References/resources on problems surrounding peer review in physics?

I would like to slightly disagree with the Hauser's answer regarding the possible methods of scientific misconduct in physics.

Unfortunately, in more theoretical parts of physics some people can manage to pretend that some complete and utter nonsense represents a new result well enough to fool the referees and editors and thus beat the peer review system.

A prominent example of this (to our luck, very rare, at least AFAIK)  phenomenon is the Bogdanov affair, see also e.g. the web page by John Baez on this and the Nature article on the ensuing scandal; a sample of the works involved is available through this Google Scholar query. The Bogdanov (a.k.a. Bogdanoff) brothers got their Ph.D.s using the papers in question, one in physics and one in mathematics, and in early 2000s have published a number of strange -- to put it very mildly -- papers in a number of reputed physics journals, including Classical and Quantum Gravity and Annals of Physics (and e.g. the Annals of Physics paper is still there -- it is not withdrawn until today). The papers were not just wrong -- they turned out to be downright gibberish.

In the light of the Bogdanov affair it is not a big surprise that sometimes peer review also fails to detect even a really large-scale plagiarism, as in the infamous case of more than 60 works by a group of Turkish physicists who plagiarized earlier work, see e.g. the Nature article and this post at Peter Woit's blog for details.

Unlike the Jan Hendrik Schön case, AFAIK the papers by Bogdanov brothers did not involve experimental data or predict outcomes of reasonably doable experiments, so their case is pretty much a pure peer review failure at the level of the referees and editors (and of course a failure of their thesis advisors too).

IMHO, the Bogdanov affair shows that the argument regarding going to production and post-publication review from the Hauser's answer does not seem to work well in the more theoretical parts of physics, especially when the authors make no readily verifiable experimental predictions.


When resubmitting a paper, should I write individual letters for each reviewer or one common letter?

Usually, you sent back one single letter in which you answer the reviewers questions one by one. I always start with a short note to the editor, listing the major revisions done as bullet points. I also thank the reviewers for their time spent on the review and that their comments advanced my manuscript (of course I write this only if the review really improved my work). Then I start with "Reviewer 1" and list each of his questions or remarks and mark my comments either in bold or in a different color.


How to be confident that my background for my research is adequate?

To expand a bit on the comments saying this is a normal feeling (which it is): learning something in a class is well and good, but many things will not truly click until you have to use them. To take a random example, I learned and understood the proof of the Arzela-Ascoli Theorem in my third year of undergrad, but I thought it was just a neat result. I certainly forgot the statement and proof multiple times, and had to look it up. It wasn't until halfway through grad school that I realized this theorem (and/or the idea behind it) underlies pretty much every compactness theorem for function spaces, making it (in my judgment) one of the most important theorems in analysis. After that, it was not so hard to remember.

Due to this to me it feels I should read a textbook for 2 weeks then start doing the research.
Others have suggested to only read a book when you need a particular lemma/proof/etc., however I am conflicted on whether this is good advice.

Some subjects you'll need to know in detail, others you can pick up on the fly. With experience, you'll get better at distinguishing one from the other, but for now your advisor can give you guidance about this.


Is it ethical if I do paid tutoring in a subject taught by my department?

Given that you are not involved in the delivery of the course (and thus have no incentive to teach it badly in the hope that people will approach you for private tuition), and you are not party to privileged information (e.g.: examination questions), there is no ethical issue here.

That said, if you work for the university full-time, you may want to check your employment contract, in case it had some sort of exclusivity clause prohibiting you from taking on any freelance or consultancy work (that said, employers do not generally enforce such a clause unless your freelancing/consultancy interferes with your capacity to carry-out your duties to the employer).


Should I use the filing, publication, or grant date when citing a patent?

There is no clear single standard. Personally, I would use the filing date, because this date is most important when establishing prior art (which might invalidate the patent, or parts of it).

Anyway, for unique identification the patent publication number (which is GB2468195 in your example) is more important.

When targeting a journal, you might want to check whether there is anything in their guidelines.


Can a method of research used in one context be reused in a different research context?

Yes, it is possible - it happens a lot. Epidemiological methods that originated in health have been applied to other fields, for example.

Doing it is easy.

Doing it rigorously, in keeping with the standards expected in academia, is really hard. It's hard because the source field's methodology usually has a lot of tacit assumptions built in. Identifying those, and testing they're applicable to the application field, is difficult. Lazy researchers don't bother doing that testing, and produce shoddy work as a result.


What are some concerns professors at a research institutions might have when graduate students begin to form a union?

There is a study on the effects of graduate unions on faculty-student relationships:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/001979391306600208

As they state in their abstract, "Unionization does not have the presumed negative effect on student outcomes, and in some cases has a positive effect....These findings suggest that potential harm to faculty-student relationships and academic freedom should not continue to serve as bases for the denial of collective bargaining rights to graduate student employees."

One explanation for how a graduate union can improve faculty-grad student relations is because a union allows graduate students to offload certain bureaucratic issues that may typically be dumped on their advisor.  Suppose, for instance, a graduate student has a labor-related issue of some kind (e.g. being assigned an unreasonably high number of students).  In the case where the department or undergrad chair is unsympathetic, the grad student would typically ask their advisor to fight the issue on their behalf.  In an ideal world, this isn't the sort of thing that advisors should have to deal with, but often advisors become a sort of catch-all advocate for their students in various respects.  Were there a dedicated body such as a union for dealing with labor-related issues, the advisor's relationship with their graduate students becomes more solely academically focused.


This question seems long answered but here are two things I've done:

1)  I've given out an impossible syllabus, requiring students to be fluent in at least two languages, adding deliberately indecipherable requirements, etc., etc.  When invariably someone protests "This is not at all what we were expecting!" I say "Well then what were you expecting?"  When they answer I say, "Oh!  Well then I guess I'll just teach that instead!" and then tear up the syllabus with a flourish.

2)  I started teaching at graduate level when I was 28 (can't really get away with it any more) and I would sit in the back of the class on the first day.  Students would come in and do their usual first day things.  I'd wait until I was maybe five or ten minutes late and let some comments drop along the line of "Where IS this teacher?!" rolling my eyes.  Finally I would jump and say "Screw this, I'll teach the class myself!" before launching into the lecture.

In both cases the goal was to let the students know that I'm on their side, one of them, approachable, and not to take things too seriously.  Got pretty good results every time.


Should I tell the instructor that I will miss the next class?

It depends on the context: the class size and style.

If it’s a graduate seminar of 8 students, then you should certainly tell the instructor.  If it is a calculus lecture of 300 students, then this will not be expected at all, and might be seen as a waste of time.  Unless of course there is a test in the class, or a record of attendance taken.

It’s hard to draw an exact line, but a good rule of thumb is perhaps: will your absence either affect how the instructor teaches, or go on record somehow?  If the former is the case (as in a small class with a lot of interaction), then advance warning will be appreciated by the instructor.  (If this is borderline, then it would be courteous but not necessary to let them know.) If the latter, then for the sake of your place on the record, you should give the explanation.

And of course, if the instructor has said anything specific about attendance expectations, then that trumps this general guideline!


Applying for Phd at two different departments, in the same university, but very relevant fields. Would it harm my admission?

I would see no harm in doing so. I view it as akin to applying to different schools when you first start college. To gain a better understanding, I would contact the graduate office at your school about multiple applications to different departments. Policies do vary from campus to campus.


What should you do when your supervisor suffers from Dunning Kruger effect?

This seems on the border of a "Here's my story, now what do I do?" type question.  But the title question seems reasonable.
If you feel like your advisor does not have enough knowledge about something to usefully direct you: first, try to get some independent confirmation that that's true.  The Dunning-Kruger effect may not be cutting in the direction that you think.  But assuming it is: you either need to direct your research towards your advisor's expertise -- this is, by the way, a quite normal process in most student/advisor relationships, as academic knowledge is vast but in order to make progress most academics are highly specialized -- or you need to find a different advisor.  In your case

At the end of meeting, after long arguments and rectifying my supervisor's hypothesis's, he claims he is the one who came up with these amazing hypothesis's and we didn't contribute anything in the research, we just did the experiments.
Now meeting with my supervisor has become emotionally exhausting and unproductive for me.

it sounds like you have lost faith in your advisor.  Consider looking for someone else.


Asking for a recommendation letter to transfer PhD programs from someone who I want to be my advisor if I don't succeed in transferring

Professors are human too. If you stayed within the current program those professors may doubt your level of interest/motivation since you tried to transfer out. I would suggest that you apply only if you're absolutely sure you want to transfer.

On another note, anecdotally, computer science graduate programs are quite welcoming of people from different backgrounds. In your case, having a statistics background might make you an attractive candidate for machine learning professors. So I would say apply to a broad range of programs including the top programs, you never know what will happen.


What is the best approach to fix the date in a weekly seminar/colloquium with the potential speakers by email

Send an invitation to your top 12 candidates. List all 12 dates to all candidates. Ask everyone to reply whether they can and want to come at all, and to indicate their first, second and third choice of dates.

Track answers. Any date that is chosen by exactly one person as his first choice is blocked. Clear any conflicts in first choices among the people involved, using second and third choices.

After one week, remind those that haven't replied yet.
One week later, assume those that haven't replied after the reminder will not reply at all. Assume that k people will come. Send out invitations to your next 12-k candidates, shortening the list of potential dates by those that have already been blocked.
Iterate until all dates have been filled.
Expect people to cancel at short notice. Have someone local as a backup speaker (yourself?).


It appears that your GPA has been calculated as the weighted average of your final grades, with the weights being given by the credits for a course divided by the total credits. Numerically this matches the given GPA.

And lower is better here.


What English expression resembles the German "Tutor"?

Firstly, even in Germany there are different word for this. Besides Tutor there is also wissenschaftliche/studentische Hilfskraft, HiWi (short for Hilfswissenschaftler but has apparently different meanings in other contexts) or Übungsgrupperleiter, for example, and the usage of these words may even vary between different parts of the university and their usage among students/faculty/administration is not always consistent.

However, I think the most widely used term in English speaking countries is TA (teaching assistant).


Is it useful to list the exact name of a prize or grant in a resume?

Unless you won a huge amount of awards, I would be quite specific: "John Doe award from XYZ university for best master thesis in 2014".

Even when you have won many awards, it still makes sense to be specific about the most important ones, and be brief about the others.


How to submit an article (for example, on arXiv) without being affiliated to any institution?

The text you found tells you that you must not claim some affiliation which you do not actually have. So either leave the affiliation field empty, or enter something like "Independent Researcher".

You will then probably have to go through the endorsement procedure. For that, you need some researchers that have published in the category you are aiming for before to state that they think you should be allowed to publish to the arXiv.


Can we quantify the difference made by or popularity of online learning?

One way is to assess the performance by a single test of two groups of students, one in the regular classroom atmosphere and the other group using solely online tools. The topic may be chosen at random, with varying levels of difficulty. It would also provide information about effectiveness of using online tools in teaching difficult concepts. This study by Anna Ya Ni  is in that direction.


Does giving an easily-understood talk make the audience think you did something simple?

I will tell you what I've observed in Math.  Similar to what Jordan Ellenberg says in How not to be wrong, one can think of depth and technicality as two orthogonal axes, so one has 4 rough categories of results:

Deep and simple (technically easy)
Deep and hard/technical
Shallow and simple
Shallow (unimportant) and technical

Some people like things that are more technical and some people like things are simple, but deep.  For instance, Atle Selberg thought that the most profound ideas in math are simple and said all of his ideas were simple ones.

Correspondingly some people are more easily impressed by technical talks and some people are more easily impressed by simple talks.  So my answer to:

  Do people walk out of the talk thinking Alice must've done something simple while Bob did something profound?

would be, while it of course depends on the audience, I think this depends largely on the talk.  If you can explain a simple idea that lets you solve long-standing open problems, I think most people will agree this is deep.  However if your talk doesn't make it clear you're solving long-standing open problems, then people will be unsure.  And you certainly want to avoid giving a talk that is shallow and simple, as no one will be impressed.

I myself generally prefer (giving and listening to) understandable talks, and here are a couple other pieces of advice:

Even if you don't want to present technicalities, make it clear to the audience that technicalities are present, and maybe make a few comments to the experts as to how you handle them.
What may seem simple to you, who have been thinking about these things for months or years, may not seem simple to others.  I've many times given talks and worried that it was too simple for the experts in the audience, and found out later that many of them didn't completely understand what I said beyond the introductory material.


Are there statistics for the share of work which is put into planning, performing, analyzing and documenting of an experiment?

There is no widely applicable rule of thumb on how to allocate resources across sub-fields and individual researchers/labs, and often the percentage break-down will even vary by project. Its something you can note retrospectively, but the variance is so high as not really to be usefully communicable; if a rule of thumb existed, you should probably ignore it.

In practice, projects differ both due to the preferences, skills, and working styles of the individuals involved, and external factors of publication culture, funding, method used, and the problem itself.

As a simple example, some projects just need a lot of careful planning to make sure they come together. This is especially true when the subject of the study is difficult or otherwise expensive to work with such as expensive/rare equipment, costly chemicals, long-running computer calculations, and human beings (especially when they are from a "vulnerable population" or some risk is involved). On the other hand, sometimes planning just takes longer because the idea needs a lot of work - while on some projects it can feel like the idea is nearly fully formed from inception and things just proceed rather obviously from first principles.

Similarly, analysis sometimes can be wrapped up in a few days - in part because of how the project was planned, and in part by the method used. In an experiment using null hypothesis testing using p-values and decision rules, if you are doing things right your analysis should be incredibly straight-forward to run because you had better have decided long in advance of getting the data what you were going to be doing, because otherwise you are doing it all wrong. But if you are doing exploratory data analysis or using various flexible modelling methodologies, analysis could go on for quite a while ("what if you included X in your analysis? what about Y? What about an interaction between X and Y?").

Similarly, writing everything up into a publication could take a few days to a few weeks for some projects/venues - or could drag on for months and years (especially true in areas like Economics, and even more true when the authors target top journals). This also varies widely depending on the project (some are just easier to describe) and the methodology (the more complex and less familiar the methods, the more work may need to go in describing it and figuring how one even should describe it). In some paradigms the analysis stage is the writing stage, while in others the papers are more formulaic with established guidelines that feel more like filling out a template.

To restate the initial conclusion: no, there is no rule of thumb, and if there were you should ignore it. There is no Right and Proper Division of Research Labor. Instead, learn the factors of how the stages work together, what seems to work well and what doesn't, and adjust per-project, per-collaborator, and as you develop your style and skills. Importantly, learn the expectations of your mentors and collaborators on timeline and specific plans, specific to the exact project you have in mind. Often it is only when all the details are laid out clearly for someone else that you can discover that, oh my, there is no way that a certain task is going to be as fast or slow as you thought. This way you'll develop more "known knowns" and "known unknowns", and develop ways to account for them - and end up being shocked by the countless "unknown unknowns" that appear with every new experience no matter how expert you become.


How can I make myself eligible for Mechatronic Engg. faculty with PhD in Electrical engg,?

You're applying for a job. Treat it like any other job application. Write a cover letter introducing yourself, explaining where you heard about your job, and how you meet the posted job criteria, and attach it to a copy of your CV, which should include all relevant details of your previous work and study experience (and, depending on region, might also be expected to include a comprehensive list of all previous employment and study).


This advisor's "negligence" is an act of academic bullying. There is a few things one can do to counter academic bullying, but one has to think them thoroughly well in advance. I'm not writing them here, by now, since some advisors could read them to neutralize counter-bullying.
Maybe you can get some advice from a union representative or someone from your faculty to monitor the situation as an outsider.
Do you have a paper agreement?
Can you write another paper on your own?
If the above does not work, discreetly tell your advisor that you have some work duties from a certain date and that you will not be able to work more on the paper.
After some weeks/days tell your advisor that she is ruining the expectations that this paper is going to be submitted. If she doesn't consider this paper submittable then you can stop wasting the time on it, but you are not giving up coauthorship.
After some weeks/days tell your advisor that you are not going to tolerate any kind of academic bullying or power abuse.


My defense is next week and and I have found an error in one of the proofs in one of the chapters of the thesis. What to do?

First, tell your advisor immediately. Your defense might need to be rescheduled. Suggest that if you think it wise.

Next, of course, try to provide a correct derivation.

If you have to go to the defense in the current state, yes, admit and point out the error and state that you are working on a patch. The committee might let you finish as is and clean up the problem later. They might also delay your finish until you have a correct result (or proof that it is not correct). I doubt that this is grounds for complete failure as it would be if the error is pointed out by someone else.

But your advisor might override any of this advice. That is your best source.

I've been on a final defense committee where we decided the work wasn't ready due to some flaws. The candidate just had to go back to work and we scheduled a future date. But it turned out that the meeting itself was valuable for the candidate as he got some feedback that helped him to the end.


Is it necessary to provide links to the mentioned softwares' websites on my CV?

Unless the software is very specific to the role for which you're applying (in which case, one would hope that anyone reviewing applications would be familiar with it...) you should probably not go into this level of detail.


Paper was accepted for publication 6 months ago without any updates since then, how should I proceed?

Just ask for an update and an estimate of when it might appear. There isn't any special form for that. But "future issue" is pretty nebulous. For a print journal there are issues of finding a proper "fit" for the paper depending on the topic and even the page length.
And yes, you should answer emails. You've been assuming what they should do without verification. Ask. They are unlikely to send you anything if you don't. Just be polite.


Is it necessary that your partner (wife/husband) have English proficiency, when you are going to study abroad?

If you are in a large city or at a large university, then it probably isn't necessary. You will probably find a lot of people there, and their spouses, who speak your language, whatever it is.

In a small town, however, it would be a different story, and your spouse might be a bit isolated without some language skills.

There are many large State Universities throughout the country that have students and faculty from all around the world. When I was in grad school in such a place (long ago) I had neighbors from Iran, in fact. Some such large places have organizations for spouses of foreign faculty and students in which people can get together, though everyone tends to speak a different language.

Also, many places, even small ones, have programs in secondary (and other) schools for English as a Second Language (ESL). These are taught by specialists. So, I think that no matter where you are, there would be opportunities to learn even if you didn't find people who speak your own language.

As for the legalities, there is no requirement that a person be able to speak English. However, to become a citizen you need some minimal proficiency: http://pjclaw.net/uscitizenship/english-language-requirements-for-naturalization/. But you don't need proficiency on arrival and, since the process is long, there is an opportunity to learn.

For the requirements to get a visa, see this site: http://www.ustraveldocs.com. But I note that there is no information there about Iran. The best place to get information is to visit a US consulate or similar place where visas are issued and get current requirements.


Why would a security agency distribute research funds?

Let me just add a bit more context as a pure mathematician previously funded by the NSA, and in particular, respond to the question "What does a security agency has to do with distributing funds?"  The first point is, they actually farm out most of the decision making to the American Mathematical Society (as described here).  That still raises the question of why policy makers think routing the money through the NSA makes sense in the first place.  The cynic in me points out that though lots of this research could easily be funded through civilian agencies (for example, NSF), it's a lot easier to pass "defense spending" through congress, and you get fewer questions from ignorant congressmen who like to make fun of grants based on their titles.

On the other hand, that still requires somebody in the NSA thinking that requesting this funding is worthwhile.  My reading (this is not based on any detailed knowledge of policy makers' thoughts, just general supposition) is this: the NSA is the largest employer of mathematicians in the world, much larger than any university or scholarly society.  You would get an even more impressive number if you included other branches of the US Department of Defense, and contractors like IDA.  They thus have a vested interest in making sure more Americans get advanced mathematical training (a lot of their jobs are in practice only open to US citizens, due to security clearances), and keep in mind the possibility of working for the NSA.

Giving grants to mathematicians is probably an inefficient method for this (some of the money goes to graduate students directly as salary or travel funding, some to universities as overhead, encouraging them to keep professors on their staff and run graduate programs), but it's also very cheap in the grand scheme of things. I'm sure they also do occasionally benefit from the mathematical results (while they have a reasonably broad program, they don't give grants in all areas of math).

There's also tons of other grants coming from the DOD: DARPA, the Army, Navy and Air Force all have their own research offices, and the DOD has its own graduate fellowship program.  In all cases, some of the research is directly connected to military needs, but quite a bit is just predicated on the idea that a strong a well-trained pool of scientists can be very important for national defense.  I think ultimately, this grew out the experience of World War II (and the Cold War) where this was undisputedly the case.


When to take questions during a thesis defense?

The following is written from my perspective and it reflects my biases.

If someone feels the need to ask a question during your presentation, chances are it is because you failed to explain something properly and they don't want to get lost. I, for one, hate it when a speaker just barrels through difficult material and I have to struggle to keep up (one time, the speaker pulled up a slide full of long lines of lambda calculi and went "as we can clearly see here..."; avoid that). Go through your talk plan carefully, identify the tricky issues, and make sure that you don't have hidden assumptions lurking anywhere. If in doubt, assume that the audience won't be able to follow you unless you explain things carefully. This much should ensure that all the questions come at the end and, more importantly, that they are substantial (i.e., none of this "I didn't quite catch your definition of blah, can you repeat it please?").

As for thanking your advisors, it's appropriate if you keep it short (like 20-seconds-tops short). You already have the acknowledgements of your dissertation to wax poetic all you want.


Email address etiquette - Which address should I use to contact professors?

Personal email is OK, as long as it doesn't look too unserious (mickeymouse666@gmail.com is bad). Gmail looks more professional than other providers, but not by much.
Avoid email addresses that will expire soon. Unfortunately, many university addresses are like that. An expired address means you won't get late followup answers (and trust me, there are emails threads in research that span decades).
Avoid anything with alumni in it. Many people have a delete reflex when they see the word "alumnus", as it mostly appears in the context of panhandling by alumni orgs.
There is nothing pretentious about .edu addresses.


Exactly _what_ is different about being a graduate student vs. undergraduate? (Think: day-to-day)

(I am in linguistics and my master's degree was heavily research-based.)

I remember an undergrad professor of mine cautioning her class as follows: "Being a graduate student is very different from being an undergraduate student." Three months into my MA, I found myself thinking, 'no it isn't', but six months into my MA, I thought, '...okay, yeah, it totally is'. The skills that the degree aims to impart are quite different: going to classes starts out feeling similar, but over the course of any graduate degree it should evolve from 'building knowledge base' to 'reading the literature critically and coming up with new ideas'.

To me the biggest difference, psychologically speaking, aside from the big step up into the unknown (= major original research) was in terms of project scope. As an undergrad, I could run myself out of homework for the day, or the weekend, and then relax, because I'd dealt with everything I needed to do. Beyond the undergraduate level, that kind of stops happening. A grad-student in any program with a research component always has that work at least in the background, and projects are enormous in comparison to most undergrad coursework. You can't run yourself out of work for the day, or for the weekend. The research is ongoing; there's always more to be done. It's a marathon rather than a bunch of little sprints. You have to keep coming back to a thesis and picking up where you left off. At the graduate level you have to develop have a sense of how to work on something a little at a time. And how to put it away and to (try and) do something fun once in a while.


This morning I watched a video about how powerpoint is killing our ability to teach properly. It can be seen as a lesson in bad slide design. One key message is if you are reading your slides to the students, you are not teaching. Ultimately, slides should just contain key information, and you should tell the rest of the story.

Regarding some of the other points:
animation of text should be left to Walt Disney;  there should be one idea per slide (slides are free!);  separation slides are a good idea to let the listener know when topics have finished, which is especially helpful if the separation slides are blank (or even black!).

Less is more. If you want to give the students more, prepare a handout.


The problem with academic outsiders is that you cannot judge their abilities. Having a Ph.D. does not mean that you are good, and having none does not mean that you are bad, but there is a strong correlation between degrees and competence. If you have neither a degree nor published work I have only your word that you actually know anything about CS or astronomy. At the same time for every position there are dozens of applicants with a degree, publications, and recommendations, so your chances of getting this position are practically 0.

So the first question is whether you need the income from a position, or do you have some other job providing you with a sufficient income? If you need the money, you almost certainly need a Ph.D. The only exception I could think of would be that you publish remarkable results. But then you can turn these results into a Ph.D. at no further costs anyway.

The second question is how much resources you need for your research. In mathematics and CS a lot of serious research requires nothing but a computer for typesetting. In astronomy you might be able to run over existing data or do simulations without much costs, but it is more likely that you need computation power beyond your financial means. If you need access to observatories, you run into serious trouble.

So if your planned research requires some outside input, and you do not get a degree which allows you to successfully ask for this input, you have to become known in some other way. Start with problems which require no resources, publish results, give talks at conferences, talk to people privately at conferences. Once you earned some respect, it should be a lot easier to get help with your projects.


How to evaluate undergrad CS programs when eventually aiming for PhD?

Although I'm sure you already realize this, you shouldn't let a laser focus on your daughter's professional development control her choice of which school to attend.  (Influence, sure, but not control.  And yes: HER choice.)  Given your daughter's background and experience, she will likely be very successful no matter where she enrolls.  I've seen very successful theoretical computer scientists come from a huge variety of undergraduate programs, not all of which were associated with strong graduate CS programs.  It is at least as important for her to find a place where she feels (and not just is) supported and challenged, both by her faculty and her peers.  Otherwise, no matter how strong the department is on average, it won't be a good fit for her personally.

There is absolutely no substitute for a personal visit to each campus, if you can manage it.  Let her drop into the comptuer science department, get a feel for the community vibe, sit in on a class, talk to a professor or two if she can, hang out in the dorms.  Meanwhile, you go somewhere else.  Go'way.  Shoo.

But if you really want hard data, I recommend that you—or better yet, your daughter—directly contact the computer science departments at the schools where she's been admitted, describe her experience and her goals (which should make them very eager to attract her), and then ask questions like the following:

How many students graduated from your program in the last five years?
How many / what fraction of those students are currently enrolled in strong computer science PhD programs?
How many / what fraction of your current undergraduates are involved in research with your faculty?
How many of your faculty do research in theoretical computer science?
[The Hail Mary:] Would you mind asking one of them to contact me?  I'd like to ask some more questions.

Beware the answer "I don't know", or qualitative waffle like like "quite a lot" that really mean "I don't know".  Ask for numbers.  Ask for examples.  Channel your inner Cuba Gooding Jr: Show me the data!

Your first contact will almost certainly be answered by someone on the administrative staff, who may not have the data you want at hand.  Be prepared make an appointment to speak over the phone (or Skype or whatever) with the director of undergraduate programs or another faculty member.  If you do speak over the phone, try to keep your conversation short and to the point; these people are very very busy.

Don't bother asking admissions officers these questions; Chances are very high that they just don't know.  You really need to contact the departments directly.

Another good place to look is the list of current and past winners and runners-up for the Computing Research Association's Outstanding Undergraduate award, which specifically recognizes undergraduate research.  A significant fraction of winners did their undergraduate research in theoretical computer science.  Also, a significant fraction of winners were not enrolled in departments with a top-10 graduate program.

But as Anonymous Mathematician notes in a comment, you shouldn't take the CRA list too seriously; some departments are more interested in awards like this and push hard for their students to be selected.  The fact that some prominent departments have few or no students on this list may reflect a disinterest in this particular award, not in undergraduate research in general.

[I'm a theoretical computer scientist at a top-10 CS department; I serve on my department's graduate admissions committee.]


What are the criteria that determine if a research group/professor is actively pursuing research?

You have a piece of evidence that doesn't tell you very much. But there is a simple way to find out what you need to know. Send a message to the group's PI and express your interest in that area and ask whether they are still doing research in it. Is there any, more recent, work that they can share with you? Are there students in the group with whom you might correspond.

It could be anything from "we have ten papers in the pipeline" to "we dropped that a few years ago". Or maybe even "we think we are on the brink of a major breakthrough and have been quiet about our work while we refine it."

But only they know the real situation. Maybe they will be able to honestly share enough to let you know whether to move on or pursue it.

I'll note, also, that the lack of publicly visible productivity doesn't necessarily equate with a lack of productivity altogether. Research breakthroughs can't be scheduled. If they could be, then it wouldn't be research.

Note that according to Wikipedia, Andrew Wiles worked almost entirely in secret for six years before coming up with a proof of Fermat's last Theorem. There were a few glitches initially, but he was Knighted for his breakthrough.


How do I apply for a PhD position via email? Should I read papers written by prospective advisors beforehand and write about it?

You should look at some of the professor's recent papers so that you can get a sense of what they're currently working on, and whether it is of interest to you. However, I do not think it is necessary to refer to specific papers when you first email the professor. Far too often when people do this, they end up giving a negative impression: it rapidly becomes clear that they haven't actually read the paper in detail, or have misunderstood its content.
Keep it brief: a sentence or two on who you are (what/where you've studied), a sentence or two on what you're asking for (Their suggestions for a project? Funding? Are you hoping to start immediately, or at some point in the future?), and a sentence or two on the general research area(s) that interest you. If you have already written a masters thesis or similar, put it online somewhere and include a link.


How to assess the chance to get accepted to a master's program in the United States?

I don't think that there's a huge enough discrepancy between the technical content of the European three-year bachelor's and the four-year American bachelor's to make that a big concern.

However, where you may run into problems is that your GPA might not be considered competitive for a top program, if it's only in the 8.0's out of 10. (It might get translated to a 3.3 or so, which would be problematic.) What will make up for this is some statement that you're near the top of your CS cohort, and good letters of recommendation will also help.

Where you'll also need to do some research is on whether the departments you want to apply to offer terminal master's programs; if not, it will make it a little more difficult, as the expectation would be that if you are admitted to the master's program, you will then continue on to the PhD program thereafter. (At such schools, a stipend is typically offered during the master's phase of the program; at schools that offer a terminal master's, the funding sources for the master's degree-only candidates is usually quite distinct, if it is available at all.)


Should you disclose the name of an institution that made you an offer?

You may not have a choice. If I were A and you were to tell me you had an offer from another school, I would immediately ask the name of the school B.

Your refusing to tell me B's name may raise some red flags for me (indicating a level of shiftiness about your candidacy that I may not have been aware of). I cannot think of a good reason why you wouldn't tell me -- other than B is so far below my institution's rank that it'd be laughable (aka, A=MIT and B=Poconos Community College).

However, if B=CalTech and A=MIT, then I would very much make sure that we were processing your application with all due haste.

With the new details that A=preferred for personal reasons but B=higher ranked, then certainly you can tell A that you have an offer from B. It would likely lead to increased interest in your candidacy if A is at least somewhere the same ballpark as B.

That is, if A were Poconos Comm College and B were CalTech, then A may feel that there is no possibility of getting you and drop you even before an offer for being overqualified. You need to emphasize why you are so interested in A.

Note that lying is a bad idea. If we phoned  our colleague at CalTech and they had no idea who you were, you'd be immediately dropped.


Can I get a refund if I bought an article that contains a major flaw?

Of course you can request one - just send an email. You'll brighten up the publisher's office for the afternoon, and they'll be chuckling all the way home.

So just as long as you don't seriously expect to get your money back, you'll be fine. When you paid your fee, you were paying for access to read the paper. As long as that access was provided, then the publisher has met their side of the bargain. Peer review is not a guarantee of correctness. It's a first-level junk filter, nothing more.

And on top of you getting what you've paid for, you've got the additional bonus that you've now got a new paper that you can write, that's practically already written itself; the paper where you take apart your bought paper's argument. Magnanimously, the publisher won't require you to pay extra for this bonus - you got it thrown in for free.


Can I use an exact sentence from reviewer in the later submission?

Reviewers know very well that their suggestions and comments may end up in the final publication. This is the point of reviewing, and no reviewer would (or should) consider it plagiarism if sentences are copied verbatim. Having said that, it is always best to err on the side of caution, so the best course of action would be to let the editor know exactly what you did. You will contact the editor anyway with the revisions, and it is only natural to state that you used the reviewer's quote.
If you want, you can acknowledge the "anonymous reviewer" or ask the editor, and thereby indirectly the reviewer, whether they wish to be acknowledged by name (they will probably decline, but they would be happy at being offered the choice).
Personally, I once was acknowledged as "anonymous reviewer" for a model proposed based on the data in the paper (they used an entire figure I sent them). I fully expected the authors to use my image and model (why else would I have sent it?), but the acknowledgement came as a surprise and made me happy.


What are some general good principles for creating a poster for a poster session?

The title is your bait, the first paragraph is your hook. Make the bait big and tasty, make the first paragraph catchy.
A poster is primarily an advert for you. Secondarily, it's an advert for your research. Thirdly, it's an advert for your department. And it will succeed at those things best, if it gives the casual reader an easily accessible introduction into what's novel about your research.
Know the flow: it should be clear to anyone reading, what they should read first, then second, and so on.
Make it clear that it's your work. Get your name and affiliation in big letters, with a photo of you. Include your contact details, and make sure you can be reached on them during the conference.
Don't use powerpoint. A poster is graphic design, so use a graphic design package such as InDesign. If you don't have an eye for graphic design, design the poster with someone who does. Most departments have at least one natural talent. It's often the person who keeps winning the "best poster at conference" prize. It's orthogonal to (i.e. independent of) quality of research.
Use a big, clear typeface. Not everyone you need to reach has the healthy, clear vision that most students have.
Briefly state the problem, the method, the results, and the implications.
Pretty pictures are crucial. The words are there just to supplement the explanation of your work given in the pictures.
Test, test, test. Print it out life-size (tiled sheets & sticky tape are your friend), show it to a couple of colleagues (one hot on your area of research, and one hot on design), watch the order in which they read things, ask for feedback. Implement any advice on content that comes from the one who is hot in your area of work. Implement any advice on design that comes from the one hot on design.


When my work is presented by colleague at conference I don't attend, do I include on my CV?

Credit for a presentation doesn't go only to the person who gives a talk or presents a poster. Everyone involved in the work should be acknowledged.

The standard practice I've used is credit everybody involved in the research on the poster. So if I give a poster presentation, I include any students, postdocs, or colleagues who collaborated on the research. I also indicate who the presenter was if it wasn't me.


Is it standard for a math research paper to include less detail in proofs than a typical textbook would?

Yes, it's normal. Homeworks and exams are written to prove that the writer has certain skills; papers are written to prove something new. The reader's skills are not under question, so a different style of writing is appropriate. Also, journals used to have stricter page limits than they do now, so there was quite some pressure to be terse.  Conversely, somebody who has a hundred exam scripts to mark needs all the details to be spelled out because they don't have more than a few minutes to give to each script.

It is conventional to omit "routine" calculations that the reader should be able to do themself. For example, one might just assert that a certain function reaches its maximum at x=2p/(1-pq) and assume that the reader is capable of setting the derivative to zero and solving. The reader will typically trust the writer (and the peer-reviewers!) to have done the calculation correctly.

In my view, some authors take this too far and omit calculations which can take hours or days to reconstruct, which is a royal pain when trying to adapt or extend the result. Over time, as you read more research papers, you'll learn what is an appropriate level of detail: the big hints come when you start to co-author papers with your advisor.


There are two issues here. The first is the importance of the institute you get your PhD from being a University. This is a non factor as nobody cares about if you get your PhD from a research institute or a university. The second issue is the reputation of the place you get your PhD from. This has some importance, but your supervisor and the quality of the PhD are generally more important.


College Staff Taking Classes and Doing Research

Well, your request would certainly be unusual for most faculty members, but that also doesn't mean it wouldn't be accepted!

The main challenge would be if you were looking to be paid for the work. Under such circumstances, it might be much more challenging to get involved with projects, because the funding mechanisms (such as NSF REU grants, which fund many undergraduate research projects) would not be available to fund you (since you're not an undergraduate student!).

However, if you're just looking to do it for the research experience, I think the biggest obstacle would be convincing a potential advisor that you're serious. I would recommend then that you make an in-person appointment, rather than trying to set something like this up via email.


Why do German universities rank so low internationally?

There are lots of biases in international academic rankings, they tend to favour US and UK universities because they use criteria which are mostly relevant for a market-oriented academic system, such as the US/UK ones.
In many European countries the academic system is not market-oriented, or at least not as much as in the US and the UK: students fees are very low because higher education is mostly funded by public money.  Universities are seen as a public service offering education to society as a whole, rather than a kind of commercial institution which sells knowledge and qualifications to those who can afford it. As a consequence Non-US/UK universities are not as incentivized to attract international students, they don't make big efforts to play the competition game since their income doesn't depend (at least not much) on their international ranking.
Of course this is only a simplified explanation, but this is the main reason why US/UK universities perform better than German universities (among others) in international rankings.

[Edit] Originally this was only a quick answer to explain what (I think) is an important structural and cultural difference with respect to international rankings between UK/US-like academic systems and others. My point was only to emphasize this difference to the attention of prospective students looking at these rankings, knowing that this is a common source of misunderstanding among them. I didn't imagine that the question and my answer would attract so much attention. I gladly admit that this is a rather simplistic answer, and I'm happy to see that other answers have done a much better job than me at analyzing other aspects of the question in detail.


Is it permitted to quote something with informal language, like an interview excerpt with 'haha', in a thesis?

You should consult with your advisor about conventions in your field.  I think generally, people lightly edit interviews such as these, so if the laughter isn't revelant to what the subject is saying, you can leave it out.  If it is important, you don't have to onomatopoetically transcribe it as "haha."  You can write
"[laughter]" or "[interviewee laughs]."


I emailed the main advisor today, putting the coadvisors in Cc. He wrote me a very positive response on the same day, also putting the coadvisors in Cc. So, at least in that part of the world, this seems to be the correct way to introduce yourself.


Generally speaking, they are looking for something new which contributes to the current literature of the field.
If your paper fits in this context (i.e. you believe your paper will enhance/improve current methods or even solve particular problem, then you got publishable work regardless of the reviewing output.

For a particular journal, other factors are added to the significance of the work (for example journal scope, writing level, paper format and methodology).


Approximate time frame to switch to different research area

I'm not quite so sure the 10,000 hour rule applies very well here.  There are a couple things that need to be considered -- i.e., substantive expertise and methodological expertise.  Although I am not in the area of computer science, the transition from educational technology to mainstream computer science doesn't seem terribly far apart.  It seems like you have the aptitude for computer science, so you should not have really significant problems acquiring the substantive expertise.  I would be concerned if you were saying that the switch was from educational technology to psychiatry or aerospace.

The other issue is the extent to which your methodological expertise generalizes to this new area.  Have you acquired research skills that are relevant to your proposed switch?  Do you have the core research skills for your new area?  How familiar are you with the research in this new area.  And what is the litmus test that you have achieved "expertise" in the new area?

I guess the issue really comes down to how much your knowledge and skills in your current area of work generalizes to your new area.  So, I'm not going to put a number on this issue -- I just don't think it is possible without more information.


I've found what appears to be a fake paper in a non predatory journal

The first thing to do is to contact the editor at math reviews and express your doubts about the paper without making accusations of impropriety. Describe what you have found using neutral language. Suggest that others be enlisted to check further into the provenance and accuracy of the paper.

If you are in your early career, it is especially important not to assert misconduct.

You could also contact the editor of the journal in which the paper was published, saying you have serious doubts about the validity of the paper and, perhaps, that you aren't able to follow the citations.

It is hopefully enough to shake the tree and wait to see what falls out. But do it in such a way that you can't be retaliated against, unless you have enough reputation to sustain you.

Of course, it goes without saying that you need to be clear in your objections and to have carefully considered alternative explanations.


What belongs in the "Work Experience" section of graduate applications - is undergraduate research experience included?

Work experience normally refers to internships or part-time jobs you've done with companies besides your university, or actual employment positions in your university such as working in the library or grading papers. Research experience is related to academics, so it should be treated as such. I know you get paid for it, but it's used to augment your undergraduate experience and thus adds value to your degree.


How to deal with insignificant work / wrong methodology in papers, when it is discussed correctly?

I haven't personally had similar experiences before, and probably am much more junior than you (only really have reviewed a relatively small number of papers at all still), but here's my thoughts (I am familiar with the specific case of Machine Learning though):

  I was a bit surprised to recieve a revision of the manuscript, where my remarks were just included in the discussion section: In fact they did not improve the experiment, but in the discussion they more or less stated "it is possible that everything we wrote in here is invalid due to the problem of overfitting".

Did they really only just add that in a discussion, or did they also adjust other places? Typically, a very short (e.g. one-sentence) summary of results is included in places like Abstract / Introduction / Conclusions, something like "our approach X performs well on problem Y". If there are any claims in any places like that, those would be unjustified in my opinion, and that would be a serious problem. There really shouldn't be any unjustified claims about performance anywhere in the paper.

  So in the end they had a paper with a good justification for the project, a maybe working method which was not applied correctly, and they interpreted the results correct - so all in all it was an well documented example for a failure, and it was formally correct.

If the intuition / ideas behind the proposed approach are sound / interesting and new, if it all sounds like it could work out and be interesting... I think there might be some value in publication. Of course this also depends on the venue, some have lower standards than others. I suppose I'd treat it as a paper that simply didn't have any empirical evaluation at all, try to decide whether or not you'd still accept it then?

  Still, my recommendation was to refuse the paper, but I was considering if it might be helpful to others because they could learn from the mistakes.

That's not what peer-reviewed papers are for. I do believe papers with "failures" in the sense of interesting ideas that, after a proper evaluation, turned out not to work should be valued more highly than they tend to be (only success stories that "beat state of the art" tend to be accepted). Such failures can provide useful insights when published, prevent others from coming up with the same ideas and wasting their time on them again. But accepting a paper with a methodological flaw so that others can use it as an example of what not to do in a paper? That doesn't seem valuable to me.


Re-using text from a previous paper on which one was an author is known as self plagiarism. Opinions vary on the gravity of this sin, but it is pretty clearly not best practice. In my opinion, re-use should be allowed for descriptions of methods or presentations of proofs, provided that they are adequately flagged as such with citation to the original paper. "Following our previous analysis (Smith et al 2013), our methods are as follows..." If no citation is provided, this seems to me to be a transgression.

Authorship order is not relevant. Self-plagiarizing from a second author paper is no better or worse than doing so from a first author paper. Overall, you seem to have a misunderstanding of how collaboration works. Once two people collaborate on a paper, the output belongs to them jointly. One author does not have greater ownership over a particular paragraph what for having written the initial text of that paragraph.

I would hope you would directly discuss this with the PI before going to a funding body.

Depending on the circumstances, using your text may or may not be plagiarism. If I am paying an RA to work on a paper but she does not rise to the level of authorship, I see no obvious reason why I cannot ask the RA to help draft portions of the text. Similarly, PIs routinely ask graduate students and postdocs to help prepare grant proposals on which the PI is the sole author. I've never heard this considered to be plagiarism.


How to write papers efficiently when English isn't my first language?

The art of academic writing is essentially the practice of re-writing the same story many times, until the result is "good enough". It takes a lot of persistence and a lot of time to prepare a single paper for publication.

If English is not your first language and  you struggle with the correct phrasing, consider using an academic phrasebank  to help you. I can also recommend a brief summary of academic grammar. Finally, use English-English dictionaries as much as possible, e.g. the free dictionary, and refrain from using English-YourMotherTongue dictionaries if you can.


As a professor, can I copy exercises / problems from a textbook without referencing the source?

I have never seen a university exam in which problems are cited to sources.  The vast majority of exams I've seen are intellectually derivative on other sources: for many courses, an exam which is not intellectually derivative would be difficult to write and very painful for students to take.

In my opinion, in current academic culture course exams are not viewed as academic works which are subject to the standards of plagiarism: there is no pretense of originality.  However, copying exams from standard sources has issues other than intellectual priority: as already mentioned, it may give an advantage to students who are consulting those sources.  In my opinion, it is a good practice when writing an exam to never copy a problem wholly and directly from a standard source.  A question can always be reworded.  For a large array of problems in STEM fields, parameters can be adjusted or other incidental features changed, creating a problem that to a sufficiently expert eye looks isomorphic to the textbook problem, but is different enough so that someone who would feel that way has mastered the material.

When I write undergraduate exams, I usually do so with my own study materials and exams given in past iterations of the course in view (and I also give these to the students, in most cases).  With this in view, I try to create an exam which has the right amount of similarity to past exams and review materials: neither too much nor too little. For intermediate undergraduate level math courses, I have found that having one problem or part of a problem be basically identical (though somewhat reworded) to something in the study materials has a positive effect on the course: as the students run through several midterms and the final exam, they learn that the study materials are actually to be carefully studied and mastered, which increases their learning.  In general I find that changes that I regard as relatively modest -- e.g. swapping out one problem for a "cognate problem" -- are often regarded as "completely different" by students.

In short: you can and probably should use other sources for inspiration and calibration purposes when writing an exam, and I have never seen anyone document their sources as if an exam were an academic paper.  (In most cases one would not be documenting the "true author" of the work but simply identifying the previous person in the borrowing chain.)  However, you should not blindly copy problems from other sources, and you should watch carefully to ensure that your students regard your exams as having a sufficient amount of novelty.  To do otherwise is to shirk one of the most basic duties of the course instructor.


Chances of getting into PhD without any technical paper?

Europe consists of several countries with different educational systems.
Typically you should have a master's degree before applying for a PhD degree. I would suggest searching for opportunities to get a master's degree first. But there probably are exceptions: see point 1.
Not having publications is fine in the disciples I know of. If you have publications before a PhD, that makes you a very strong candidate. If not, then you are just like everyone else on that matter.


How can one join the Royal Society of Chemistry as an AMRSC (or MRSC) without a referee?

From the help page of the Royal Society of Chemistry:

  Who can be a referee for my membership application?

  Preferably a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry, however if you
  do not know a member who can act as referee, a member of a similar
  professional body can provide a reference. In some cases, a reference
  from a senior colleague, for example, your line manager or head of
  department will be acceptable.


When is it appropriate to decline a review request?

There are a few clear reasons to decline a review request, although in complete honesty, I've never actually declined to review a paper yet, so these are all at least "in theory" for me. Some of them are one's you've mentioned, but there are some others:

Conflict of interest. This one's pretty clear, though with the way some reviews are handled - based on recommendations, closely related expertise, etc. what actually constitutes a conflict of interest can get a little vague.
Lack of time. This is one that people seem to ignore or discount, but it's a big one. If you can't give a paper the attention it deserves, or your review is going to be late (predictably, not because of unforeseen things), then you should probably decline to review it. You're not doing you, the authors, or the editor any favors by making them chase you down for months to get a review.
Lack of expertise. If you read the methods section of a paper and your primary thought is "Huh?" not because the paper is unclear, but because its far afield from your expertise, I'd strongly consider contacting the editor for advice and asking not to be a reviewer.

I wouldn't necessarily not be a reviewer due to a failure to find the paper sufficiently interesting. If your expertise is indeed appropriate and the work is not of sufficiently compelling interest, that is a review finding all its own. Additionally, one would hope that you can evaluate the scientific merit of things that - while you are capable of understanding - you might not find directly interesting.

Whether or not it matters if its a conference or a paper likely depends on your field (how important are conferences?) and the particular conference or paper. For example, I might make a special effort to "find the time" for a journal I submit to (or would like to submit to) or a conference I frequently attend, but might not for a journal or conference I've never heard of.


How to choose good journal in neuroscience with no fee?

I am not at all familiar with the landscape of journals in neurosciences, so I cannot give you a concrete journal name. But consider this: you are writing a paper to be submitted to a neurosciences journal. I presume that this paper includes references to related work, also published in similar journals. Which journals appear most often in your bibliography? Consider those for your publication first.
Alternatively, seek out the publication records of neurosciences researchers that you truly admire, and find out which journals appear frequently on their (recent) publication records. If top neurosciences researchers publish frequently in a journal, it is likely to be a recognized journal accepting neurosciences papers.


Online courses in standard university curriculums

There are several types of online learning. Some practical considerations you seem to be wondering about are meeting times, delivery methods, and best practices in online learning.

The time of meeting could be described as synchronous, asynchronous, or a combination of both. Synchronous refers to the practice of the students and instructor meeting online on specific days at specific times. Asynchronous means that the students and instructor do not have to "meet" or connect online on specific days and times. Most online courses are asynchronous.

The delivery methods of online course content is as varied as the universities, majors, and faculty involved. Nearly all of them will use an LMS, or Learning Management System, to deliver course content to students. Some of the most popular are Blackboard, Brightspace by D2L, and Canvas. The content itself may be text-based, video-based or audio based and may include interactive elements, whether simply utilizing the discussion and quiz tools in the LMS or more complex learning interactions such as simulations or gamification.

You can get started in finding some of the best practices for online instruction can be found by searching academic research using keywords such as: elearning, distance learning, online, best practices in online learning (or elearning, or distance learning), and postsecondary (higher ed) educational technology. Another research topic that might be of interest to you is instructional design models. Many of the best practices in online teaching and learning have much in common with F2F best practices. The delivery method is simply the means, not the end.

Additionally, there are universities offering bachelors, masters, and doctoral degrees in instructional technology, instructional design, or educational technology where one can make a study and subsequently, a career, in online learning. There are also many national and international organizations devoted to the continual improvement of distance/online learning/elearning in both K-12 and higher ed.


What is a "distributed paper" and is it worth the effort?

I was at the European Sociological Association conference this year and only in one session did I encounter a distributed paper. The paper was duly given out at the start of the regular session and the (experienced) chair asked the author without any warning to present it. Although the author hadn't specifically prepared a presentation for his distributed paper, he did talk us through the paper and the audience asked a couple of questions based on superficially skim-reading it.

To answer your specific queries, the level of feedback would probably depend on how much time the Chair decided to give your paper. You might be able to negotiate this with the chair by email or in person just before the session, especially if the session is generously timed or somebody has dropped out, both of which are quite common at the ESA. It might even be possible to give a short Powerpoint presentation based on the paper as well. The advantage of a distributed paper could be that your paper ends up in people's hands and they might read it if they suffer a bad talk later on that day.


I got admited to a PhD program without a master degree. Does it hurt when I apply for a postdoc?

In most places I know (Europe mostly, France and UK in particular), a Master's degree is nothing more than a tiny blip on your CV by the time you have a successful PhD (diploma, publication, good recommendations, involved in your community, …). Your lack of a Master’s degree will not hurt one bit (but it probably will come up in an interview, so you want to have something decent or funny to say about it). I suspect the same will be true in most places: by the time you are a post-doc, Master's degree is not a good predictor of your future success.

Regarding age, it's a very good question, and should probably be separate. As a post-doc, it shouldn't hurt your chances (I defended my PhD at the same age you are, so I have given it some thought!). For a staff position, things are very different.


Is it research to just combine other people’s work?

Research is not just about inventing things. Finding out the best options to solve the sub-problems is also part of research and is also a major part of why people publish — to have their work used for a purpose.

Research can simply be anything that makes a contribution to science/knowledge/understanding (see here) which can be any of the following.

Finding novel approaches to existing problems
Formulating new problems and solutions to them
Doing an in-depth study on an established field
Making meaningful connections between the unrelated
Extending on top of existing developments
Combining the best practices to solve subproblems of a bigger problem
...

The list can go on. The main point here is as long as you have cited the existing solutions A₁, A₂, ..., An and that such a combination has not been published before, then you have no need to feel guilty of the work you did. You have done real work to search for the best solutions to each subproblem and went through the trouble of combing them to get a meaningful result — you have achieved an advancement in research.

Summarizing the comments:

A subproblem Ai may as well be ensembles/extensions of previous work.
If no-one else has published the work before, then it is not as trivial as you think it is.
The imposter syndrome; it is common for many in their research career. Overcome it.
You shed light on how problem A can be solved which might be overlooked before.


I think academics are paid to perform peer review, in the same sense that they are paid to do research.  I don't have a boss telling me what to research and paying me when it's complete; rather, my university expects me to perform research that is judged significant by my peers.  In the same way, my university expects me to perform peer review.  In my annual reports to the university, I report my research outputs and I report the journals for which I have performed peer review.
You may argue that my continued employment and promotion depends more heavily on my research than on peer reviewing, but the same could be said when comparing any of my service or teaching duties.
The bottom line is, academia is a gift economy, and if you want to be part of the community, you're expected to do peer review.


I still do not, exactly, know my field of interest. Is it relevant while applying for PhD?

I know this field.  Theoretical is enough of a preference for now.  Realistically there are many different areas in physics that rely on conceptual and mathematical ability.  At least you know you don't want to be an experimenter.  If you did, I would think there was a little more importance in having at least an initial hypothesis on what area to go into.  But I think theory is a more flexible, especially for someone new.

P.s.  Don't sleep on theoretical solid state.  E.g. density functional theory.


How to read textbooks like you listen a lecture?

how do you know which part of a book is significant and important?

It's all important. Since you mention physics, I'll use the example of Griffiths' E&M book, which goes into quite a bit of detail about waveguides. Many professors (quite reasonably) skip this material, as it is "less significant" than other chapters which discuss general topics like Maxwell's Equations, the Wave Equation, radiation, and relativistic electrodynamics. Yet, waveguides are an entire industry (of which Griffiths only scratches the surface), so I would hesitate to say that the discussion is insignificant or unimportant.

Or is the described above just a feature of lectures?

I think the real feature of lectures is brevity. By turning a long book (or a portion of the book) into 42 bite-sized pieces, it is easier to make sense of things. And once you've had 42 bites, it is easier to read the book and fill in the rest of the gaps. In the absence of lectures, then, you could instead treat each subsection as a "bite", and try to understand it in isolation.

Context subjects: Physics and Mathematics

The key to most physics and math courses is the problem solving. Many introductory students make the mistake of reading the textbook, making beautiful notes, memorizing the examples, etc., but their first time working on a previously-unseen problem is during the exam. In my experience, the ideal balance is almost exactly the opposite -- students should spend ~90% of their time working problems, even if this means they don't read much of the book. For self-study, this means that the availability of a solutions manual is an absolutely essential criterion when choosing a textbook.


Undergrad research with friends; one of them does nothing

It sounds like this question is about undergraduate research.

If an undergraduate student does not want to participate in research, that's fine.  They're welcome to have other priorities.  Other students have no responsibility to deal with a student who is not participating.

If a student is trying to get credit for participating in research but does not actually do anything, that is a matter for your professor to deal with.  They're responsible for setting standards.

If the students are not getting paid, there is no reason for the professor to push out a student who is not doing anything.


Is there a way to search specifically for literature reviews which have been written by others on a certain topic?

You can do this in Web of Science. After you've searched for the topic, look on the left and refine by article type -> review.

Less effectively, but still workable, include the word "review" in your Google Scholar search. Many review articles will use that word in either the title or the abstract ("In this paper we review ...").


Co-author submitted new data post-review without my (first author) consent

Dogmatically speaking, your co-authors clearly acted unethically. You claim to have made clear that you oppose including this data, and they did anyway. Independently of whether it is ok to add more data at the proof stage, all co-authors need to sign off on a paper or changes that are being made, and you did not.

That being said, there is always a pragmatic angle to these arguments. As much as we would like otherwise, miscommunications and differences of opinion happen in collaborations, so there will often be aspects that one or more of the co-authors are not fully on board with (and papers get published anyway). As such, you need to decide for yourself how important this issue is to you:

Is this issue important enough to you to go into a, potentially lengthy, argument with your co-authors and the journal editor (who may not be thrilled to be sucked into what is effectively an internal quarrel between you and your collaborators)?
Is this issue important enough to permanently sour the relationship with your co-authors?
Is this issue important enough to just not have the paper published?

Only you know the answer to this questions, but if the root of the problem really is that your co-authors wish to include data that "does not contribute to the story of the paper" then the answer may easily be "no" if you think about it calmly.


How do you pick a major when you're interested in pursuing advanced study in an interdisciplinary field?

If you're planning on doing advanced study in a truly interdisciplinary field such as the ones that you've listed, I'd recommend to look for what programs exist at the graduate level, and what their "home" departments are. If they're consistently in one department, I would then plan to do a major in the "home" area, and at least a minor in the other discipline (presuming there are only two fields overlapping). If you're planning to stop with master's degrees, you might consider two master's, but only if they were both funded. If you plan to do a PhD, there's probably no need for two separate PhD's—instead, try to look for a program where you can take coursework in both areas and do a project that combines them.


No.

Age discrimination is illegal in the US and (I assume) Canada.  If you're worried, just don't put your date of birth on your CV.  Most people don't.

Hiring committees just don't care how old you are.  All that matters is the quality and impact of your research.


How much unfinished work and unexplored ideas should one share in a presentation?

tl;dr: Light is the best disinfection.

If you work in a relatively small sub-area, and know all your potential colleagues and collaborators, you can decide for yourself how likely is that some of them can "borrow" an idea from you and publish it as your own. Your personal intuition about your the situation in your particular case is much more relevant than a general discussion.

However, you can also consider the following facts to help you make your decision:

Publishing process in Maths usually takes much longer than in Physics, Chemistry, Engineering, or related "hard" areas. It is not uncommon for an article to be in first review for 6-9 months, and it is not uncommon to have 2 or more review cycles. Are you really ready to keep your findings secret until the paper is published?
If some ideas were shared among a small circle of colleagues, and two of them claim that they "own" the result, it is actually more difficult to find out, who was the original author, and who pretends to be one. On the contrary, if the pre-print is made public, and the ideas are presented on a large international conference (in a room with more than 10 people), than there are more witnesses who connect the idea with your name, and it is less likely that someone will dare to stole the authorship (but still possible, of course).
An important task of your supervisor (as any supervisor) is to ensure that the work will be eventually published; and as you know publishing is time- and effort-demanding. By expressing their concern, your adviser in some form encourages you to publish these ideas as soon as possible, which is a completely legitimate request. In fact, if one shares a good idea on a conference, but then never publishes it, someone else definitely will, sooner or later.


Citing terse works, or wordy comprehensible works?

I'd give both, explaining briefly what is to be expected of which reference, something along the lines:

  A brief introduction can be found in [1] while [2] gives a terse summary and [3] develops proof 42 in detail.

(substitute whatever citation style you use for [1] etc.)


How to phrase the title in a presentation at an academic interview?

Just throw it out here. Perhaps others can upload their suggested topic slide as well? That would be fun.

I don't like to appear to be overly kissing-up, so I'll opt for toning down the university. My talk would have been broadcasted and posted for a while at the institute so the audience should know why they are here. So I'll just focus on up-playing my topic and who I am.

It'd be prudent to clarify with the hiring committee chair on the format and topics to be covered. But beyond that, just be at ease with the format stuff; focus on the contents. Be very, very certain that you cover just enough background to show you can think in breadth and depth, explain what your research questions are, and present your methods and results in alignment with your questions, and state briefly the implication. For job talk, leave a few minutes to elaborate how your work can grow into your career path, and highlight potential synergistic collaboration with some hot areas that your target institute is good at (e.g. "I'll also love to collaborate with the specialists at your Marine Dietary Assessment Center to cast a more critical look at the diet-obesity association.") You'll need to read their website/reports up on that. Find some friends, colleagues, and mentors to sit in your practice sessions.

Best of luck!


Which part of the GRE is more important to admissions committees?

First I will say that in some departments, GRE scores are a very important component of your application.  For instance, I work in a department where each year we get applicants from hundreds of different universities in 70 or more different countries.  Comparing GPAs between all the different educational systems is very difficult (we do it, but place relatively less weight on it due to uncertainties).  Meanwhile, the GRE is a single standard.  Also, whereas some departments in the USA can rely primarily on GRE subject tests, it's quite rare for international students to take those.  The bottom line: good GRE scores will never get you admitted by themselves.  But in some places at least, poor GRE scores will eliminate you.

Now, as to whether the verbal/writing or quantitative scores matter more, I think this depends heavily on the field.  If you were applying to a math/science/engineering program, the quantitative score would be by far most important.  It's generally thought that good writing can be taught to you later (and technical writing is different from the persuasive writing the GRE tests you on, anyway).

I assume that if you were applying to an English or fine arts program, the verbal/writing scores would be more important.  The fields you're applying to are somewhere in between, and I don't know them well enough to say for certain.

[Edit: see @shion's answer for the opinion of someone who knows more about your particular field.]


Can a college or university withhold your degree for non payment and change your degree?

Yes, as you say, it is common that a university will refuse to issue a diploma or transcripts until you have paid them what you owe.

However, I've never heard of them making you take more classes if requirements change in the meantime.  Most universities have a policy that what you have to fulfill are the requirements as they were listed in the catalog of the year that you first entered the university / degree program.  The university can't change them retroactively.

But you'd better read your university's policies to be sure.  This should be explained in the course catalog.


How to cite papers in my statement of purpose?

You can ask them to clarify the citation format (e.g. Wikipedia offers some examples), or you can simply pick one of the listed options of systems or styles available.


Is it acceptable that I plot a time-series figure with years increasing from right to left?

I think readers will be strongly expecting that time increases from left to right in a graph.  It's probably not a "rule" that you'll find written down anywhere, but it's certainly the overwhelmingly common practice. Having time go from right to left will very likely confuse your readers, and I don't think it should be done unless there is a very strong reason for it.


Should I provide a letter of recommendation/reference to every asking student?

You don't have to provide any student with a recommendation. In fact, it can actually be a detriment to the student to have a tepid recommendation. If you find yourself unable to write anything beyond what can be confirmed by a transcript (e.g., that the student did take your class or that the student got an A in the course), then that is usually a sign that you're not someone who should be writing a recommendation letter.

My personal method is if I know the student very well and s/he did good work, I write the letter. If I cannot recall who the student is, I ask for a one-on-one meeting to get a sense of why s/he is asking me for a letter. If there is a compelling reason that I (instead of someone else) should write the letter, then I usually agree with the caveat that it may not be a very strong letter because I'm not as familiar with their work. If there is no reason that I should write the letter over someone else, then I usually decline.


What lessons have you learned over the years as a TENURED FULL Professor that you wish somebody had told you when you started as an Assistant Prof?

You do not have to accept responsibility without appropriate authority.
It's a classic problem in any organization, and it's related to Dave Clarke's answer. Some concrete examples:

Rather than extend the deadline for homework when the bookstore doesn't have enough copies of the course textbook, give the students the email of the manager of the bookstore so they can write him directly about their situation.
Rather than ask meekly for a bigger classroom when there aren't enough seats for the 47 students enrolled in your class, give the email of the department coordinator who's responsible for assigning classrooms and say this is the person to whom you should vent your unhappiness.
Rather than teach a course that is watered down because it has no prerequisites, teach to the higher level students and explain clearly in the syllabus what you expect people to know. If students complain, explain to them your predicament (if you teach the basics, half the class will feel they wasted their experience). Students have more power to change an academic program by organized, constructive complaining than a non-tenured professor.
If the department chair doesn't involve you in selecting TAs for the course you are responsible for, and students are not happy about the quality of the TA (or the TA hounds you for a lot of help because he wasn't qualified to teach the course), encourage the chair to allow you to be involved in the selection process (refer to the principle of authority and responsibility).
If you're asked to be on a committee, insist that the committee have a clear mission that's feasible within the authority of its members. If a mission cannot be clarified or you can't identify with the mission, then minimize the amount of time/energy you put into it.


Does a literature survey/review paper require a 'Conclusion' section?

A good review article makes part of its contribution by doing synthesis, even theory building, as part of the paper. So I would expect you to summarise that contribution.  If you don't like calling that a Conclusion, you can call it a Summary.  But you should expect a reader to learn something from any article you write; a review just relies almost exclusively on other writers for evidence, instead of just mostly like in the case of ordinary science.


What helps, I think, is that "research" is not a single thing but a complex of many different activities. If I am feeling burned out on paper-writing, perhaps I find my joy in coding or mathematics or sketching new project ideas. Likewise when I am happy about papers but feeling burned out on something else. At a larger scale, even a "unified" line of research has many distinct facets that may feel quite different when one is actually closely engaged with it. Thus, I see no difficulty in the idea of remaining interested and engaged for a long period of time. I have been so for nearly 20 years (counting undergraduate research work as well) and I see no reason to expect my interest to fail any time soon. Funding, of course, is an entirely different story.


Do I approach the journal editor before submitting my manuscript?

If you have a concrete and simple question then it could be reasonable to ask the editor in advance, for example "Would a mathematical model of the popularity of film sequels be appropriate for your journal", assuming that the answer wasn't obvious. There is no reason to "check in", and it's an imposition on the editor to pester him/her with merely "checking in". Write the paper, make sure it matches the requirements of the journal, and submit it.


Including false attempts in resarch statement

It is probably fine to indicate that you have already studied the problems/questions that you are exploring and that you have "narrowed the field" by rejecting certain unfruitful approaches. If you already have "strong results" then the research is behind you, not ahead. Focus more on the importance of the questions you are exploring than the failed attempts to answer them. In mathematics, some problems are inherently difficult. Some are even impossible, but things can be learned and math can advance even for those problems.

It is especially valuable, if true, to point out that some of the attempts to answer the main question have also raised new questions that are fruitful for exploration.


How to cite an unpublished internal (academic) report

You did not mention who is the author of this report - you or someone else?

Option a): Someone else:
If you are using it, you should cite it - like e.g. a personal conversation or else which should be cited. But maybe it would be appropriate to write the paper together if your fields are so close. For the reviewers (and readers) it would be crucial to re-phrase all relevant content of the report because otherwise the text is worthless. (see Should you cite somebody's Transfer Report? (Confirmation Report)? for other thoughts on this topic)

Option b): Your text:
Since the proposal was written by you, there is no harm in using the material in any section of the journal. You are not violating any copyright and it is not self-plagiarism since it was not published before.

If you want to cite it just to save some space, then please refer to the remark about re-phrasing the content above - the journal paper must be self-contained and fully understandable / reproducible and just citing it will not help.


Referee did not fully understand accepted paper

As is the custom on this site (or at least it should be) let's assume the premises of the question are correct - that is that it is indeed a prestigious journal.

Do nothing.

In fact no: celebrate acceptance in the way you find most appropriate.

The fact that some people misunderstand what you're trying to say is not a basis to act after acceptance. It might indicate that you presented your results in a not so clear manner — which would speak in favor of refining your writing for future articles — but that would not be an exception in the scientific literature. At any rate, edits (other than very minor ones such as typos) after final acceptance are generally not allowed.

If you see errors in your article that are not trivial and you feel need addressing, the appropriate way to handle this is to publish an erratum. I imagine most journals have a standard procedure for that.


Might colleges and universities not consider me for an assistant professor position because I'm a professional tutor in addition to being a teacher?

I decided it was time for a career switch to academia,[...], due to a strong passion for teaching.

As others have already mentioned,

sending out 32 apps and getting one interview might actually be a good success rate in physics.
your absence from academic research for 10 years (if indeed you've been absent in the publications game) is a much bigger issue than your private tutoring service.

But I wonder also where you're applying. If you're focused on teaching, but are applying to R1 schools where research is the main focus, then you're less likely to get any traction (especially if you indicate this love for teaching in your applications). I realize that this sounds awfully cynical, but the fact is that at research-focused universities you're competing with people with heavy research profiles and an unbroken sequence of postdocs and publications.

At a more teaching-focused school, it's possible that your tutoring experience will be viewed as a positive, because it demonstrates a track record and commitment to teaching.


It is pretty much a universal truth that if you want something to "stick" in your mind, you need to work with it. Reading isn't enough as it is too passive and only affects the short-term memory.

To learn something you need to get it to long-term memory and that actually requires rewiring the synapses of your brain.

The easy way is to take notes on what you read. Paper notes, handwritten, are preferred as they are more effective at "changing the brain" than typing them. But is is also reinforcement to later transcribe the notes and that will help with retention also.

For me, the best means of taking notes initially is on index cards. This prevents me from just copying long passages, since the cards are small. I can put a title and a date at the top and maybe a sequence number. If I use just one side for primary notes, I can use the backs for other things. I can rearrange my notes by rearranging the cards. I can insert cards. I can select a subset of cards (say as class notes). I can easily discard a card if no longer needed.

But even better than notes that just describe what you read, are notes that capture your own thoughts. You can make hypotheses about the text, for example. You can relate them to other texts.

Another aspect of using index cards is that they come in different colors. You can use the different colors for different kinds of ideas.

You can also carry some subset of your "idea deck" around with you using a simple binder clip. You can carry a few blank cards with you (always) to capture thoughts on the go.

But for your specific use, you could use the cards specifically to note both the relationships to your current work and how the new ideas differ and might take you in different directions in future.

But the bottom line, is to make your reading active not passive. See The Art of Changing the Brain by James E Zull for a description of the brain science behind active learning. I've mentioned this book in other posts here also.


Ph.D. candidate publishing preprint to link papers

In general, you can post the preprints version of the paper before submitting if the journals do not have a policy which require you not to publish the preprint on repositories like arxiv, vixra, etc. See for example International Journal of Modern Physics D, where they have a policy of embargo which is explained. From this link you can see the author rights "After an embargo of 12 months, you may post the accepted author manuscript on your personal website, your institutional or subject repositories of your own choice or as stipulated by the Funding Agency.
"

To be clear, when you publish on arxiv, you give the an irrevocable license to distribute the article to arxiv, which means that you cannot withdraw the paper from arxiv unless there is a crucial mistake on it (see here ).

Here you can see the policies for many journals, for example
"Author's Pre-print:    green tick  author can archive pre-print (ie pre-refereeing)
Author's Post-print:    green tick  author can archive post-print (ie final draft post-refereeing)
Publisher's Version/PDF:    green tick  author can archive publisher's version/PDF
General Conditions:
On author's personal website, employer's website or institutional repository
Publisher's version/PDF may be used
Publisher's version/PDF may be used on author's personal website or employer's website only
Link to publisher version required
Publisher copyright and source must be acknowledged with citation"

Finally, you need to check with the policy of the journal where you have submitted the 2 papers, and if you cannot publish on arxiv, you can cite with something like "_authors, paper name, submitted".

In the present, the world will go to open access, and we as authors have to encourage these movements and to publish the preprints online on free repositories.


What is a Chartered Scientist/Engineer & how do you become one?

I'm basing my answer on Ireland, where my Brother became a Chartered Engineer.

In relation to the points of your question.

Normally in Ireland you obtain a Bachelors (Hon) degree (up to 2012 now a masters degree) and can become an Associate member of the Engineer Institute. After a period of time, or either further study or in the workplace you may apply to become a Chartered Engineer Regulations here. I know in my brothers case for his application he had to write up any course he took after becoming a member and also any details of any project that he worked on.
It appears a masters degree is needed now but a Bachelors (Hon) degree awarded up to 2012 will be accepted up to 2020. Page 7 of the regulations linked above have details of progression routes available.
There are a number of accords that ensure cross-border recognition of the qualification. Again as an example, my Brother was able to secure a Engineering Job with a European multinational Engineering firm in the UAE within about 6-8 weeks of moving there.

It is possible that the Irish and British systems are similar due to the historical link between the two countries. Unfortunately as per your question I have no information on the term Chartered Scientist.