he can't maintain a healthy flux of people, some coming in to study, some going out to new jobs.

Oh, and a fun fact about truly low ranked places. You may get a grant now and form a decent team with reasonably good collaborations and everything, and then your country won't have another grant competition for three years just because.

Edit -- response to comment about money squandering:
For example, you get 1 million over three years. You could buy a 500k equipment you need, but you can't because you only get 333k/year which you have to spend by 31st december. The institution won't help you because it's a lot of money and complicates a lot the accounting, so you end up spending 333k on smaller stuff you don't really need. By the end of the year all money have to be spend, or returned to the government.

Sometimes, you try to buy your equipment when the project starts. You get your money, but not at the beginning of the year. You get them sometimes late in October (it happened to me and four of my colleagues twice already in three years). To buy the equipment, the law requires you to make an auction. The procedure goes for a few months, but cannot end later than 4-th December because the ministry of education must close the financial year. You lose money again, or settle for buying other stuff you don't really need.

Another way of squandering, which works especially well for research institute is paying salaries to your research team. You can't really form your own research team as a senior researcher unless you already have one. So, if you get a grant, you will need to take members of other research team an pay them to work on your project. You are lucky if you get three people whose specialization allow them to bring a meaningful contribution to your project. Nonetheless, you have to hire someone and pay them. You could try hiring new students and postdocs, but you'd be lucky if you found more than one guy at a time willing to work for the sum you're allowed to pay. So you hire one student who does something, you pay two-three guys who can help and another 4 whose only contribution is a friendly attitude. More than that, when you apply for grants you need to nominate the research team beforehand (except for postdocs and students).

After one year and half, the student leaves to study abroad, the helpful guys get involved in other projects and neglect yours, and you have a 6-12 months of funding left. Then you spend another 2 months to prepare a decent grant application to continue funding the work you started and you get a second chance at starting a group.

Another way of wasting research money is buying overpriced equipment. The local shady companies always seem to know beforehand how much money you have and make you offers for the whole sum. When the auction comes, the others magically withdraw and you are stuck with a take it or leave it bad offer. For example, not so long ago I proposed an experiment for which I needed an impedance analyzer. We got offers from the local shady scientific instruments company. They asked for 30k for the thing. Luckily the funding was withdrawn and I didn't have time to make that mistake. Quickly looking through experimental papers, I realized that similar experiments worked out very well with used 2k analyzers.


When should I get business cards and how much do they actually matter as a graduate student who has not yet built up their CV?

There's no harm in getting business cards, though the importance in academia is smaller than in business contexts.  While you can give them off pretty indiscriminately, they're most useful when you've actually been having a conversation and want to carry on offline.  Therefore, your email address, phone number, website are the most important items.  Your official title doesn't much matter at this point in your career, in my opinion.

In the US, you can put together a simple business card and get a few hundred printed for around $10.


Go talk to someone at the university who has some responsibility in such matters. There is often a specialized office for it. Discuss the situation there and ask for advice. They have knowledge that few of us here have and can make suggestions few of us might think of.

But it isn't necessarily a question of contesting results. Find out your broader options before you choose any particular one. There may be some combination of things that can be made to work for you.

You aren't alone in such things, and universities short be adept at handling them.


Could conducting collaborative research with more than one professor BEFORE applying for a PhD lower an applicant's chances of acceptance?

I don't see any problem with adding additional collaborative projects, but make sure you can finish something and aren't stretching yourself so thin that you make no progress.
There's nothing wrong with exploring research interests, if anything, it's a benefit. But you also want to show you have some follow-through. It's completely different to have started 10 different things and finished none of them than if you've completed some projects and also tested the waters on others.


Are there general guidelines for including code in a research paper?

In general, I would never include code in the "main" paper outside of computer science or applied mathematics. There are very few cases where listing code explicitly would actually improve the quality and readability of the paper. If it is necessary to include the code, I would do so as part of the "Supporting Information" which many journals allow you to include alongside the main publication. I would then describe the features of the code as words in the main text.

Even in CS and math papers, I would still only put pseudocode in the main article, and would save any listings of actual code for the Supporting Information.


A Professor here.

In general, yes, aim as high as possible.  In practice, I do an educated guess as to which journal to send it to after seeing the final product/paper.  If the student is capable and motivated, then I would work with the student to get the paper into the best journal.
As much time as possible.  Papers only get better over time.   There are always avenues to improve it, technically or presentation wise.  This is where your supervisor's experience is critical.  Only he/she will be able to push your paper to the required standard and also steer you away from pitfalls.
Many directions here.  You could beef up the paper with new results, incorporate more assumptions or proof the general case :)  Alternatively, you can work on a new problem or a related problem. Problems tend to reveal themselves as you dig deeper.  All my students start on a new/related problem after they submit a paper.  They might choose to go on a holiday first though.

All the best ...


Should chapter introduction and conclusion be included in the table of contents?

The overriding response here has to be "consult your supervisor, or any documentation that you university says on how they want things to be formatted".

However, if neither of those gives useful information, I would simply include them if you are including other headings at the same level. So if each chapter has multiple sections of which the introduction and conclusions are examples, I would format them the same as other sections and include all of the sections in the ToC.


The use of black lists to prevent low quality submissions in academia is pretty rare. I have never heard of a journal or conference having a formal black list procedure. The first I ever heard of a formal black list system was the one implemented by EPSRC in 2010. There was a discussion of the system published in Nature soon after it was implemented. Basically, the system works as follows, if a PI had 3 proposals that were either not scored or scored in the bottom 50% in the last 2 years, they are only allowed to submit one application as a PI for a 12 month period. Grants submitted where you are a CI do not count against you and even when black listed you can be listed on an unlimited number of applications as a CI.

The fact that formal black lists are not frequently used, does not mean that submitting low quality work does not hurt your reputation. It is quite likely that if reviewers frequently see low quality work from a researcher that they will have a negative bias towards future work from that person/group. The opposite holds for individuals who consistently produce high quality work and sometimes get the benefit of the doubt. In fact, I think these biases are one of the reasons for a double blind review system.


Will people think negatively of owning a nice car in grad school?

[This answer is based on my experiences in the U.S., specifically in math grad school but I think many fields would be similar.]

Your fellow graduate students will initially take your car as evidence that you're rich.  They'll probably wonder whether you'll be a snob, but personal interaction should allay those fears.  Once they get to know you, there will still be comments and jokes about your car for the entire time you're in grad school, but I don't think it will be a real problem.  In the program I was in, most grad students didn't have cars, and the ones who did gained a little popularity if they took their fellow students on road trips (or even trips to get groceries or see movies), so your reputation may even benefit from having a fancy car.

Faculty don't necessarily know whether a student even has a car, let alone what sort of car, but this sounds like a car that will lead to rumors going around the department.  You may get similar reactions from faculty as from students, but they are less likely to care about social interaction with you (for example, whether you're a snob).  Your apparent wealth could theoretically play a role behind the scenes in allocation of funding, but I don't think this is likely, and it would be inappropriate for it to be a factor in most decisions.  The most plausible scenario might be if money were tight and you requested extended funding beyond the years you were promised.  If the department head is deciding which requests to approve, there's not enough money to approve everyone, and your car leads to a reputation of being rich, then the car could work against you.  However, I don't think this is likely enough to be worth worrying about, and you can always address any rumors about your wealth with your advisor early on in grad school if you think they might be a problem.

The main disadvantage I see is that your fancy car might be your most salient, defining characteristic, forcing you to work a little harder to establish yourself in people's minds for your research rather than your car.  Once again, I don't think this is a big deal, but it might make you feel a little uncomfortable knowing that half the department thinks of you primarily as a person with a car.  (On the other hand, this is far from the worst thing you could end up being known for.)


How appropriate or common is it to recommend referees for your paper?

It's fairly common for journals to ask for reviewer recommendations. This is to help them get reviewers. Suggested reviewers make the editor's job easier, since they no longer need to work that hard to find people who can review the paper.
The downside isn't that it's unethical - I don't see why it would be - but rather that the authors are going to suggest their friends or even commit peer review fraud by nominating themselves. But that's something for the editor to worry about, not you.
Finally it's worth noting that not all reviewers you recommend will be invited to review your article - it's fairly common for journals to have a "one recommended, one self-invited" policy for example. In fact, it's possible none of the reviewers you recommend are invited.


What is the etiquette for asking a professor to waive the prerequisite for a course?

Go in person. Tell him what you told us. Be prepared for a few quiz questions about your stats knowledge. Answer them correctly. You might not get any questions, but you should be able to describe, at the very least, what your prior classes were about.


What do you wish you knew as a student before you became a researcher?

Research can be great, but I learned it can be so hard.

First, Google "should I do a phd" and then "should I do a PhD in ". There are tons of people who succeeded and failed in academia and writing about it, about what's it going to be in Academia, and so on. Two examples:

Nature's special on the point of a PhD
You and your research

Beyond that, here's a few things I've learned:

Being a researcher is a career job, not so unlike being a lawyer, a manager.

After all, a paper has to change the scientific knowledge on the
topic. You're going to teach respected scientists something they
didn't know and something they thought was wrong.
I hear that in life sciences, the career aspect can extend to people sabotaging
fellow researchers (that is, competitors).

Being more intelligent does not (necessarily) mean being a better researcher. If you're admitted to a decent program, you're more than smart enough for research. Managing your work (in all senses) can be more important, even though supervisors can help you with (part of) this in the beginning. But it's also about discipline and character:

Choosing a good question to work on (supervisors can help) - the question should matter (or you should make it matter, if you can).
Keeping an overview of what you're doing is important: otherwise, you might find an excellent solution to a problem which in the end is the wrong one.
Working enough on it (keeping focus among distractions of grad school can be hard).
How do you choose which way to approach a problem? Some approaches might not ever work, but others will only work if you keep at them long enough. So you need to be tenacious, and be able to change mind, depending on the moment. You need to delude yourself that you'll succeed until you do.

A good supervisor is extremely important. Nowadays it's extremely hard to start doing research "by yourself". On the one hand, there's too much written knowledge to navigate (literature). On the other hand, there are often unspoken assumptions which you won't learn from reviewers. It helps if he's available enough for you.
A supervisor must also fit you, character-wise. You mustn't be friends, but you need to function together, and neither you nor your supervisor study how to occupy your position.
Communication is extremely important. You're supposed to learn something and then tell your peers (and the world). And nowadays, if your peers don't get it, it's your problem (because your paper gets rejected). Hence, learning technical writing was very important for me.

Of course this is what I learned, which is influenced by my weak points, my experience and my field — I'm saying this because I'm sure somebody will disagree.
I'm a programming language researcher, so I invent and design stuff (programming language). And evaluating design is hard. So much that many ideas are not right or wrong per se - you can make it right or wrong by determined work (see also this). But other disciplines probably experience similar phenomena in different form.


Do A+ grades (as an undergrad) matter at all for graduate school?

If your undergrad school awards more GPA points for A+ rather than As then you should definitely try to get A+. As a matter of fact, you should always be trying to do your very best anyways. But for a top program this will be especially important. If you go to grad school, academia will be your full time 9-5 Mon-Sat job, so I would say go on and start early. treat your subjects that way in undergrad and excel in every way possible so as to get into the very best program possible.


There are two ways to report your findings:  Qualitatively and Quantitatively.

Qualitatively is just using words.  So you could say "we see good correlation between the datasets in the two experiments, but experiment A shows a slight bias at small time."

Quantitative analysis uses numbers.  You could say instead "Correlation analysis shows both datasets are correlated with p < 0.05.  Experiment A shows a bias of 0.1 at times less than one hour, and the correlation coefficient of both datasets using partial data fitting (I just made that up) is 0.13 with a t-critical value of 0.2.


What contributions from your advisor must you specifically acknowledge in your dissertation?

It really depends on how original the contribution is.  At one extreme, your advisor might say something like "Hey, you're integrating an oscillating function times a smooth function.  Have you tried integrating by parts?"  This sounds impressive to a beginner and pointing it out could be a valuable contribution, but your advisor is just cluing you in to something every professional knows.  There's no need to offer explicit credit.

At the other extreme, your advisor might hand you a sheaf of handwritten notes and say "Here's what I tried and where I got stuck when I thought about this problem a few years ago."  If you make use of original ideas from the notes, then you should certainly attribute them to your advisor.

The tricky part is how to gauge originality.  You might not have been able to tell at the time, but looking back you'll often have a better feeling for this.  If you recognize an idea as being relatively standard, then offering general thanks in the acknowledgments should be enough.  If the idea still impresses you as you are writing your dissertation, then it deserves attribution.  If you aren't sure, you can always ask your advisor.  For example, "One of the decisive moments in my studies was when you suggested I should use Bayesian hierarchical modeling.  I haven't seen other papers using this approach, so I feel I should explicitly credit you with the idea in my dissertation.  Does that seem appropriate?"  Your advisor will either gracefully accept credit, declare that it's not worth worrying about, or offer background references you've missed.


Work with a professor from non-PhD-granting university in the US to earn PhD?

AFAIK, almost every Ph.D. granting universities requires your supervisor to be employed at that university. The only workaround for your situation is to have your desired professors from other universities as your co-supervisor or co-advisor. Please note that this is something to be decided by your supervisor, not by you. Also, you need to convince a professor from another field to accept your not-related application in the first place.


Can a course title be similar to a book name or a course at other university?

I think the question here hinges upon how specific the book title is. If you could not repeat book titles, there would be hundreds if not thousands of calculus and organic chemistry courses in violation, for instance.

However, if the title of the book in question is Sprockets and Doohickeys: A History of Widgets in 20th Century Television, you might want to find an alternate title do the course. Technically it's not a copyright violation, but it does betray a lack of independent thought on the part of the instructor in a specialized course.


What is the best way to appeal an unfair qualifier exam decision?

It is hard to know the exact issues for an oral exam we were not present for and for which we are hearing only the candidate's version.  Based on your own description it sounds like you feel very strongly that you know the material flawlessly and were treated unfairly.  I'm sorry about that.  However your description did not convince me that that's what actually happened: rather it sounds like the committee had some issues with your performance that you don't yet fully understand.  Since you are allowed to retake the exam, you should find out as precisely as you can what went wrong and what they want you to do better.

  I was well prepared for all of my exams

Isn't that for the committee to decide?

  and did excellently on exams B and C.

May I ask: is that the feedback you got on exams B and C: that you did excellently?  Or was it just that you passed?  It matters: if in two out of three exams that committee really felt that you did "excellently", then they think you are an excellent student and there will be a lot of support for you to stay in the program.  Also, do you have the same examiners for all three exams?

  During the oral part of the exam...The textbook I was being tested on used Z, as did all 3 of the courses I've had on subfield A.... I asked whether the terminology issue was the deciding factor and it apparently was not.

You gave a very long description of something that took "five minutes" of a one hour exam and was explicitly said not to be a cause of your failure.  You are focusing very strongly on whether it was reasonable for you to know the terminology.  But then afterwards you just looked it up on the internet and decided that it was not something you need to know without talking to anyone else about it.  That's a problem.  Another observation is that -- and this is something that happens to lots of students - you let your entire performance get derailed by an inessential minor point.

  For the sake of identifying what I did wrong, I spoke with one of the professors who administered my exam.

You should speak to every professor who administered the exam.  Exams are not failed because one of the committee members didn't like your performance: at the very least the majority felt that way, and much more commonly they all did.

  The most I can make of this is that the terminology issue made him and the other committee member think I'm an idiot, and then they were much less fair to me from that point on.

I wasn't there, but I think this is not a very good guess.   Since there seems to be a lack of clarity about the result even after speaking to one of the examiners, I would consider asking for a written evaluation of your performance.  It would be a good idea to discuss this with your adviser first and make sure that this will be properly viewed.  I think it is a very reasonable request: you passed two out of three exams and will take the third one again.  You really want to know clearly -- and spend time thinking about and taking into account -- the reasons for the failure.

  . I used one version of Y to solve this problem, and he complained that (though correct) how I did this demonstrates that I don't know what I'm doing.

I don't understand what that means.  As you've told it, it certainly sounds annoying.  But he must mean something by it.  Your conclusion

  It seems that he'll complain regardless of how I do things.

is the most negative and unhelpful possible one.  Does this faculty member have a reputation in the department for being so unreasonable?

You mention that your adviser was there for the deliberations [but I guess not for the exam itself?].  That should be extremely useful: you can get your adviser to explain their decision to you.  If he does not understand why you failed despite being at the deliberation, then you do have a problem.  If that is the case, definitely bring up the prospect of getting a written decision that you can then go over with him.

  They did suggest that I might have been rude, but I don't think I was.

Whoa.  Your advisor thinks that you may have been rude to the exam members, but you have just brushed that off because the one exam member you spoke to didn't specifically mention it?

I'll give you the honesty of a lifelong academic who is a complete stranger to you: to me, you do sound a bit rude and disrespectful.  You look for confirmation on the internet that you are getting asked silly questions.  You say "In this case, the one professor I've spoken to is definitely wrong."  And you write

  There is nothing to study. The professor I spoke with's claims about my knowledge are contradicted by their own statements as well as my performance on another of the exams (which builds upon knowledge of field A).

To hear a student who has failed an exam say that there is nothing to study the next time around is a huge red flag.  Maybe you know the material well according to your own standards and previous experience.  But if you know it perfectly: you are in the wrong place.  No one who has nothing to study belongs in academia: you already know everything, so you have nothing to learn.  Also you happen to know that your examiners are wrong, do not understand the material as generally and intuitively as you, and cannot even make logically non-contradictory statements in explaining themselves.  Well, look: either you're right or wrong about this.  But if you truly feel this way, then either way, at the very least this PhD program is not for you.


Do advisors typically fund travel for PhD students in non-conference settings (e.g., university seminars, industry meetings, etc.)?

All work related travel that has been assigned to you by your advisor should be funded. That's a general rule (also outside academia, at least in Germany).

You may also ask your advisor if they'll refund travel costs for the things you mentioned. In this case your advisor may ask you to check for other funding resources (travel grants for conferences, possible refunding by the university that invited you…). More concretely for your examples:

Seminars at other universities: If you are invited to give a talk but the other university is not funding you, then I'd hope yes but no for just attending that seminar.
A Technical Program Committee (TPC) meeting: If you are a member of the TPC then yes (however, for the TPCs I know, the member usually have their own funding).
An industry conference where the student hasn't published anything but is there to promote their work in a talk or demo: If you have a talk or official demo at the conference then I'd say yes, if you only want to go there networking then generally no (unless there are some funds that are going to expire).


Citing paragraphs with multiple references

If all five papers contain the same factual information, then you could do the following:

  Smith says there are eight planets (13). Doe concurs (57), as do Johnson (910), Azikiwe (219) and Kim (43).

If you there are multiple small facts spread throughout their papers, you can probably get away without page numbers for all but the first:

  Smith says there are eight planets (13). She also indicates that Mercury is the closest, but not the hottest — that's Venus (19). Furthermore, she states that the asteroid belt is between Mars and Jupiter (22). This information is generally agreed upon by the astronomical community, and is repeated in articles by Doe, Johnson, Azikiwe, and Kim.

If any of those authors have multiple works in your works cited (remember, all of them should be in your works cited with the relevant article/chapter pages included), then for those authors you would put the name of the particular one you're referencing either in parentheses or explicitly referenced:

  Smith says there are eight planets (13). She also indicates that Mercury is the closest, but not the hottest — that's Venus (19). Furthermore, she states that the asteroid belt is between Mars and Jupiter (22). This information is generally agreed upon by the astronomical community, and is repeated by Doe, Johnson, Azikiwe (Our Solar System), and Kim's "A Summary of Planetary Statistics".

(You wouldn't want to mix both of the reference styles and you'd probably prefer by [an author] and in [something by the author] , but the last example is more for illustration than pretty wording.)