Difference between postdoc and researcher in Sweden?

The difference is that a postdoc's PhD degree must have been obtained no more than three years prior to the application date.  For a researcher, there is no such limitation.

It means they want a postdoc, but if it's been more than three years, they can't call her/him a postdoc and will call her/him a researcher.  They'll probably pay more for the researcher but they probably would also pay someone with 8 years of postdoc experience more than someone with 2, even if they were allowed to call both a postdoc (like they would in, for example, the UK).

It's common in Sweden.  See this question.


Is there any forum or FB group where people would exchange academic literature?

On Twitter, there's the #ICanHazPDF hashtag. Wikipedia explains:

  Users request articles by tweeting an article's title, DOI or other linked information like a publisher's link, their email address, and the hashtag "#ICanHazPDF". Someone who has access to the article will then email it to them. The user then deletes the original tweet. Alternately, users who do not wish to post their email address in the clear can use direct messaging to exchange contact information with a volunteer who has offered to share the article of interest.

This 2013 article has some more information about the practice, including estimated usage figures and demographics. According to the data presented there, 24% of #ICanHazPDF users are students.

On Facebook, I don't know of any groups devoted to sharing literature, but I've certainly seen a lot of (successful) requests on my Facebook feed along the lines of "Can anyone get me a copy of this paywalled article?".

It's also worth noting that, if you are already a student with access to a university library, the library itself can provide you with interloans or copies of material from other libraries worldwide. As a university student, you have access to people who are literally paid to help you find the literature you need. Don't ignore that resource!


Could I list the conference that I didn't attend in the PhD application system even I got my paper accepted?

In general, no. If they ask you to specify a list of attended conferences, then a conference that you didn't attend doesn't belong in your answer, even if your paper was accepted. Claiming that you attended the conference  would be incorrect and could lead to problems if someone found out.

Normally, you should be able to get credit for your accepted conference paper in another category, where you're asked for a list of your peer-reviewed articles.

However, the form could be designed in a way which neglects the existence of peer-reviewed conference papers. For example, you might be asked for a list for your journal articles only, because the form designers were unaware of fields in which journal articles are not the only kind of peer-reviewed publications. In this case, you should seek contact to the admission committee and ask how to proceed.


If it is that much of a "hot topic" then it isn't unusual to throw more person-hours at it. If it is that hot you might derive considerable advantage from getting your work in under deadline, if that is all possible, because you would go into your Masters defense with a good publication already acquired. And perhaps two, since you'll have four months to write another one. So that's a carrot.

In all cases everyone who materially contributes to the solution can legitimately expect to be a co-author on the paper. You might feel that this is a bit of a stick.

However, in all cases your Masters thesis will contain the work that you did, they can't take that way from you. But you can't claim others' work as your own, so if the pertinence of your own work lies in its contribution to a joint paper, you must explain that very carefully in the thesis. For example, you can claim in the thesis that you established effect X, which is a contribution because when combined with effect Y it demonstrates mechanism Z. It is then up to your thesis committee to decide whether this is enough of a contribution.

You will have a lot to gain in sharing your concerns with your advisor and getting some ground rules laid out. For example, if there is a joint paper, am I first author? Will I be excluded from publication if I don't get all of the necessary results by November? What part of this work can you include in your Masters thesis? Don't be afraid to state your worst fears, you need to know the answers and if your advisor is willing to provide assurances it is important to get them.

Finally, if this discussion is oral rather than through e-mail, don't forget to send a follow-up e-mail documenting your understanding of your agreement. If your advisor agrees to your summary, great; if she doesn't respond then your version stands; if she repudiates it then your discussion isn't finished.


Was my student being disrespectful by using shouting language in her email to me?

For a one-off or short-term rudeness, my policy is to respond with pure facts, served chilled. If you have a good instinct for delivering comebacks at just the right level, a hint (but just a hint) of sarcasm might work wonders.
Manners are important, but it's not our job to teach the students manners - and they are rarely grateful for it, especially those who would need such a lesson the most. Most certainly, I generally ignore capitalized letters as they signal inadequate acquaintance with netiquette or a really immature person.
That being said, your student is probably more in total panic and loss of control of the situation than expressly rude; this probably deserves more of your compassion than your anger. This does not preclude you to use aforementioned strategies for response and to decide how much time you are willing to allocate to help them and to enforce your decisions strictly. How they decide to communicate is their business - understanding why they do that, and what to respond are your businesses; and two separate ones, at that.
Do not use language that can be interpreted as a threat ("she should be careful about what she said"), a better response to a challenge ("you challenge me") is to just ignore it or to ask - without any emotion -what they mean if you really cannot ignore it. Think of Spock's raised eyebrow when you do it, it will put you in the right attitude for this.


Research is a very non-linear process, where long stretches of work may produce not much of value (even though you have learned a lot!).
If you're planning on leaving academia this presents a problem, because you might not actually produce anything before you leave, and it's understandably difficult to motivate yourself to work on something you plan on dropping midway through.
Therefore, I would advise you to focus on projects that are likely to pay off before you leave. Of course without specifics it's hard to come up with examples, but I'll take a crack anyway.

Find a colleague who can benefit from your expertise and help them out.
Reach out and see if you can give some talks about the research you've already completed.
Volunteer and take over some teaching from a colleague.
Expand your (digital) office hours.

Lastly, you've probably spent a good amount of free time doing research anyway, so I wouldn't feel too bad about taking the occasional workday off to do something other than work. (Perhaps figure out what you're going to be doing next.)


When conducting a follow-up review for a paper you already made comments on, how detailed should the review be?

The extent of a re-review depends on what has been done with the manuscript (MS). If the first review round yielded questions and comments that can be fixed but may require checking to make sure the implementation of the comments are correct, then, as you say, you will not have to do a full-blown re-review. If, on the other hand, the revisions are such that the MS has been substantially modified, perhaps with new parts added, new data included, etc. the situation is different. Then the paper is so modified it is in some way more of a new MS than just revised and, hence in need of a new throrough review.

So in my opinion, the need of re-review depends on the severity of the required changes. How you decide depends on your opinion of the new paper. If an editor feels a MS is in need of so substantial revisions it becomes a new MS, then it is often rejected with a note about re-submission after work has been done. So in the end it is your view of the severity or magnitude of necessary changes that largely determines how much should be done. In some cases authors may disagree with a comment you feel strongly about and in such cases it may be necessary to enforce the view through more careful and convincing scrutiny.

EDIT: I should perhaps add that a second or more reviewers may have given other comments that influence your review. This means parts of the MS can be changed in ways you have not suggested so although a new detalied re-review may not be necessary a careful read through and comparison with the old may be in order. Sometimes authors (we) can use conflicting reviews to argue against one or the other.


How do you keep up motivation during individual doctoral research projects in the short run

Perhaps you are just pushing too hard and getting frustrated. If you try to force your mind to work, it can get bogged down in the detail letting you miss seeing the bigger picture and options that might let you go forward.
Often the best solution is to take a break and do something different for an hour or three to let your mind clear itself out. Aerobic exercise, even if mild, is good for this. So is going to the coffee room and chatting with colleagues about trivial stuff (not work). "How about those Mets?" (Sorry NYC allusion). A game of Chess, perhaps.
Many people have the experience that when they awake in the morning they have solved a previously impossible problem in their sleep. The mind works even when you don't push it to do so, and sometimes more efficiently.
I can't guarantee that this is the issue, but I'll guess, at least, that it is more related to frustration than motivation.

My own trick, back then, was fifty mile bike rides with a couple of friends.


Who determines whether or not a professor receives tenure?

Here's how it works at my university.  There are several layers of votes; I've seen faculty turned down at almost every level.  Once a negative vote is taken at any level, it is essentially impossible for the candidate to recover without an official appeal.  (The appeals process is complicated.)  On the other hand, I know of negative decisions that were successfully appealed at almost every level.

April: the candidate submits their CV and other supporting materials.
May: The department's promotion committee makes a go/no-go decision about whether to pursue the tenure case.  A very small number of negative decisions are made here, but only in truly egregious cases.
May: The department head chooses a subcommittee of three or four faculty from the promotions and tenure committee to shepherd the case through the department.
June: The department solicits recommendation letters, some from people proposed by the candidate, but a majority from people chosen independently by the subcommittee.
August: The subcommittee writes an internal evaluation of the candidate's research/teaching/service accomplishments/potential.
September: The subcommittee presents the complete case (candidate's CV and statements, internal evaluations, and recommendation letters) to the complete departmental committee.  The committee votes whether to recommend tenure.  Most negative decisions are made here.  Having a positive recommendation turned down at a higher level is fairly embarrassing for the department; it indicates that either the department did not do a thorough evaluation or (worse) tried to hide or excuse an obvious gap in the candidate's record.  So this level tends to be the most stringent.
October: The department head writes a one-page letter summarizing the case and the department's vote, and forwards the complete package to the dean.
November-December: The college promotions committee does its own evaluation of the candidate and votes whether to recommend tenure.  Evaluations are more likely to be based on measures of reputation and impact (reflected in publication record, citation patterns, funding history, and recommendation letters) than on actual quality of research.  Faculty in the candidate's department are recused from any discussion.  Some negative decisions are made here.
January: The dean writes a one-page letter summarizing the case and the committee's vote, and forwards the complete package to the provost.
February-April: The campus promotions committee does its own evaluation of the candidate (mostly, but not entirely, focusing on whether proper procedures have been followed) and votes whether to recommend tenure.  Faculty in the candidate's college are recused from any discussion.    A very small number of negative decisions are made here.  Negative decisions at this level are more likely to involve problems with teaching (or raw politics) than with research, since measures of research quality and impact vary so wildly across campus.
May: The provost writes a one-page letter summarizing the case and the committee's recommendation and forwards the complete package to the chancellor and university president.  The provost also informs the candidate of the committee's recommendation.  Officially, this is the first news that the candidate receives about their case.
July: The chancellor and the president rubber-stamp the provost's recommendations, and then pass them up to the board of trustees, who rubber-stamp them again.  (Officially, I think any of these three can overrule any recommendation for promotion, but I've never seen it happen, and it would probably cause a faculty revolt.)

Yes, the whole process really takes 15 months.


Handling a case of reviewer reporting a result he read in a paper he had rejected

Did the supposed reviewer really copy your result/idea?

Double check the paper in question to see if it does match your result exactly. Many papers tend to appear similar but would've obtained with different approach and methods. This is a perfectly acceptable scientific conduct. So make sure your claim can be justified.

If your manuscript was copied, do you have proof?

If you are absolutely sure that the manuscript was copied by the reviewer, you may file a plagiarism report to the publisher of the concerned paper. But, the chances of you winning is slim. You may have your submission report from your mail or submission repository, but it wouldn't help much. From your post, it doesn't seem like you have a preprint in arXiv either. Sadly, you couldn't do much at this point.

To avoid this in future it would be better to make a preprint available in arXiv. Just make sure you confirm if it is allowed by the publisher's guidelines. You may consult with the editor if this is unclear.


Which logo to use in a seminar title page?

The acceptable use of logos is usually described in an institution's corporate design manual. The corporate design manuals I've seen do usually not allow people not affiliated with the institution to use the logo without explicit permission, so I would never use the host institutions logo. Such thing will also not vary between fields (in my university's cd-manual, only some color schemes differ between faculties). There might even be some legal issues involved, but I'm not competent to discuss legal matters.

Most academics in at least my field, quite reasonably, ignore corporate design manuals which might even specify minutiae of how your slides are supposed to look. Usually, they do this by not showing any logo at all- my preferred choice for aesthetic reasons. But there is absolutely no reason to show a host university's logo.


I pretty strongly suggest that you don't claim a title of any kind unless it is formally conferred. That is, if you want your CV to be credible.

But there is a difference between "University Guest Lecturer" and "university guest lecturer". The first seems to be a title, but the latter is just descriptive. You can certainly describe what you do in a CV without making any claim to hold a position that the university hasn't actually conferred.

Caution is best, I think, in all such situations.


Correspondence articles, do you put them in the CV?

The following assumes that you do not have to follow strict guidelines for your CV (in which case you would most probably have consulted them already).

You put stuff on a CV for a reason, usually to showcase your achievements or experience. When deciding what to put on a CV, this should be your main criterion, i.e., do you think that whoever reads your CV will be positively impressed reading this – in contrast to being annoyed by having to read about every tiny thing you ever published? Whether the article in question is sufficiently noteworthy, is something that only you and people who are familiar with your work (such as a supervisor) can decide.

It might help to ask yourself the following questions:

Are you at a stage where you list every publication, talk and poster on your CV or are you only listing “selected publications“?
Is the correspondence relevant and can you expect the reader to know or see this? Did you, e.g., find a serious flaw in a publication that was considered seminal until your correspondence? Has your correspondence been cited?
Did your correspondce require a noteworthy effort and can you expect the reader to know or see this?
Are you the main contributor to the correspondence?

Considering where to put this correspondence, I would try to avoid creating a new category for one item only, i.e., I would put it in some fitting category or choose the categories such that it fits in one of them. Either way, I would ensure that the correspondence cannot be mistaken for a regular publication. If your correspondence does not have a title like ”Reply to …“, which makes this obvious, you can, e.g., append “(correspondence)” to the entry.

Disclaimer: The above is based on thought only. I have no experience in putting correspondce on a CV.


Is It Okay to Continuously Use One's Private Email Address?

There might be internal regulations about e-mail use at your institution; if there are none, then I would say: It is your own personal choice.
Even in academia, many people do use their non-institutional accounts because - to cite some reasons from this source - they provide more functionalities, are sometimes more reliable, enable greater storage space, support larger attachments, last longer over career trajectories, and may have a less rigorous spam filter.
There are some interesting studies in this regard:

The provision of public e-mail accounts (e.g. gmail) for correspondence in published research articles will not affect a publication's impact (in terms of citation counts). See here.

Within the research community, there is an increasing trend towards using public e-mail accounts rather than institutional ones. See here.

Someone who conducted one of the studies cited above nevertheless recommends the use of institutional e-mail addresses. See the last paragraph here.


How to satisfy the publisher when making an article available on a personal web page?

The main issue in these circumstances (to my knowledge) is mainly to ensure that the exact version which you can host (i.e. your original version, the version after edits and reviewer comments, and the final version that was actually published).  SAGE has a good overview on this issue here.

On this page it clearly mentions that when you host it anywhere, to "please make the following acknowledgement: 'The final, definitive version of this paper has been published in [Journal], Vol/Issue, Month/Year published by SAGE Publishing, All rights reserved'".

From my non-legal perspective, I notice to things.  Number 1, the Dos and Donts are clear spelled out with "you may" and "you may not".  This condition starts with "please".  So, for one, I find it hard to believe that such a condition is legally binding, and that if you change the wording slightly it should be fine.  In fact, looking at this closely, I don't even think I have a legal imperative to put any link whatsoever (at least according to this specific publisher and this speicific journal).

In the end, the matter rests in the kind of copyright agreement that you've signed with the publisher, but I cannot imagine a situation where you've followed all of the guidelines, put the link and the citation, but then get sued for slightly changing the wording on exactly how you refer to it. On the other hand, if this is the wording that they want, why not just put it using the words and terms and just clearly avoid these issues altogether?

Bottom line, ignore what other people do; just take the publisher's method, wording, and whatever else in order to make sure you don't run-afoul of any ethical, or legal issues now or in the future.


How to prepare for Thesis defence presentation?

Take some of your friends and hold your presentation to them. Don't focus to much on the content at these trails. Instead use them get used to holding the presentation.
Your source of stress seems to be the fact that you have no experience. The only way to get it is to do dry runs in a low impact setting.


Quitting current PhD programme and impact on future PhD applications.

My thoughts on this:

Stay or Go: You said the following, so just by that, it is a big red flag and it is time to move on.

  My advisor (Who is excellent in his research area) has very little
  knowledge in my research topic and avoids technical discussions with
  me in the group meeting because of this.

Future Applications: Actually I saw many cases like this who doesn't move on quick enough and stay in an unhealthy situation. So it is good that you figure out the situation and want to change that. As long as you can present yourself in an interview with the new supervisor and explain your situation, you should be fine.

Main Drawback: Obviously the time is a huge issue here. Can you financially take a hit and spend 6 months to a year to find another position?

Alternatives: You can either find another supervisor from the same university or even research group, or you can find a supervisor from your old university were you did graduate for your Bsc/Msc.


Can you become faculty at your PhD granting institution?

In theory, anyway, academia is very much like human biology: inbreeding and incest ought to be avoided because drawing from such a small pool of genes and backgrounds is likely to cause problems. Mixing it up benefits any area of inquiry: people whose training was from a diversity of institutions/supervisors/influences bring in new ideas and frameworks, and can keep a line of research from unwittingly falling into a rut when it comes to the lines of analysis being used.

Sometimes Ph.D. graduates of an institution are brought in out of necessity. If a department wants to hire a second faculty member in a very, very small subfield, for instance, the pool of applicants is likely to include a lot of Ph.D. graduates who worked under the first. That's pretty inevitable. This is, to extend the analogy, as if the human population has been reduced to 10 or 20 people and most of them are relatives. If there's no other choice, marrying cousins and siblings has to be done.

But those cases are the exception, in my experience. Within my field there are 3 or 4 departments in North America that have become notorious between 2009 and the present day for heavily favoring their own Ph.D. graduates (to the point where if the shortlist gets leaked, you can predict who's going to get the position from that and the job talks have only a small effect). It makes sense that departments want to look out for their own, and it also makes sense that if a department already has a good sense of someone being impressive, that's difficult for an outsider to challenge. But to return to the analogy, it's like marrying a pair of siblings to each other because they're both looking for a partner and already know each other and get along. In both cases, people will talk. In both cases, a reputation will be earned that is not good. The last time one of the 3 or 4 departments in question was looking for a new tenure-track faculty member and someone from the department anonymously shared the shortlist with a bunch of mailing lists, one of my colleagues made an extremely cynical, almost mean-spirited prediction that made me shake my head at the time and then ended up being entirely accurate.

So yes, it is absolutely possible for someone to end up working at the institution where they did their Ph.D.; but unless there are extenuating circumstances, people are likely to think less of the department in question for hiring its own. It benefits every department not to default to someone they already like and someone whose ideas are comfortable and familiar to them.


Switching tenses from past to present within a paragraph in a research paper

In a paper, actions taken are typically in the past, while goals, interpretations, and conclusions are still valid in the present.

Thus, the juxtaposition of tenses in your example is entirely reasonable: the creation took place in the past, while the goal remains the same in the present.  You could also, if you wished, place the goal in past by tying it to the creation, e.g.

  Our goal in creating this model was to allow the ...


Most people won't care.

The time to PhD isn't really considered all that important unless it's highly anomalous (much shorter or longer than standard), and if you get good publications out of it, nobody is going to make a big deal about switching topics. It happens for all kinds of reasons—funding changes, or because the original project doesn't pan out for whatever reason (technical or logistical).

It will also not impact your career much, unless you're planning to continue studying one of those areas as your post-graduation career. Again, the overall quality tends to matter much more than the actual topic in most cases (particularly if you're moving into a different area from your graduate work).


Is it legal in the US for a student to download a copy of a textbook, to study?

In general, it is not considered fair use to download the entirety of a textbook, regardless of whether or not you're a student or enrolled in a class using the textbook. Fair use normally is considered to extend to making copies of small excerpts of larger works. For instance, you could copy a particularly relevant figure from a book, or a quote from a textbook or reader for use in a class discussion.


How do you cite some commonly circulated image on the Internet with no source

I would cite such a source in the same way as an anonymous or unknown author's work would be cited. You should consult whatever style guide you're using for your current manuscript.


Is starting with the abstract and conclusion an efficient reading approach for writing a literature review?

Your strategy sounds sound to me. You cannot read the papers from end to end. You need to weed out they papers you will possibly need in your review with as little effort as possible. Title and abstract should be enough. Once you have done this you should be left with a bunch of papers that are likely to be of use to you. While you have looked through them you must also consider how the material can be organized. There are many ways of doing this, chronological order (boring), thematic order (are there subfields?), contradictions (are there compeeting ideas) etc. The point is to try to get the information organized. You need some form of organization fo the papers so that you know how you will treat them in your review.

Once you have found all papers you think you need you can start assembling the information into your text. It is at this point you can start reading them in more detail. It is still not necessary to read every detail. you need to focus on the background to the different conclusions drawn.

The goal of the review should be to provide a new perspective on the field you have chosen so your own familiarity with the field (papers) is key. Try to collect as many as you can; not all will be used.


What constitutes an academic publication for people in the Creative Writing field?

There are plenty of scholarly essays that can be written about creative writing.

Here's a CV from one professor who teaches creative writing extensively. It lists, as well as books, short fiction, and poems she has published, a long series of scholarly essays that seem like your "literary analysis" category (titles like "Reed-Kellogg Diagramming and Vernacular Speech: ‘Telling It Slant’ in the Introductory Classroom", “Robert Penn Warren and Psychological Pastoralism,” “Agency in All the Kings’ Men: The Issue of Anne Stanton,”).

She also has a series of essays on writing which are probably what you're talking about with your "articles on the effectiveness of various writing techniques, tropes, themes, plot devices" such as “Don’t Be Afraid to Write Badly,” The American Scholar, January 2017 and “Writing ‘Bush,’” Fourth Genre, Summer 2011.

Here's another CV from an "Assistant Professor of Poetry & Creative Nonfiction" who has a section for "Selected Prose (Creative & Critical)" that includes what looks like both literary analysis and essays on the "effectiveness of various writing techniques" (Writers on Writing, “Why to Kill Your Paradise").

So yes, it seems that there are publications that take a scholarly attitude toward creative writing, and at least some professors of creative writing do publish in them.


Are there official criteria what undergraduate programs in different majors must cover at US schools?

This is an addition to the other answers.
Most professional bodies publish guidelines on what majors in their fields should include.  For example, a joint committee of the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) and IEEE (Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers) publish guidelines for what should be part of a computer science major.  The MAA (Mathematical Association of America) publish guidelines on what should be part of a mathematics major.
In some cases, these guidelines are quite specific.  In others, they are much more vague.  The ACM guidelines are fairly specific.  For largely political reasons, the MAA guidelines are fairly vague.  (This is because departments at universities with more academically capable student bodies and or PhD programs want guidelines that would prepare students for graduate school, while departments at universities with less academically capable student bodies know that they have no students capable of completing such a program of study.)
These are guidelines, not requirements, but they are reasonably influential because many professors do pay attention to them.  In addition, as mentioned above, in certain subjects, there is subject specific accreditation that may impose requirements on the departments involved.


How do you judge the potential of a newer journal?

To expand upon part of Dave Everitt's answer,

  look at the founders of the journal - did they start it primarily as a platform for their own publications, and do these authors and their associates make up the bulk of the authors?

I would also look at who is publishing and editing the journal.

Is the publisher affiliated with a scientific society? Sometimes scientific society will launch new journals (e.g., the Ecological Society of America launched Ecoshpere to be their open source journal).

Or another is a new journal from an established publisher? Established commercial publishing companies are launching new journals. Although people argue about the ethics of publishing with them (cf What are some examples of negative effects on a career for boycotting Elsevier journals?), my own experience has been that their products are usually scientifically sound (presumably because they are afraid of hurting their brand image). Additionally, journals such as Nature now have spinoffs (and spinoffs of spinoffs, e.g., Nature to Nature Methods to Scientific Reports) to catch paper that do not fit into their flagship journals.

Also, who is the editor-in-chief and other editors? Do you know them in your sub-field? For example, when the journal Theoretical Ecology launched, the they had Alan Hastings as the EIC, a highly respected Ecologist.


Does my lab head need to be a co-author on my manuscript?

In many of the lab sciences it has become customary, and even required, that the PI of the lab is a co-author on all papers produced by those working in the lab, usually as the last listed author.

It would probably be thought unusual if you were to break this "tradition". It might even cost you in your relationship with the PI in the future.

The rationale for this is that the PI has probably done the work to get the lab funded and sets general direction for the work in the lab. Many of the ideas generated by those working there may come indirectly from others, including some insights from the head.

I don't know if this is the situation in your lab, but suspect that it is since you are asking the question. In such cases it is probably wise to go along to preserve the collegial relationships that can benefit you in your future.

You may question the fairness of this, and many do, but if it is required by the meta rules, you are a bit stuck. Ask your colleagues in the lab what is the proper approach. If they say to include the head, and you would rather not do so, then I'd advise asking the PI for permission to publish a paper on your own. I'd follow the advise given if for no better reason than self protection.

I'll note that in some labs many people are listed as co-author even though they have little contribution to the intellectual content of the paper. But they, in some way, enable the work and so are listed as co-authors.


Under which circumstances (if ever) should a prospective post-doc apply for a position advertised for a PhD student?

While it might sometimes be possible to convert the funding from a PhD to a postdoc position, in general I don't think it's a good idea to apply as a postdoc for a PhD position. That being said, you can always contact the PI and ask whether they would have another position for a postdoc.

Often, there are many more projects advertised for prospective PhD students than for prospective post-docs.

This is due to several reasons:

First not every PhD student continues as a postdoc: a lot of them go to industry, some of them quit or fail... and some of them achieve a mediocre PhD which doesn't allow them to get a postdoc job. So mathematically there must be more PhD positions than postdoc positions: if say only 20% of PhDs continue as postdocs, there must be roughly 5 times more PhD positions offered than postdoc ones.
Universities have a duty to teach students, they don't have a duty to hire temporary research staff. The number of PhD students taught is an important target indicator for an institution, whereas the number of postdocs is more a result of their success at grant applications.

Many of the projects seem to be scientifically challenging enough to be interesting also for a post-doc, especially if one is switching fields or completing the project in a shorter time frame.
I cannot see why institutions would be opposed to hiring post-docs instead of PhD students, considering the much higher qualification they bring. I can imagine that there are some limitations attached to funding, though.

I've heard the very vague estimation that one year of postdoc is equivalent to 3 years of PhD in terms of research productivity (incidentally, they are often paid around 3 times more in countries where the PhD is a grant). There's some truth to the idea that a postdoc can do the same job as a PhD faster.
However there are also important differences which can make a PI choose a PhD rather than a postdoc:

a PhD topic can be more prospective and evolve over time.
the PI might want the PhD to test their own research ideas, so they want to supervise the work closely. On the contrary, a postdoc is usually more independent.
supervising PhDs is a must to advance their career.
co-supervising a PhD student is a common way to start a collaboration with a colleague, whereas a postdoc doesn't need much supervision (if any).

It's important to understand that universities are not like companies, they are not looking for the best quality/price ratio for a task. The goal of funding a PhD is not only to answer a research question, it's also to teach somebody how to do research so that they can contribute to society later. This is why the main reason for an institution to hire PhD students is simply that it's an essential part of their mission, that's why they receive public money. This is also why there are indeed very often limitations on the funding, simply because a lot of PhD funding comes from national or international programs meant to increase research capacity by training researchers.


Should I list my research interests that are not popular on a statement of purpose?

I am impressed that an undergraduate student could speak knowledgeably about either Floer homology or topological modular forms, let alone both.  I would include both interests in your applications: by describing both, it seems implicit that you are not wedded to either one, so I don't see your interest closing any doors.


How to export search results from Elsevier?

I suppose you mean Scopus?
If you have your results page, there is a grey horizontal menu bar on the top of the search results. It contains the link "CSV export". This is where you have to click on, then you can select the metadata you wish to download.
Make sure to first select the documents, perhaps the box "All" left to "CSV export", before the link "CSV export" becomes clickable.
See an example here:


Google Scholar might show the two versions as separate articles, but you have the option to merge them in your profile. While merging, you get an option "Select the best version of the article.". So, selecting the newer version here should ensure that the correct arXiv version is linked to.
Citations also get merged when merging articles. It is however possible that the citation count will have an asterisk next to it indicating that Google Scholar is not sure if both versions are the same paper. Citations would not get lost here, you also have the option to unmerge the articles any time.
I am not sure how new citations will be counted, but as long as the versions are merged, this should not matter since both versions will point to a single entry in your profile. I am also not sure what happens to citation counts of the papers that you cite. Ideally, your citation of those papers should not be counted twice, but Google Scholar's citation data often has errors for various reasons so one should only use them as a rough indicator and not as an exact count.


Contact the department immediately and provide evidence that the letter itself was delayed. Then cc your referee on the correspondence.


Does diversity in undergraduate research topics look bad on my graduate school application?

Trying out several projects in different areas does not necessarily say that you do not know what interests you. You have to show them that you are interested in several areas and that you wanted to get an insight in order to obtain a wider range of possibilities.
I think that there are few people who immediately find the right area that fully interests them. It is important that you present it that way. Working on different projects brings more extensive experience in any case.
If you have then found the right area, you can deal with it more intensely.


Submitting An Extended Abstract To Conference, But Later Changing The Methodology and Research Question

Depends strongly on the conference. It't not unusual (maybe 10% of papers) for presenters to present a paper on a substantially different topic than their accepted abstract at one of the most important conferences in my discipline. That's because it's considered a work in progress and discuss conference, so it's completely accepted that the question you thought about six months prior didn't actually work out.


Motivate students to work on exercises if solutions are provided

The way for a "not so good" student to become better is to work harder and solve more exercises. Reading a solution is not at all like finding a solution. Your test becomes one of memorization rather than skill if you test on exercises for which the students have already seen correct solutions.
I would suggest that if you provide solutions, rather than individual help on finding solutions and seeing where the students went wrong, that you post them after the test.
And, the key, post those answers with additional exercises for those who did poorly on the test to get some additional practice. If you want to incentivize them to solve those exercises, provide some bonus to the test scores for submitting correct solutions to the follow-up exercises.
But you have an additional problem in that your "practice sessions" are probably ineffective if they depend on students knowing that their supposed solutions are wrong and that they need help. Students have misconceptions often enough and need to be pushed past them. If they "solve" exercises but no one checks the solutions, then they are unlikely to see where they made a mistake. The exam only tells them that the are wrong, but may not indicate why and it probably won't help them dispel those misconceptions for the next try.
The combination of a bit of stick and a bit of carrot might help. You have the stick (the exam) but you are missing the carrot. Give points not just for success but for hard work, even if it is re-work.
I often learned lots of math by doing lots of exercises beyond what was required. It was only through that extra work that I was able to achieve insight. Luckily I was self motivated in those instances, but not everyone is. In another course the professor provided lots of external "motivation" through "pop quizzes" which we hated but knowing they were coming, forced us to be ready every day. Remember "flash cards" from early elementary school? Lots of repetition. Lots of feedback.

An option that I've never used, but might consider in your situation is to require that students who did below a certain mark on one weekly quiz, submit their work for review in the following week (or two). This might reduce the number of papers you need to give feedback on and also make it feel like a reward for the better students who don't need to submit. Or even, make submission optional to everyone. And comment on the papers you do get.
With TAs, have them comment on exercise papers and pass them to you for review.


Some Advices Regarding to Preparation for Mathematics Graduate Programs

Disclaimer: I'm not in the field of mathematics, but I have been in a similar position

I think it is still possible for you to switch to math. It helps to get some more research experience if your GPA is not that great. A good reference and research experience will make up for a lower GPA in a lot of programs. I had some mental health issues during undergrad, and took an RA position for a year before applying. I cited health issues as a reason for my poor grades (< 3.0 GPA), and asked the professor I worked with during undergrad to mention this in his letter of recommendation. I don't think you have to explain your mental health issues in detail during the application process.


Having a co-author as an external examiner for doctoral thesis defense

It doesn't matter whether there is a "national or global consensus"; it matters what is the rule at your particular university (consensus means "general agreement"; there may be exceptions).  Given that the concern has been raised, your advisor is exactly right when he says "We'd have to check this."

It sounds like you don't know who to ask and are trying to circumvent this by instead getting a general answer from the larger academic world.  That's not the way to go here.  If you don't know who to ask, begin by telling your advisor that: this is his problem as well as yours.  Then together you ask various university people about the issue until you get an answer.  If there is some faculty member who has a leadership role in the graduate program in your department (e.g. the "director of graduate studies" or possibly just the department head), start there.

(Added: Of course you may be able to find the answer to your question in online regulations for your graduate program, and that is an excellent place to start.  I had assumed that the OP would have tried that first before asking here.  Generally posted regulations do not address every eventuality.)

For what it's worth I would be surprised if this were a problem.  But I said what I meant: the previous sentence is not worth much.  Maybe it's a problem at your university: then I'll be surprised (so what?).  The last thing that you want is not to check this out and find out too late that it's actually a problem.


How important academic affiliation really is for getting published in a reputable journal?

I would think it depends on the field you're in. I'm in computer security at a major university, and my views will obviously be slanted by what I know.

The first thing you'll need to establish is the resources to which you'll have access as an independent researcher. If you're in computer science or mathematics, this might be everything that you need; if you're in neuroscience or microbiology, not so much. Then remember that 'resources' applies as much to books, articles, and papers as it does to lab resources. In computer science, you might be able to get away with the free resources available; good luck with that in, say, medieval history or medicine.

Second, and more subtly, there's a publication bias issue. In most fields, as far as I know, reviews for conferences and journals aren't double-blind; that is, your reviewers can see your name and (lack of) institutional affiliation when they're reading your paper. Anyone would be biased by that information, and academics are not exception. It's not even a conscious bias, necessarily, but it is going to be there. That means you risk getting rejected out of hand, even if your work is good. By contrast, reviews for the big computer security conferences generally are double-blind, so this isn't such an issue.


There is no restriction that a PhD should be done right after a Master's degree.

For instance, I knew a returning PhD student of age >50 at a major US university.

Depending on what the candidate did in the three years in between, snatching a precious place in a PhD program may be either more difficult or easier.


Is it worth it to add substitute teacher work in a CV?

I am going to disagree with Peter Jansson here.

If you mean you stepped in to cover a couple of classes here and there when the regular instructor was sick or out of town, I would say this by itself doesn't constitute a meaningful amount of teaching experience for professional purposes, and shouldn't be listed on a CV.  It may have been valuable to you, but I think it would look kind of silly on a CV.

If you were assigned as a teaching assistant for the course, you probably have a line where you describe your responsibilities in that role (grading exams, holding office hours, etc), and you could add "occasional lectures" to that line.

If you filled in for an instructor for a longer period of time, then you could consider listing it ("taught 3 weeks of Calculus 4").


Since you have already completed most of your PhD, your best course of action is to finish your PhD as soon as possible.  Then you will be free of CO's bad behavior.  Negotiate a plan for completion of your degree with your supervisor.  Request that this plan does not rely on CO since they are not dependable.

should I just accept the academic trail is dead for me and look for suitable industry jobs instead?

The information you have provided in the question tells us nothing about your ability to find an academic job.  However, academic jobs are in general scarce and low paying.


On a Conflict of Interest disclosure, what's the difference between 'ongoing' and 'current'?

You'd have to check with the journal to be certain, but based on what I have seen in other places, I would guess that the difference is whether the relationship causing the conflict of interest is open-ended or not.  Thus, for example:

DrugCo is a major sponsor of a conference, which Prof. X is chairing this year.  This would be "current" because the relationship is expected to end when Prof. X finishes as conference chair.
DrugCo retains Prof. X as a consultant to assist with patent actions.  This would be "ongoing" because the relationship could persist indefinitely.


Is it safer to carry on undergraduate research areas to gradschool or start from scratch in an unknown area?

If you start by thinking about what's safe as an undergrad/grad, I think you may experience (unpleasant) surprises down the road. Do what you like best! Grad school is not an easy path, and motivation is sometimes hard to maintain throughout, so the best way to help your chances of success is actually to do something that you enjoy (and hopefully will enjoy for the next few years).


NSF Proposals: numerical citations or author-year?

In terms of reference formatting, this is the only paragraph I can find in the NSF guide:

  Reference information is required. Each reference must include the
  names of all authors (in the same sequence in which they appear in the
  publication), the article and journal title, book title, volume
  number, page numbers, and year of publication.

Thanks to @Suresh, I misunderstood the meaning of it and I agree that the instruction does not specify either numeric or author-year format.

However, the page limit is 15, all inclusive, numeric system would give you a few more lines at the end. And you don't need to hate flipping back and forth, because the reviewers will do the flipping. However, should you feel so strong against it, call and talk to the grant program manager or contact person and ask if you can use your preferred system.


Is it fine to submit a paper to a journal via arXiv without updating on arXiv?

If I understand correctly, the answer is "no" and seems to be obviously so.

The journal needs the latest version of your manuscript.  The journal will acquire your manuscript from arXiv.  Therefore, you must put the latest version of your manuscript on arXiv.

In any case, there seems to be no reason not to update the version on arXiv.


How long do I have to wait for my offer letter?

Pick up the telephone. Repeat several times to several people if first call does not get an answer.

Get this resolved within a week.  Have them send the letter express mail.  No more sitting and pining.  If you haven't resolved it by week end, you need to move on and look for a different gig.


Showing figures from a paper in presentation

In my field, mathematical physics, I've seen many presentations with figures from papers, and it's perfectly acceptable to do so providing you reference the work either at the end on a separate slide or as a footnote.

If the figure does not consist of data collected by the authors, but rather, for example, the graph of a function, then you could of course plot it yourself and include your own figure. There would be no need for citation.


What can a scientist learn (only) from patent literature/database rather than from research literature?

This may vary by field, but in my opinion most patents are not very useful for a researcher. The patents that I have read are all written by attorneys in attorney-speak.  Trying to figure out what is the real technical content behind the attorney-speak is difficult if not impossible.

To give an example: I used to work at a large company.  My company wanted to patent some of the work that I had done. My boss had me send my material to the attorneys, and they drafted the formal patent application based on my work.  When I received the patent application back, I could not even understand what the patent was talking about, and it was something that I had literally invented.  So good luck to anybody else trying to understand what it means.

Occasionally I have come across some good technical content in patents, but it's usually in the situation where the researchers have filed a patent first and then published a journal article immediately afterwards.  They did the patent just to protect their intellectual property.  In that case the patent does have some good info, but the corresponding journal article is even better.

Again, your mileage may vary.  In some fields I guess this might be different.


Are professors obligated to accept supervisory role? If not, how does it work?

The exact answer to this is likely to vary from one university to the next, depending on local rules and terms of employment. In general, the position is likely to be: professors are not required to agree to a student's request for supervision. However, it is generally advisable/mandatory for professors to accede to 'requests' that come from higher up in the management hierarchy.

If students are required to complete a supervised project as part of a course, then it is the university's responsibility to ensure that an appropriate supervisor is made available. If a student reported that they cannot find a willing supervisor, this would likely result in management applying increasing amounts of pressure and/or incentives until someone agreed. However, in such circumstances, the student is likely to be left with Hobson's choice - the project offered may not be a close match to the student's preferences.


verbal agreement to convert masters to PhD but reconsidering

I don't want to do this PhD project

If you don't want to do this project, DON'T DO IT. PhD is not everyday fun and it is sometime harsh to keep motivation through the ups and downs.

About your adviser, I will not be too worried for him/her burning bridge. How many PhD student actually drop during the PhD. As Nate Eldredge said, It is quite bad for an adviser/group to have an unmotivated student. Moreover you haven't yet start the PhD. It will be much worse for you adviser if you start and quit after 2 years because you cannot stand it anymore.

As often, you should just be frank with your adviser. Explain this is not the project you are ready to invest 4 years in your life and if he/she has a minimum understanding, it should be fine. If you are not at ease, do it in several discussions, where first you express your doubts on the current project. I think any adviser hearing that should actually advise you to not continue with a PhD.


Should I add E-books and Blog Posts to my CV?

I would include them in a section titled "community engagement" or something of that flavor.

Note that something being cited is not equivalent to peer-review, do not classify the work as peer-reviewed.


Using standards proposed in another paper

There is nothing wrong with adopting standards from previous work into your work. In fact it is very common. Research is an iterative process and that's a good thing. You don't want to reinvent the wheel every time you want to test a new car engine.

If you did not measure DDoS attacks using the technique from this paper, you would end up measuring using a technique from another paper. Even if you invented your own measuring technique, you would want to publish a comparison of it with techniques established in the literature.

As the comments have said, you should cite the previous paper and give a brief overview of their technique. If the technique is not well known or complicated, you may want to devote more ink to explaining it, but a small paragraph should really suffice. People won't be reading your work to learn about the other paper, they're reading it to see what you've done. If they're interested in the other paper, they'll go read that.


Unable to present my accepted paper in conference. Can I now submit the paper to another conference?

On my request, the conference acknowledged that they will not publish
  my paper to their Journals/proceedings. (I've the email transactions
  with the conference secretariat.)

Was the registration for the paper done, i.e. you had paid the registration fee? Was the camera ready version already submitted?

If you had not paid the fee already, then obviously they won't publish your work. In fact, they won't consider for scheduling the program as well. If you had already paid the fee and submitted the CR version, be safe and keep the email transactions with you for possible conflicts in future. However, AFAIK, many conferences don't publish the work unless the registered author presents the paper in the conference. Make sure this is the policy for this conference as well.

  I wish to submit the same paper for an IEEE conference. Is there any
  issue? Please advise.

If you think you are safe in the first question (above), then you could go ahead with submitting to another conference.

You can further view the following related questions in academia SE:

Would my paper be published if I missed the conference due to visa-related problems?
What to do if I can't get a visa to attend a conference that accepted my paper?
Etiquette when unable to attend a conference

BTW, I had a question, why did you submit the paper to the already-accepted conference at the first place if you were not sure about your attendance? I feel this is not a good sign.


(Upon jakebeal's request:)

Seconding @Kimball's recommendation, the "Monthly" (for all its problems...) is seen by undergrads, and also "College M.J.". Small consolation, but, indeed, it's hard to reach people who don't know the keyword to "google-upon". Conceivably, your enveloping HTML page could include more-naive keywords, or even nearly-hype-ish keywords, hubris-acknowledged, that would give g-hits.


What to include in the preliminary part of a Math Masters Thesis?

Your preliminary section should perhaps introduce the problem you tackled and the steps taken to attack it. It should serve as a sort of overview, moreso than an abstract.

I would not copy verbatim anything from a book in bulk unless you have the consent of the author or publisher to do so. At my university, students are required to have these "copyright statements" if they are reusing printed material that they have already published. I would check your university's guidelines on these.


Is it common practice to remove an author's name from a paper?

This seems to be a blatant attempt to take credit for your work - as far as I know, this is both not common, nor acceptable. To quote @JeffE "hell, no", or a polite variant, is the only response.

I would, politely but firmly, state that as you have done the research and the write-up, then you are the first author, perhaps offer to have them as a co-author, only if they have contributed something.

I would also consider having a quiet word with the head of the department about this.


Is there a standard for capitalization in references of math papers?

Every journal has its own preferences for this. Use a citation management package like BibTeX or EndNote, and follow the style guide of the journal you submit to. In the end, it doesn't truly matter as long as your readers can find the article, but it's best to follow the journal's instructions in the case that they do actually care.


We can make the same conversation for BSc or MSc degrees. There are probably many unemployed people with BSc degrees, as well. We cannot suggest that people should not go for higher education, because there are actually fewer jobs than university graduates.

Your question seems to neglect an important, yet simple truth. That sometimes, certain people want to go for a higher degree, regardless of their job outcome. Education (PHD included) is more than filling resumes or getting a better job but a fulfillment in itself. In this sense, it is the same as learning to play the guitar. Does the world need a new guitar player? No it does not. But you do not learn the guitar to benefit society. You learn the guitar to benefit your soul.

If the few lucky PHD holders manage to get the job they wanted that is fine. If they did not, at least they tried. Life is not linear and you cannot predict by your actions on what job you will land, even if you do everything perfectly. But at least, you must be provided with a chance to try. In that sense, it is better than there are actually more PHDs available than the available jobs for PHD holders. More people have access to an even higher education and that is (as aeismail said) a benefit in itself.

So to directly answer your question: Do we need more PHDs? No, we don't. Would the world be a better place if you or I get a PHD? No, it won't. Would we get the job we want with a PHD? Probably not. But that does not mean that I must not have the right to do a PHD and try my chances.


I want to bring this up and ask my PI, but I'm not sure what she'll say. How should I explain my situation to her?

You're thinking about this wrong. It's not the PI's decision. You don't have to convince her, as she has no greater role in establishing authorship than any other, except of course by being the mediator between her own students.
Everyone on the author list has to agree to the ordering (and co-first-authorship). If the present first author agrees you should share first authorship, that's the big hurdle. I would suggest having him email all authors saying something like:

Monolo and I have discussed their contributions, and we would like to submit this paper as co-first-authors.

No one is likely to object, unless you're trying to jump from seventh author to first.


Can a maths undergraduate apply for a physics PhD?

It's hard to give a general rule as policies will vary between institutions and countries, but this would probably depend on the specific Physics related content of your course.

From my own experience (UK universities for undergraduate masters Physics and Astronomy and then PhD Astrophysics), it is not common but definitely acceptable to get a place on a PhD course straight from a Bachelor's. Exceptional candidates (eg. having multiple publications before graduation) would definitely be considered.

In terms of switching subjects, you would need to show that you have the background knowledge and appropriate skills (numerical, computational, logical problem solving) for the PhD you are applying to, but if your Maths degree covers this then it should not be a problem. I imagine aiming for theoretical physics or highly mathematical fields such as cosmology would be quite easy to justify from a Maths course that included mathematical physics. A practical or astronomy related PhD may be harder to justify as you probably wouldn't have the broad background knowledge or lab skills. For computational projects such as gravitational waves or theoretical astronomy, you would need to have computing courses in your undergraduate degree, to an acceptable level, though the language you learned wouldn't matter too much as you can easily pick up a different language.


Is it possible to retrieve easily all the Nature papers featured the cover since 1950?

If you are researching a specific area (doing a lit search) then your university library and an academic librarian is a good place to start. Libraries normally have access to such things and can get copies of papers. The librarians know how to go about it and can even help you manage a broader search.

All you really need is some specific idea of what you are after. A citation in a recent paper is an excellent start. Even if your own university doesn't have direct access, they likely have associations that they can work through to obtain what you want.

There was a time, pre internet, when this was the primary way of doing academic research.

I hope I've interpreted your need correctly.


Should I alter personal holidays for a research visit?

How important is the research to you? And how hard is it for you to replan?

An enthusiastic grad student probably would jump onto the opportunity, but if you see it as a chore, and you do not see direct repercussions (after all, they asked you whether it works), you might decline it.

Of course, you may still be enthusiastic, but it may mean losing out on a pre-booked, expensive trip to the outback/jungle/mountains/etc. (or something else that requires a lot of organisation and/or money to arrange). In this case, the decision will be less clear-cut.


How can a layman easily get the consensus view of what academia *thinks* about a subject?

Good question! If you are a total layman popular scientific magazines or blogs like the Scientific American from Nature Publishing Group or scienceblogs.com are a first source to spot which kind of views are represented in the community. Articles therein are mostly written by current or former academics and scientists with educational background in a scientific branch and contact to universities and researchers. And they skim the most important articles in the primary literature or visit conferences in their branch. But don't rely on single articles, always compare several sources, but the necessary background to understand such articles is often lower as a broader audience is focused by those publishers.

From there you could dive deeper into the scientific primary and secondary literature over Google Scholar/Books by searching and reading review articles that summarize the longer or recent past of a distinct scientific field. In the best case such review articles are written by several authors. In scientific fields like for example dark matter physics you will not be able as a layman to get a picture how much percent roughly believe in the current paradigm or an alternative theory. Searching on Google Scholar with intitle:"name of theory/paradigm" might give you some hint how much researchers work/favor alternative theories and open questions.

(Hand) Books written by several leading scientists in a field are in general a reliable source, though often not covering most recent developments in a distinct field. Textbooks will often need a solid background in distinct underlying theories (consensus on these?), even for academic graduates and interdisciplinary researchers in a field. I think a total layman cannot understand them and textbooks are often written by experts of a distinct view/theory, not of competing theories, and not the main spot to discuss alternative theories, rather journals.

Concerning life sciences, published meta studies that analysed and evaluated the data of many published smaller former studies that refer to a distinct scientific question like for example "dying of bees" are a good first source. So here we have to distinguish between views/theories and data. But, if meta studies show that the data amount is too low or contradicting other data, then there can be no consensus concerning a distinct question.

If this all doesn't help you, skeptics.stackexchange.com is a very good site to ask which theory/cause is currently favored by the majority of the scientists or what the data favors. But like Scholarpedia and Wikipedia you cannot be sure the answers or articles are written by scientists with educational background in the related field. But as a layman, I think it is rather important to know if the majority agrees, are there ongoing discussions, is the scientific community in a field split up, what is the current paradigm and how much research is ongoing on alternative theories and open questions. Popular scientific magazines/blogs normally cover such questions. If you are interested in more details, asking on a related scientific sites on Stack Exchange is another option to get often a discussion/answer by several scientists or students in a field.

I agree with the comments and want to explain that one major problem with finding a "consensus view" in the scientific literature is that basically it is the job of scientists to try to falsify the current paradigm/theory/consensus, especially when there exists a strong consensus, but the theory is incomplete or doesn't explain everything sufficiently. But one also has to distinguish here between theories and facts/data. If you ask for instance if dark matter can be the only add-on to explain rotation velocity of stars in galaxies, then most astrophysicists would currently favor this explanation/view, though there are also astrophysicists who work on alternative theories/explanations. Those might get also attention (more than they deserve) in popular scientific magazines and this good from my point of view to foster falsifying theories. You could also ask is there a consensus on the general relativity theory and likely most of the astrophysicists would say it is currently the best theory we have before a unification of all physical theories. There would probably be a bigger consensus that space-time is a physical entity than general relativity is the final theory because, again, there are few theories in physics that have a "final" tag. The evolution theory in biology is maybe not perfect and covering everything, especially genes and epigenetics, but mutation and selection is the paradigm I would say 99% of biologists agree with. For climate science, to my knowledge, most in the community (>90%) agree that the data in conjunction with theoretical simulations points to human-made global warming. I show these examples to explain to you that there might be a strong consensus on data rather than a theory concerning a distinct question. In popular scientific magazines/blogs this difference can be more undermined than in scientific journals or books.

The minorities are and have to be covered in popular science, maybe also in a stronger kind than their alternative theory/view is really represented in the community. So if you really want to know if the majority believes in one theory, if there is a consensus, always check several of above sources like wikipedia, popular scientific magazines and blogs! You can also make a poll among scientists on consensus on data and/or theory, and Stack Exchange is maybe the best place for this currently, if you chose sites with a high density of scientists or expert/layman ratio frequenting it like mathoverflow.se or cstheory.se, stackexchange sites like physics.se are too much diluted by laymen for a poll to a mainly scientific audience.


How do I remove myself from academic mailing lists?

Sadly, that sounds like spam, and you should treat it however you'd treat spam.

I'm not sure you should assume good faith on the part of the people sending you those e-mails.  I'm an active academic with an e-mail address accessible on my university website, and I receive:

Legitimate conference announcements over e-mail lists used by people in the area, which I could unsubscribe from if I wished.
Announcements from people who actually know me.
Unsolicited announcements from scam journals and conferences.

I receive several of the last category every week (and more, unsurprisingly, than any other category).  I do not get legitimate mass e-mails that are not in the first two categories.  It's possible that in other fields there are some legitimate announcements sent the way you describe, but I'd guess very few.

In other words: spam is spam, and you should feel no compunctions about treating it that way.


Is it ethical for a part-time professor to use his position for other interests?

As you remark, it is probably not okay, although it is always a fine line to draw: it's ethical (and highly encouraged) for a professor to help students procure good jobs and/or rewarding experiences outside the university (where “rewarding” covers not only monetary gains, but also experience learnt, etc.). He can do that through his network, and first and foremost in that network is the company he knows best. However, it is not ethical for him to abuse his position at the university and the student–professor interactions to the good of his own company.

Now, how active are universities in taking action against such behavior? It probably depends on the field, the country, the local situation and power of the professor, but in most cases I would say they will be willing to close their eyes, and it would really take a lot of evidence and someöne pushing them very strongly before they take disciplinary measures.

If you want to do something about it, discuss it very openly, and very calmly, with the director of your program, the students' representatives, the dean or departmental chair, etc. And document everything in detail.


How to encourage faculty involvement as judges in a local research exposé?

We have the same kind of event, and we get reasonable faculty involvement. A few things that help:

Faculty are likely to show up and get involved if their students participate. Make sure students of many different faculty participate and remind the professors of this fact.
Remind, remind, remind. Send regular (but not daily) reminders to the faculty. Keep the emails short, and let them know what's expected of them - show up at this place, at this time, and encourage students.
Get different people involved in different aspects: some might review the presentations, some might help with pre-screening, and so on. The more people are involved, the more they feel part-ownership, and the more likely they are to participate in other ways.
Do this regularly. It's often hard to do this the first time, but once it's a regular occurrence, people get used to the rhythm of it and how it fits into the calendar.


Is there a bias against mentioning your name on presentation slides?

There is nothing wrong with mentioning your own name in full in citations on your own slides, and nobody would think anything of it if you did. However, there are a number of reasons why people do this.

Replacing your own name with initials is a subtle way of emphasizing that it is your work that is being cited. You can think of it as a “humblebrag”.
Since you are usually talking about your own work, you end up citing yourself a lot. Replacing your name with initials simply saves space, especially if you have a long name.


How to ask a potential postdoc supervisor to give me the postdoc interview results sooner than he planned

Rather than asking to know the results in advance, which may not even be possible (they probably tell you the results as soon as they have reached a decision, and they probably cannot reach a final decision without interviewing everyone), ask if it would be possible to delay the formal interview if you do get to that stage. From what you've told, this would mean one or two weeks of delay at most; that's nothing. Explain your situation with the visa and I'm sure anyone reasonable will understand.


Would my sister, who studies in England on a visa, suffer retaliation if she discloses Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?

I think your fears are misplaced. Universities only wish to know about disabilities in order to make allowances for students. By declaring the disability, your sister will enable the university to consider her condition if her condition causes her difficulty in meeting the course requirements. For example, if her condition means that she is unable to leave her accommodation to turn in coursework, she may be allowed to have a deadline extension. The alternative is that she misses a deadline, and the university believes this is due to poor time planning or laziness. This is what would lead to her being removed from her course. Informing the university about the disability in advance will explain the missed deadline, and could help ensure that she isn't removed from her course. Removing someone from their course simply for declaring a disability would be completely illegal.

With regards to the Home Office, I don't think the university has any duty or reason to inform them about disability. Regardless, the Home Office doesn't care about disability, only about your sister continuing to be enrolled on her course, and attending the pointless Tier 4 census. The Home Office has enough of a backlog of work already. They have absolutely no interest in removing your sister from the country for having a disability.

If your sister is still worried about informing the university authorities about her condition, she should certainly contact her student union. Most student unions have a disability officer who is elected from among the students to help and represent students with disabilities. They are independent from the university, and have no interest in informing anybody else about things that they are told in confidence. Talking to them might help allay your sister's fears.


Do grades obtained after applying to a graduate school matter?

Yes.  Many graduate departments may accept your application, but require a final undergraduate transcript before you actually start your first semester there.  If your grades have seriously dropped in your last semesters, they could rescind the offer of admission, and not let you in after all.

So in short: extra good grades in your last semesters can't help you, but bad grades can hurt you.


Is a good idea to inform potential PhD Advisor that I sent my application for joining his lab?

If that makes you feel better, sending a quick email is probably fine. Something along the lines of:

Hello Dr XXX,
I have just submitted my application to program Y, as you have advised. Looking forward to hearing back from them!
Best,
Student

Even if you don't get a reply, a quick note like this should be sufficient to remind the professor that you are still interested in his lab. Good luck!


Out of a long list of suggested master thesis topic, how to decide which one to choose?

Background: while I'm not in mathematics, I have some experience crafting these lists.

I would not worry too much about it being relevant/new/hip. Usually, thesis topics are chosen so that they have at least some opportunity to be analyzed in a novel way (they peeked the interest of the advisor). I would therefore advise against choosing your own topic, unless you really know what you're doing and what the state-of-the-research is in said topic.

It is, however, crucial that you are interested in the topic, because this is what will determine whether you'll have the discipline and energy for persevering. You said it was hard to determine this a priori, but I suggest you at least try to get a faint idea anyway so that you can narrow down the list to up to three topics.

Besides interest, it is also very important that you talk to the respective faculty/advisors, in order to make up your mind about with whom you want to work. This may prove to be an even more important point since their support may ultimately be crucial in securing that PhD offer. Additionally, I find that talking to people often allows you to get many clues as to what kind of researcher they are and whether that conforms to who you'd want to be.


Should a researcher share scientific ideas in a temporary position and are they entitled to recognition for doing so?

When I was a graduate student, my advisor told me something that has stuck with me ever since:

  I never worry about giving my ideas away.  I always have more ideas than I can work on, so I give them away as fast as I can.  The only people who worry about somebody stealing their ideas away are people who are afraid they won't have any more.

I have taken that to heart in my career: I give (most) ideas away as fast as I can, and it has served me well.  Having ideas is not an art or a mystical experience, it is the exercise of a skill at creative thinking that can be developed and strengthened just like any other skill.  Over time, giving ideas away thus doesn't diminish your stock of ideas, but instead actually increases it.

The real question, as alluded to by others, is what you do with an idea once you have it.  As I see it, there are basically three honorable actions that you can take (hoarding it away not being one of them):

Pursue the work following from the idea strongly yourself, heavily investing your own time.  In this case, if the work is fruitful, you most certainly should get a lot of credit.  These are the only ideas I might not give away, in certain restricted circumstances---usually I'll share these as well, since more people caring about my problem area is generally better for me.
Give the idea away for somebody else to work on, but continue contributing to the work in an advisory or other accessory manner.  This is the typical mode of operation for many professors, and can certainly be for a postdoc as well, even after you move on to another institution.  If you continue to contribute in a minor way to the work, you should receive minor credit (e.g., Nth authorship).
Give the idea away for somebody else to work on, but don't contribute to the work beyond that.  This is great because you don't burden yourself with the extra work, but you should probably expect an acknowledgement at most, not authorship.

In short: in most cases, it's not the idea, but the work following the idea that counts.  We only think otherwise because we are scared or because our myths of science frequently mischaracterize the result of work as the idea.


My paper was rejected, and some colleagues say this is due to the "reviewer's mindset." What does this mean?

Is it true that reviewer's mindset play a role?

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "reviewer's mindset." The reviewer is just trying to decide whether your article is more worthy of being published than other articles that have been submitted. It is true that the process is a bit random; submitting the same paper to an equivalent journal might yield nicer reviewers who make a different decision. But this is unlikely: if a paper is rejected from one journal, it usually means that the paper either needs to be improved, or it needs to be submitted to a less selective journal (or both).

Is the guidance to resubmit the same paper (with improved language) to a different journal a good idea?

Impossible to say without reading the paper, but resubmitting the same paper to a less selective or more relevant journal could indeed change the decision. But you should also consider whether it's possible to improve the paper.

Language is not good

This is a very common problem. As a reviewer, I am shocked by the quality of the writing that established groups submit to reputable publishers. These problems range from basic English mechanics (understandable for non-native speakers, but still needs to be fixed) to basic manuscript construction problems (poor organization, haphazard presentation of background and method, ambiguous results with unclear figures, etc.)
Many students really learn how to write by iterating with their advisors 30+ times. This is a crucial skill; if your advisor is not helping you write up your results so that they are publishable, you may need to consider finding other sources for this guidance, and be prepared to completely rework the paper.

Proposed method is just a composition of couple of existing methods

If this is true, it means that your paper is not very exciting; you combined some existing methods and got some unsurprising results. There is nothing wrong with this per se, but you will indeed need to select a less selective journal; top journals will prioritize more novel approaches with more exciting results.
Another possibility is that your paper is exciting, but it's written so poorly that the interesting bit is buried and your reviewers didn't understand the key point. If this is the case, revising the paper could address this objection.

I am not getting a constructive guidance from mentor. And I am in an environment that none of the persons around me has an SCI journal till now including my mentor.

I think this is the real problem. Normally I would say that your advisor knows what to do, you just need to communicate better with them. But you say your advisor is themselves unable to publish in these journals (which is all the more confusing; how can your university expect their PhD students to achieve what their faculty cannot)? I'm afraid I do not have the solution, but I am concerned for you. Good luck.


How to deal with "too descriptive" comment in dissertation proposal feedback?

The difference between descriptive writing and critical writing is much like the difference between a newspaper report and an opinion column.

Descriptive writing is the act of reporting on what's in the literature:

  Smith found that when X occurred Y and Z also happened.

Critical writing analyzes what has been done, and takes note of trends, as well as possibly offering feedback on the overall quality of the research:

  Smith found X occurred in the presence of Y and Z, as did Jones. However, Doe has demonstrated that Y and Z normally occur in conjunction with one another, so it is not clear if X actually influences Y and Z, or if it is an independent effect.

What you can see from the above is that critical writing does require some descriptive writing, but it goes well beyond it in terms of the depth of analysis.


Here is their current web page, which in contrast to the Google+ page you linked to appears to be up-to-date.
Although this is the first time I've seen this site, my impression is that it's ethically okay and not a hoax. That said, it also seems quite unnecessary to me, and I would not bother to use it.

What will it yield scientists in the long run?

--  I would estimate:

With about 2% probability, the website will catch on and become popular. Probably this would be at the insistence of university administrators, who are often looking for new ways to measure and evaluate the performance of faculty.
The website will yield another hoop for researchers to jump through, and possibly (as the website claims) to increased recognition of researchers who do an unusually good job of peer review.

With about 98% probability, the website will largely be ignored, and the net effect on the scientific community will be nil.

In general, I would advocate ignoring advice originating from commercial publishers; personally, I would only consider using this site  if I were urged to do so by scientists in my field or by administrators at my university.


How thoroughly do referees review papers submitted to theoretical computer science conferences?

It varies.  As a first year PhD student I was asked to review a theory paper, even though I had almost no background in the field.  The professor explicitly said I only had to read the first half of the paper, and I only had to tell him if it looked interesting and correct.

At the same time I'm sure many reviewers do a diligent job and don't outsource their reviewing to inexperienced graduate students.

Related: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1760


How does someone with C's and F's in graduate-level courses and A's and B's in undergraduate courses get admitted to a PhD program?

In the graduate level courses, was the grading scale the same for undergraduate and graduate students? This varies from school to school, department to department, even course to course. Were you taking these classes without all of the prerequisites? You should consider all extenuating circumstances and tell your letter writers so they can help better explain away your grades and focus on how amazing your research is. Give your letter writers bullet points (suggested for them to edit/ignore as they see fit) to include in their recommendation letters. Faculty don't enjoy nor want to spend that much time on letter writing so make it easy. In your email to a faculty member you might write something like this

Hi Professor X,

Here is a reminder of things you might want to address in my letter of recommendation for __  (of course only if you agree with them)

Evidence of enthusiasm and ambition

-I took many graduate courses out of genuine interest for the subject despite not having taken many of the prerequisite courses. Even though I received the poor/mediocre grades in some of these courses, I was able to successfully translate some of the advanced knowledge and skills learned when I ... during my research project ...

-Some other way you can spin these poor grades into something positive

Thanks for agreeing to write this letter, I hope the above bullets make things easier for you; I know you are busy and have to write many of these letters.

Thanks again,

-Student

The point is you want your letter writers to spin the poor grades into something positive that fits with a cohesive story about you. You personally addressing the grades may sound a bit like excuses. A professor addressing the grades won't. It should be noted that some schools do have strict unspoken GPA cutoffs, but many really good schools do not.


If a person stops contributing to a project do they deserve authorship?

That's always an awkward situation. The bar to "deserve" authorship is generally considered to be pretty low: If you intellectually contributed to the project, you should be a co-author. At the same time, people generally have the expectations that all co-authors continue to contribute to the paper in some form or other till the end, for example through the writing and proof-reading process.
So if someone helped develop an algorithm or worked on produce the data for the paper, they probably should be a co-author. But it is not unheard of to write an email to them and say

As an author, there is also an expectation that you continue to work with us on writing the paper; I recognize that you have moved on in your career, and if you feel like you don't want to be on the paper because you don't have the time to work on it, that's ok with us as well."

That's an awkward email to write, but sometimes it's necessary to either get a person to contribute more, or remove themselves from the paper.


First, adjuncts get paid almost nothing unless they have exceptional skills in some narrow field.  Skills far beyond those of the typical recent PhD graduate. Those who try to live on adjunct pay have an impossible schedule and are unlikely to have health, etc., benefits.
However, some people I know, have made a success at it because the money means little to them and they already have a very secure research position in industry. They teach a course per term "just for fun", rather than for any significant boost in income.
That can be a viable lifestyle, but you have to love your day-job for it to make sense, and it needs to give you the freedom to spend several hours a week on your hobby - teaching. The latter isn't a problem for many unless they are in some pressure cooker environment.
These folks don't interact heavily with other faculty, however, since their work day doesn't give the freedom for that - not face to face anyway. They publish, but more as a result of their full time research position than their adjunct position. They are probably limited to undergraduate teaching, which can be challenging, and are unlikely to have supervision over theses, and such, though it may be possible in a few rare cases.
Find a stable position of some sort and then ask around for teaching opportunities. But, I suggest, that you draw your main income and also satisfaction from that day job.


When submitting a paper, should I match the keywords to MeSH terms?

Keywords were supposed to be, considerably, fixed based on Medical System Headings (MeSH), when the aforementioned web-based searching systems were not still at the service.

Nowadays, the researchers often try to take scrutinized search into account to acquire their target papers and resources, as close as possible to their contextual subject. If you are doing a specific regime of research, do consider the to-the-aim keywords, specialized for your work. Because they will be traced by the search engines, efficiently.


How open should I be with my PhD supervisor about the problems in my personal life?

I think your vagueness is entirely appropriate and urge you to continue it. As long as your supervisor knows that there are difficulties that cause you to miss deadlines occasionally and as long as you feel she is supportive, there is no reason to say more. It would be a burden for her to know some of these things and yet, she isn't in a position to help you, other than to be understanding and supportive of your studies.

But you should seek some sort of professional help elsewhere, perhaps at the university if it has a counseling office open to you for this, perhaps elsewhere.

Also, sharing too much of the problem can start to sound whiney and like you are making excuses for things.

Keep it light. Keep your relationship to your supervisor professional. Seek personal counseling elsewhere. And good luck.


What to do when other professors place unfair demands on my students?

Finally, I could seek to enforce the policy on the other professor, but as mentioned, it's not clear how one does that, especially if the other professor is in a different department. (And since it's often relatively senior professors doing this sort of thing, at that point I worry about negative repercussions.)

I see no alternative to "enforcing the policy on the other professor".  Seniority does not confer the right to violate university policy.  In my opinion you should not let hypothetical concerns about your career or your tenure case stop you from standing up for your students in a situation in which policy is clearly on your side: assistant professors are university faculty, not captives who hope to be rewarded in the future for their docile behavior.

The way to bring it up is to communicate with the other professor as soon as possible.  I would recommend speaking in person or over the phone, as email renders trivial a large variety of passive-aggressive behavior: e.g., they might not respond at all, leaving you to wonder how long to wait.  If you talk to someone face-to-face they have to either be reasonable or display their unreasonableness directly to you.  How do you look another faculty member in the face and say "I'm sorry that students will be missing your midterm, but it is critical that my midterm last double its scheduled length"?  You should come to the meeting knowing the relevant policy cold.  You should bring printed copies of the policy, but only take them out if things are not going your way.

You should continue talking to this person until you have conveyed that their proposal is against the policy, is specifically detrimental to your course, and that students are being caught in the middle.  If they agree to that or at least acknowledge receipt of the information and still are intransigent, then you should end the conversation, calmly, by saying that you will have to take the situation up with the administration.

I would then bring the matter to your department head and see what is suggested.  If the faculty member is in a different department then it may be in order for the two department heads to have a discussion.  If the department head does not take ownership of the issue you should ask whether he [I happen to know that the head of the OP's department is a "he"] wants you to take up the issue with the higher administration.  If not, then as an assistant professor this may be the place to drop it, but again you should communicate clearly that policy is being violated and students are suffering.  Or you could take it up with the higher administration: I might have done that as an assistant professor.  (As a tenured associate professor I would probably do it now, and would not worry about it jeopardizing my future promotion or dealings in the department.  On the other hand, the egregious behavior you described would probably not even be attempted at my large public university.)  Tenure and promotion is not a docility contest, and "He reported a rule violation" is not a point against someone's case.  I think honestly the issue is mostly one of your own peace of mind, so act accordingly.

You certainly have my sympathies: it sounds like the other professor is being both selfish and unreasonable.  It's hard to deal with unreasonable people -- you just can't reason with them! -- and if a situation arises in which it is primarily a battle of wills, then the unreasonable person tends to take the outside track.  The fact that you care about the students and the other guy apparently really does not could indeed make you blink first.  You may for instance end up having to give a makeup exam to some of the students.  If so you should clearly document every time you do that and have the individual students vouch for you as well.


There is no general definition for scientific journal. The Wikipedia definition is as vague as reality is. This is because there is no clear definition of scientific. It is a case-by-case distinction - not only for journals, but also for individual articles in a journal or one method described in an article. Additionally, scientific and predatory are not mutually exclusive.

Your instruction to your students to only use scientific literature is the key to the answer to your question: What is scientific and what is not depends on the concrete content of an article or the applied method. To distinguish between these two is the first step towards scientific thinking.

An answer on a list of predatory publishers can be found in this question here.


Studying a second undergraduate degree part-time while doing a PhD?

If it does not interfere with your graduate studies, then no one could possibly object. People should have hobbies outside their PhDs, and if you a Physics student has an interest in Classic Philosophy, then so be it.
But you need to be sure it won't interfere. There is a world of difference between taking the odd evening class in something and enrolling in a degree, even part time. Think about how much time you have: Our full-time undergraduate degrees are designed to require 37 hours a week of study. Even doing such a degree over 5 years, rather than 3, you would still be talking about 23 hours a week. Are you going to manage to be working at peak performance if you are doing this on top of 40-50 hours a week of graduate study?


Getting sealed transcripts from a German university

Have you tried contacting the International Office at the university? They probably have to deal with this sort of thing fairly frequently for visiting or international students, and may be able to help you sort through the bureaucracy. (They should at least be able to tell you who exactly you need to call to get the transcript issued!)