Is there an overview of alternative approaches to voluntary and ideal review process?

You can refer to the following article: "Why do peer reviewers decline to review? A survey" to begin with.

The following extract from the results abstract is quite interesting:

  Most respondents agreed that financial incentives would not be effective when time constraints are prohibitive (mean 3.59 (SD 1.01)). However, reviewers agreed that non-financial incentives might encourage reviewers to accept requests to review: free subscription to journal content (mean 3.72 (SD 1.04)), annual acknowledgement on the journal’s website (mean 3.64 (SD 0.90)), more feedback about the outcome of the submission (mean 3.62 (SD 0.88)) and quality of the review (mean 3.60 (SD 0.89), and appointment of reviewers to the journal’s editorial board (mean 3.57 (SD 0.99)).

So basically, this study confirms what your colleague mentioned about financial incentives not being the best approach to incentivise reviewers (maybe though for different reasons that you might have expected).

However, keep in mind that people in academia are not motivated only by money (as in that case they wouldn't be in academia in the first place). There are other means to motivate people that are keen to review papers, such as acknowledgements or free subscription to the journal they review, as the article states.


I think my professor misunderstood something I said and may have taken offense; what should I do?

I think the best course of action is to explain what happened and apologize to the instructor. After that it is up to her if she is willing to accept your explanation and apology. Natural you should avoid repeating this attempt at joking in a classroom setting and save it for more informal environments.


Does assigning DOI numbers signal anything about the authenticity of a journal? Why do some journals not assign them?

DOI, by itself, certainly does not add "authenticity".

The Digital Object Identifier is, by design, meant to be a method of producing and providing a persistent actionable identifier to entities. To put it in plain English: the DOI is an effort to prevent link rot, and importantly, does so by not only providing a registry of the numbered items, but also providing a mechanism for accessing/retrieving those items. The Wikipedia Article on DOI also explains pretty well what it is for. Notice that DOIs can be had for many more than just journal articles. In science, a growing practice is to use DOI referring to datasets.

As to why a publisher may decide not to participate in the DOI scheme: for starters, it does cost money. This may have contributed to the correlation that sham publishers typically do not make use of the DOI service.


Is it a standard practice of tenure and promotion committee to ask for review reports of some published papers of the one evaluated?

My university (a private R1) does ask for referee/reader reports in the case of newly published material in tenure and promotion cases. This is done when the scholar has  recently published material that has not been cited elsewhere (thus, no bibliometric citation data) and the committee wants to ascertain the contribution to the field of study that the text may make.

Assuming your publication was accepted, you should view this as a good thing. Referee reports in those circumstances are positive, highlighting the contribution you are making to the field (otherwise, why would the journal publish it?). Folks on tenure and promotion committees also know to read through the negative cruft on reader's reports, so don't worry about that issue either.

p.s. I should note that at my university (as well as others), there is pushback against the use of pure bibliometric data (impact factors) as a way to ascertain a scholar's prominence in the field, but that is another question.


In general, no (and how did you get access to your school's plagiarism checker)

If the papers are related they should share sources.  From a published peer-reviewed standpoint, I'd bet several papers reuse half their sources.

This sounds like a paper for a grade though.  In which case you actually have a 3rd option.  Talk to the professor or TA.  Bring the first paper and this paper with you and let them make a decision.  Assuming you didn't plagiarize, they'll see the content is different.

Remember, part of taking a university course is to learn how to write papers with novel ideas.  The professor and TAs are there to help you learn how to present your ideas without plagiarizing sources.  Especially coming before the paper is due shows a good-faith effort.


Pros and cons of living in the same building as faculty members, during one's PhD

Here is a con.
You might not be as nice or as friendly as you might think. Your presence might be appreciated on occasion, and in smaller doses, but not in large and inescapable doses like being a neighbour.
Maybe you are nice, but maybe you're not. We have no way of knowing. But it's easy to dislike one's neighbors. And if you're looking at this as a networking tool, that means that you're going to look for opportunities to interact more with the faculty. And if at some point you step over a line, or annoy someone in the wrong way (could also be the spouse  or the friends of these faculty members), then you become a nuisance. And you might not even be aware that they can hear your TV or your computer playing, and they might not even tell you that, just like I never told my previous neighbors how we heard them fight every night at 1am. Or god forbid, you forgot to mute your recent adult entertainment and their 6 years old child heard it through the paper-thin walls.
It can be perfectly fine if you only interact with these people at work related events, they don't have to bring their spouses and friends there. But you're now encroaching on their private living space. There's no escape from that.


This is one of the things pre-print services can address quite readily, even for fields that don't normally use preprints. Putting both papers on arXiv (or another field-equivelent) allows them to exist in a citable form, and as one or both of them make it through the publication cycle, the linking citation can be updated to reflect this. FigShare will also let you upload documents and provide you with a DOI, though I've never actually seen this done in practice, and it's likely arXiv or an equivalent is more appropriate for a full-sized manuscript.

If you're in a field that has conference presentations and the like that aren't equivalent to publication (for example, much of biomedicine) you may also be able to cite a poster or presentation given at a conference.


I won't comment on whether management courses are useless. But the way you approached them certainly made them so. Learning by rote the day before the exam and forgetting everything afterwards is a complete waste of time, unless your one and only goal is to get a degree at the end. If that's your only objective, then any course you take at the university is useless, really. If your objectives include learning, though, then you did a pretty poor job at it, and that's mostly on you. Yes, a bad course does not help. But there are plenty of things you could have done to make use of the lost time. Interact with students, ask the professor for more reading material, look for it yourself...


Should I mention collaborators in the job talk abstract?

I think it's good form to mention your collaborators in the abstract if you're talking about joint work.  It's not as completely mandatory as mentioning them in the talk itself, but it's still good form.  Mentioning their affiliations, on the other hand, seems pretty weird to me and is not usual at all.

You're not going to be able to hide what paper your job talk is about, somewhere that's thinking of hiring you is going to know your paper list!  It is a bit of a red flag to me that you're thinking you can mislead people hiring you about when your research happened and who it was done with.

(It's perhaps worth noting that sometimes job talks, especially in the last few minutes, touch somewhat on how the work you're focusing on connects to the rest of your research program.  It's not necessary to restrict yourself to a single paper.)


This is harder to answer because you seem to want to change fields. Otherwise, and if you are near to a research university, you could just ask to be allowed to attend research seminars in the field you already know. You would probably be welcome and could give some help to various students with their own research.

However, to change fields, there are things you need to know to get to the research frontier in the new field. I assume you know this, of course. The ideal way, assuming that money is no issue, would be to apply for another degree in the new field. If it is close enough to your current interests it would probably be expedited to some extent.

But the way to get good advice is to visit some place that you might be interested in and talk to researchers there. I'm guessing that this would be easier with a university than elsewhere. Even better if you already have some research ideas. But note that the request is a bit unusual and many places don't have the time or inclinations to do things that don't fit a given mold.

Top research universities differ quite a lot in what is possible. Some might be extremely rigid about rules and requirements and others might be extremely flexible. So you may need to look around a bit.

There is one additional issue, however, that might get in your way. If anyone starts to think that by working for "free" you are displacing someone else who might be early in their career, you won't be terrifically welcome. You will need to finesse that.


Is it acceptable to include footnotes in mathematical proofs?

Like almost anything else in writing, style should follow function. In other words, if you think that a footnote makes it easier for your reader to follow a text (for example, because it explains an aside that is too long for a parenthetical remark), then it is appropriate to use one. There is no general guideline whether footnotes are acceptable or not. It all depends on what you want to say and how you want to say it -- choose whatever means you think are appropriate to tell the story of the proof.


Statement of purpose: how to give motivations for applying to a certain graduate school without stating the obvious or gratuitous flattery?

This could be a good opportunity to mention particular faculty there you might want to work with, if there are any such. (But don't go overboard, or say anything that's not true.) In any case, in my experience, these sections generally don't affect decisions -- with the one big exception that if you say you want to come to study geometry, and the committee knows that all 3 geometers in the department are retiring, they might not admit you for your own sake. (Another reason not to say anything that's not true!)


Can I justify my PhD if I have mostly adapted existing code instead of writing it myself?

You weren’t earning a PhD in FORTRAN Coding (gasp – I shudder to think of it). You were working in continuum mechanics. That is where your contribution was, and is.
If I read it correctly, you took an existing tool and adapted it for a new purpose. I can’t find anything wrong with that, especially as you cited the creators of the original version. If you keep it up and continue to make contributions to continuum mechanics you will do fine. You didn’t screw up. You did what any sensible person should do. FORTRAN was my first computing language. I doubt that I would even recognize it anymore.
Relax, have a culturally appropriate beverage and celebrate your success.


(How) Do journals keep kook papers from clogging up the review system?


USA - Undergraduate Final Transcripts and PhD Programs

There are no "laws" that describe what schools can do in such situations. Everything depends on how strictly the department obeys whatever regulations are in place. Some may say it only counts when the decision is made, and others will insist on it being valid at the time of degree completion. Many schools do not have strict GPA cutoffs for admission, in which case the issue is moot.

In general, though, I don't think I've heard of a school withdrawing an offer because of a small change in GPA. Usually it's when someone contracts "terminal senioritis" and has their GPA fall drastically after the admission offer is made.


Is it true, that there are/can be associate professors, full professors and University provosts without doctorate in the Western Continental Europe?

It's pretty rare, but it looks like the University of Cambridge recently appointed someone without a doctorate to the Rouse Ball Professorship of English Law, and I've seen advertisements for associate-professor level vacancies in Engineering (in the UK) that call for either a Ph.D. or Chartered Engineer status, but not necessarily both.
The "Order of seniority of graduates" of the University of Cambridge (which primarily decides who's at the front and who's at the back in ceremonial processions) contains a special category for Professors who are not Doctors, which kind of implies that such people must exist.
ETA: I see the question has now been edited in such a way that this is no longer an answer to it.


Have made several mistakes during the course of my PhD. Can't help but feel resentment. Can I get some advice about how to move forward?

These "mistakes" are perfectly normal learning experiences for a PhD student.  Feeling resent and self-loathing are not normal.  I suggest you discuss that with a professional counselor.

It's not your job to tell your supervisor to work faster.


Long distance collaboration with a professor – wrote manuscript, getting ignored. What to do next?

Since email isn't working, I see two alternatives. The simple one is to contact the person who originally got you involved to see if they know what the problem might be. Presumably this person knows both of you and may know the other person better than you do.

The only other solution with a positive outcome is to contact the other party in person. Your question is "How shall we proceed?" not "What is the problem here?". There might be any number of things in the way, but you have no way to  know with a passive approach.

It's not impossible that you are being used and therefore ignored. But you shouldn't conclude that without more information.


I'm writing a book and refer to quick references to spark creativity but also learn other words to improve my vocabulary. Is this plagiarism?

Simply put, plagiarism is copying someone else's work and trying to pass it off as your own. If you only pull isolated words, you aren't copying anyone's work, because the "work" is deciding to use that word in a given context, and your context isn't the same.


What must one do if the time at which a conference talk was to be presented is assigned to someone else?

I do not think this usual. How big is the conference? If it is small, it is possible that the organizers made a mistake without realizing it. Inquiring over the email was absolutely the right thing to do. I would follow up a week from your original inquiry if you don't hear back from them sooner.


When you "invite" co-authors is when the project is still in the formation phase - as early as possible. Authors are people who contributed to the project, not people whose names might power a paper past reviewers. And the reasons for their invitation should be substantial and scientifically valid reasons.

One thing to note is that after the project starts is potentially a bad time, as presumably you don't necessarily have the budget to pay them, the potential for them to be genuinely engaged in a question they're interested in is a bit of luck, and you've lost out on the chance for their expertise to to actually influence the formation of the project (where it's probably most helpful).

It's absolutely not appropriate to invite them at the paper stage.

For reviews or commentaries, it might be acceptable to do this before the paper begins to be written, but for other papers, co-authors should not simply be added to a project at the writing stage. Indeed, doing so violates a large number of authorship guidelines.

I'd also like to contest one of your cons: "More authors means less credit for the work per author." This is highly field dependent. In my own, noone cares, or tries to divide credit by number of authors.


How to address the recruiting committee in a cover letter in case the recepient is not an individual to the best of your knowledge?

Use an inside address and a subject line, then dive into your letter.  You can skip the salutation in letters to committees.

  Recruiting Committee University of Whatever City, State
  Zip

  Request for appointment

  I would like to be considered for a full-time appointment as ...


How to deal with different stylistic advice from two professors/institutions

The first thing you need to do is determine if there is an underlying issue with your writing that A and B are trying to get at. If there is, fix that problem and the style issues may be ignored. If it truly is a style thing, you need to talk to them and explain the issue. If one supervisor demands that you never use the passive voice and instead write in the 1st/3rd person and the other supervisor demands that you never use 1st/3rd person and prefers everything in the passive voice, then somebody is going to have to give.

Once you determine it is purely stylistic, you need to decide which style you want to write in. This should probably be influenced by the recommended style of whatever journal/publisher you are targeting and/or any archaic rules your department has about theses. Then approach whoever you are agreeing with, get them on your side and finally explain to the other person the approach you are going to take. They might have a good counter argument or they might give up.


Should I separate research into professional and "citizen science" or amateur?

Your broader question seems to be whether you are "truly" a professional researcher given that you are paid to do research but consider your research skills to be far below some of your peers. I suspect this is entirely opinion-based: there is no hard-and-fast definition for the term "professional researcher."

The specific question seems to be whether you should identify yourself as academia, corporate/government/NGO, or citizen science. Given that you are requesting access to this website as part of your official corporate portfolio, I would say that corporate/government/NGO seems like the best choice.


Express interest to join mentor's group with whom a fellowship application got rejected

Go for option 1. How you contact him depends a lot on your relationship.
Generally, keep it simple. Inform him that your application was not successful and try to get to the next step, another application, or asking for other options.
This could be an option, but as said, the formulation depends a lot on your relationship and the PI's personality.

Hi [prof],
unfortunately, our application for xxx funding got rejected. I am still very interested in joining your group and working with you on xxx. Should we try to apply for grant xyz? Do you have any other suggestions?
Yours,
nxkryptor


My advisor rejects my idea, but claims that the modified version is hers. What should I do?

I suspect the advisor is relative young and probably not fully even aware of the problem. Her perception of events may be completely different. She may feel that she contributed the essential part of the idea to make it valuable. She may not even remember that the idea came from you originally. But that does not mean that she shouldn't be corrected and give credit to you.

This can probably be solved by communicating with her, or by communicating with someone more senior, who could have a talk with her. Are there any annual progress meetings where this could be done?

Not dealing with the problem will only exacerbate it.


What does a systematic review entail? In what way is it "tedious"?

Tedious has a negative connotation. In many ways systematic review is meticulous, which to some people may appear tedious. One who enjoys reading, inspecting clues, and putting puzzles together to reveal hidden patterns would enjoy doing a systematic review.

The first hurdle is perhaps setting up the research question and search criteria. If the set of keywords is not close to perfect the resultant articles may not be exhaustive, and being exhaustive is a spirit of systematic review. In addition, all searches need to be documented through writing or using codes, so that the search can be replicated by other people.

The second hurdle is combing through moderate to large amounts of abstracts in order to identify the right targets. A set of carefully developed selection criteria will help. But a good handful of the retrieved abstracts may still fall into the gray zone and require some meetings to sort them out

Then it comes the actual reading and data extraction. This can take months and months of reading, re-reading, tabulation, and revision. Again, if the authors know what to extract very clearly, the process can get less iterative.

Notice that for the previous two hurdles, some research team may require two or more researchers to do them independently and then compare their results for agreement before divvying up the work. Be prepared for frequent team meetings or communications for troubleshooting.

The last hurdle is to put all the tabulated information into use, through grouping, sorting, summary, and synthesis. This requires a great deal of understanding from the reading process and one's experience. The process can often be iterative. Making a good conceptual framework will help setting up a more robust draft. Keeping the research questions in mind as the north pointer can also prevent getting lost.

And, all of the actions above need to be documented so that anyone can pick up the review and conduct a similar search (say, maybe 5 or 10 years later) in order to compare with what you found. In a way, systematic review can be viewed as an exhaustive, planned, and replicable literature review.

Now back to your case. If it's 10 hours a week for a semester, chance is you will not see the fruition of the article, but you can definitely take part. The important part is to get a very clear idea which part of the process you're taking. Article searching and downloading may work for more flexible schedule, even 10 hours on a day per week is fine as long as you keep good searching notes. But if it's the later stage, it's better to work on it by small amount, like 2 hours every day, as the later stage requires more consistent immersion and regurgitating.

And if I may make another suggestion, ask if the supervisor needs anyone to do a more general literature review for a grant proposal or a journal article. That should give you a smaller, more defined task and you can use this chance to see if you like this kind of work and, more importantly, if you and your supervisor work well together.


How to politely say in a paper that most of the published research on a topic is by the same person?

First off the fact that one group is dominating will be implicitly understood if you provide a paragraph or two summarizing their work and cite their publications. In such a paragraph you could add words like "ground-breaking" or phrases that describe the dominance of the group on the field.

You could for example start the paragraph by saying:

  "The work concerning risk assessment of [...] has largely been carried out by [the research group] (example citations)."

(I hope you see the main idea of my attempt) Then you follow up on what they have done and cite their work.

It is just important to keep the tone as neutral as possible and let the citeable work speak for itself. Spending one or more paragraphs describing the work should be enough to make everyone understand the message.


Reviewer asking to include an analysis that has been submitted as another paper

One solution would be to hold off a little until you have the second paper written. You could then submit Part II (or the relevant parts thereof) as confidential supporting information to the journal when you submit what you call Part I. This would satisfy any potential reviewer concerns, while you can submit both papers simultaneously and preserve any first-to-publish claims (no scooping if Part II is already submitted elsewhere!).


Is it possible for a high school student with no academic qualifications to publish a research paper?

You should definitely write it up. There are plenty of good reasons for doing so and no downside. Writing a paper is a good exercise for future paper and report writing, and while you are doing it you are likely to think of new ideas about your research. You will also have to search for similar work that might be suitable for references and you may find something useful there too.

You should also put the paper online somewhere so that it is preserved and available to others who may find it useful. If there is data and/or code that goes with the paper you can use figshare for example. It does not matter if there is not much response to your work, that is common when authors have no background and does not mean it is not good. Someone may pick up on it later when you don't expect it.

You might also want to try to publish in a peer-review journal if you think it is sufficiently original and useful. That might require you to write it up in a specific format such at LaTeX. Again that is all good experience. You will have a much better chance of acceptance in a journal if you can use your university affiliation but you will have to make it clear that you are an undergraduate there to avoid problems and it might be best to check with your tutor. If you search around you may find a suitable journal that is specifically set up to accept work from undergraduates. If you can get it accepted it would look good on your CV whatever you plan to do in the future.

The only circumstance that would make it unwise to publish your work would be if the algorithm is original and of high commercial value and/or patentable in which case you would have to follow a different route to protect your intellectual property. However that is a rare situation.


How much of a maths background is necessary for a PhD in Software Engineering?

It is a bit hard to say, because whilst you say you don't "know" math, you must know - some - from your Sofware Engineering undergrad and Comp. Sci. pre-university education. My background is AI, a very wide field that can involve all kinds of mathematical formalisms - from Tarskian Semantics to Calculus and most researchers aren't an expert in all of the areas AI makes use of, some are completely unknown to some researchers (in my experience). So your question, "do I need to know maths", depends on what you want to do - you don't need to know ALL of our current mathematics (no-one knows that anymore in any case).

So my first suggestion is to read some Software Engineering papers and see how much mathematics they use and what kind. If you want to do quantitative research you will need to know statistics. If you want to develop formalisms to support Software Engineers you will need to know some logic and basic ways to prove theorems, and so on.

My second suggestion is to think carefully about the Masters you do in order to encompass the areas you want to learn about. But, it is perfectly possible to learn much of this on your own - at first it'll seem difficult, of course.

To try and give you some encouragement, maths is often Greek to people, because of all the Greek letters, but in my view it is also possible to pick up the necessary parts. I taught (during my PhD) students coming from a wide range of backgrounds some elementary formal logic and Artificial Intelligence techniques, most of them picked it up fine and I think from there they would have been able to pursue a PhD in AI - I have also met people coming from non AI, Comp. Sci. or similar backgrounds that have pursued a PhD in AI.


While of recent vintage, HSE seems to be very reputable. "Online publication" means that the paper appears on a web site, rather than in print. Whether the site will be maintained in perpetuity or not is a possible issue, but probably not a problem in this case. Online Publication might also mean not yet in print rather than never in print.
But yes, you can include such a thing in a CV and from a reputable publisher, such as HSE, it will be taken seriously.
A "preprint" might be something published by its authors, rather than by a publisher, though some publishers also provide preprints. But having the mark of a publisher, and perhaps its reviewers, makes the validity of the publication clearer.

At the suggestion of Paul Garrett, let me add. Normal publication (both print and online) involves the review of the paper by a few experienced professionals in the field. They normally make suggestions for improvement for the paper and it is only after some revision, small or large, that the editor/journal will "publish" the paper.
"Preprints" are normally done either without or prior to this review. If the author "publishes" the paper, then likely there was no review. The intent of preprints from reputable publishers is to give early access to ideas while the review process proceeds.
When done by authors, as is typical in math, while there is no "imprimatur" of a publisher and its reviewers, the nature of the subject tends to make it a bit risky for an author to put up junk as a preprint. This might be different in other fields that have different standards of truth and value.
But it is the review itself, along with the reputation of the publisher that gives "lasting value" to a publication. I'm assuming here that HSE uses a typical review process prior to "online publication". If not, then it would be full of "junk economics" lowering their own reputation.


Paper by different authors published same method as a previous paper

I would contact the authors first, pointing them to your paper and simply asking if they are familiar with it, and indicating – with no judging/accusing comments! – that their approach is similar to your published work. Then two things might happen:

They will contact the editor and he will handle it; either they will have bad luck and his decision will be to reject the paper, or simply there will be a "note added in proof". In the latter case, you'll gain a citation, too.
They will neglect your e-mail, either not answering at all, or giving some vague excuses that you might feel don't lead anywhere. In such cases, write directly to the editor of the journal, pointing him to your article and emphasizing the similarities between the two and that yours was published long before their submission (and maybe noting also that your two groups haven't collaborated).

An option might be to also write a short comment (I guess 1 page will be enough) to be posted on arXiv, just so that the community knows. But first contact the authors, then the editor (if necessary) – in the end it's his decision what to do with the submitted paper. I think there's only a slight chance that in the end you won't be satisfied with how the thing was handled – at least you will know to think twice before submitting to this journal again, and the community will be warned by your comment on arXiv. But don't jump too far ahead, first see how the situation will be dealt with.


What is the best time to apply for a PhD in physics?

For a physics PhD in the USA, experience after a four year bachelor's degree is not expected.  However, if you have a three year bachelor's degree or your degree comes from a country with many applicants like China or India, a master's degree may be very helpful.  You should make an application plan no later than the August 1 before you graduate.  This allows time to prepare for the September Physics GRE.  Applying the year following graduation should be a backup plan.


You don't have to do the job of the editor and list every possible collaborator with whom you'd have a conflict of interest. If these people are asked to do the review, they should be the one to warn the editor. You can list people that you think wouldn't be obvious, but again you are under no obligation to do this.

As the first question you link to alludes, excluding reviewers is mostly because you think they'd be unfairly biased against your work.


For an industry-sponsored project, should one apply for IRB approval before or after accepting the funding?

First note that it's a question of institutional policy whether human subjects research that is not federally funded requires IRB review.  The common rule requires that federally sponsored research receive IRB approval but does not require institutions to do IRB review for research not funded by the government.  However, many universities require that all research involving human subjects receive IRB approval whether or not it is funded by the federal government.

Assuming that IRB review is required, it is critical that you not begin the actual research until after IRB approval has been obtained- starting without approval is a big no no.

Normally, IRB approval must be obtained before your institution enters into a contract with the funder or the grant is awarded.  For example, at our institution, the restricted funds accounting office won't do the paperwork for a research contract involving human subjects research until the IRB approval has been granted.  We are also not allowed to submit a proposal to a funding agency without (edited to clarify this) submitting the proposal to the IRB for approval.   There's a good chance that your institution has a similar policy.

Even if your institution doesn't have a specific policy about this, you should not try to get your institution to enter into a contract before the IRB approval is granted.  If for whatever reason the IRB approval is denied, then you would have gotten your institution into a contract that it can't fulfill.

If I was asked to take on a research contract involving human subjects and wanted to accept the funding, I would tell the funder, "Yes, I would like to accept this funding.  However, I will have to get IRB approval (as well as other approvals) before the institution will enter into a formal contract."


Course gamification: rewards that aren't bonus marks?

One idea is to include some problems/tasks in the final exam related to those competencies. This might not be possible.

A student who achieved the highest level in that competency automatically gets full grade on that question, and doesn't have to solve it (thus getting extra time for the rest of the exam).

For levels 1 and 2 you can award free part marks, and the student gets either the free marks or his grade on the problem (whichever which is larger).

Added

Depending on how long/short it needs to be, something like below might work (or could be terrible):

Exam:

Part A (short questions testing the competency parts)

Question 1 (competency A): bla bla bla

Question 2 (competency B): bla bla bla

Question 3 (competency C): bla bla bla

Question 4 (competency D): bla bla bla

Part B Actual exam, Questions 5- ...


As someone who has given a fair number of talks and has now had the "pleasure" of giving an online talk, I can say that the advantages of in-person talks include the following.

You can have informal chats with people from the audience. One of the main problems of online chatrooms is that there usually can be only one discussion at the same time. This precludes informal chats like this because no one wants to monopolize the only communication channel. Also there is a whole paraphernalia around talks, you go to lunch with interested people or whatever and can have more talks. If you're really treating them as job talks, then you want to talk about stuff other than research with people. Departments don't want to hire people who cannot integrate well; being someone that is pleasant to be around is a big plus, and you can't prove that if you just come, give your talk, and leave.
(In the same vein, giving a talk in person is the opportunity to visit the university/department and see if you'd enjoy working there.)
If it's a conference (i.e. >1 people come to talk) then you can meet the other presenters. It may be a nice way to meet people who have the same research interests as you. Also sometimes a good way to arrange meetings with existing collaborators who work far away.
You can meet people who don't come to your talk. Sometimes people are busy and aren't free at the precise time of your talk, but you can run across them in some corridor or something and talk with them. And somehow the busiest people are the ones you often want to meet, for obvious reasons. Maybe the department's big shot has ten meetings that day, but you can still catch her for ten minutes and leave a good impression.
Usually around the talk I would have long conversations with some people (usually the one who invites me) about our respective current research. Sometimes this can even lead to collaborations. It's hard to do online because this sort of discussion is "open ended" in some sense: you just talk about whatever goes through your head at that moment. I don't think anyone would consciously schedule an online conversation to do this, but it's extremely valuable.
People are apparently afraid to ask questions during talks. During a normal talk I usually have lots of questions during and after; at my online talk and the ones I've witnessed, much fewer questions are asked.
Giving an online talk is just awkward. Not many people enable their webcam, and nobody other than the presenter has their mic on. It's very difficult to know if your audience is reacting positively or negatively to what you're saying. It's very destabilizing.
There are also technical things. Having pre-prepared slides is good, but there is always some moment where you want to write something more on the board that you hadn't thought of, or some picture, or some motion you want to show off using your hands. It's difficult with an online talk.
Lastly, and some people may not want to openly admit this because it's a bit selfish, but if you enjoy traveling and visiting new cities, being invited to do it is always nice.

Of course a lot of this is a bit on you. I was once an insecure PhD student, and I tended to just stay hidden in my hotel room the night before, in the guest office if they had one the day of the talk, give my talk, not dare talk to anyone, and leave. Don't do that. Take advantage of the fact that you're there in person.

I would say that the only advantage of online talks is the ease of planning. As someone who also organizes a weekly research seminar, inviting someone is now as simple as shooting them an email. The other person just has to think about whether they want to give a talk that day or not. No travel to think about, no hotel no expense reimbursements, no administrative hurdles, no nothing.


How should I refer to myself (single author) when addressing reviewers comments?

It's up to you and it doesn't matter much. Even if the process is double blind, it does no harm for the reviewers to know there is a single author or, conversely, to think there are multiple authors if you use "we". However if you don't consider yourself a "we", use the singular I. Exclusion of "I" in academic writing is absurd in all circumstances and while this isn't a place for that particular trench war, the comments letter is directly from you to them and "I" is appropriate in such cases.


My internship mentor would not write a recommendation for me, should I include the internship in my statement of purpose?

It is actually quite common that internships are not the source of reference letters to graduate school. The ideal letter writer knows about you and your work in an academic research setting, with longer periods of time being better - and also ideally has worked with lots of other students, and thus can meaningfully compare you to the "typical" student.

Internships relatively rarely will meet all of these guidelines, and students are generally advised to stick with professors or other similar professional researchers - so to not see a letter from your internship mentor would not be at all unusual. It would perhaps only catch someone's attention if the mentor would otherwise have been an ideal candidate for a letter (a prominent professional researcher in the field and former professor, for instance) - but even then, if your letters are otherwise good from well-chosen people I can't imagine this really being a problem.

My main concern is how you speak of the position. If you or your letter writers mention it - or if only your letter writer mentions it and you didn't include it in any of your materials - that could cause an issue, as it would look a bit odd. If your PhD admission process includes pre-admission interviews at all, I could see that being something you are asked about. If you are asked, how will you respond? Saying your mentor refused to write a letter for you and that it was a position you didn't really want in the first place would raise a number of red flags.

It's something you did that's relevant and took up a significant block of your time, so list it honestly and focus on the positive - the opportunity, whaty ou did, what you learned, the experience you gained. If you feel like you have something to hide - or you are actually trying to hide something - that's extremely likely to come out in other ways and negatively effect how you approach the application process as a whole.


A third bachelors won't get you very far. Get yourself into a doctoral program, especially if you are interested in research and not just knowing lots of stuff at a relatively lower level.
I don't think a dozen BS/BA degrees will get you an academic job (post secondary) in very many places.
You can learn what you need as you go along, but don't procrastinate.


There are two systems: list the references in alphabetical order, or list the references in the order they are cited in the text. In my experience, which of these two systems is used depends on the academic field you're in.

Before computers made searchable pdf files common, the first system was really useful when looking for a specific author or reference in the bibliography, and the second was really useful when looking for where a reference was cited in the text.

With current technology, I don't think it really matters which system you use, although you should pick one and stick to it. My advice would be to check some other theses submitted to the same department to see how they did it.


Manuscript Revision: How to include the response to reviewer comments as an attached file?

This depends on the editorial management system used by the journal. If they let you attach multiple files, then upload the response to reviewers there (be sure it's clearly labelled as a response to reviewers), and write in the text box "see attached file". If they don't let you attach multiple files, then merge the response to reviewers with the manuscript's PDF, upload that, and write in the text box that you've added the response to reviewers to the manuscript because it contains mathematical equations.


Completing requirements for PhD programs years after undergraduate degree

There isn't any issue about time (or age, in most places). If you attend an accredited university for your coursework and get grades like any other student then you should be fine, provided that they will provide a transcript of what you have done when you apply later to a degree program.
But doing online courses or unaccredited work is much chancier and you would then need some other way to assure the new institution that you have the required background.
But ask the registrar of the place where you will take courses about such things (grades, transcripts) to be sure.
It is also very advantageous if you make a positive impression on the faculty giving those courses, since your original professors may not remember much about you and you will want letters of recommendation.


What kind of administrative duties might a postdoctoral associate be expected to take on?

I think you need to find out exactly what they are expecting from you.  I would normally associate postdoc positions with research duties rather than administrative duties.  Some exceptions that I have known involve postdocs who are expected to act as the supervisor for a number of graduate or undergraduate researchers, but these are unusual cases.  Contact the people offering the position, and find out what exactly the administrative duties mean: otherwise, you won't know how to tailor your application, and (more importantly) you might end up in a position you really didn't want!


How to cite indirect sources in CSE/CBE (name–year) system?

If you mean by "indirect citation" citing a source cited in another document (which you, most likely, cannot access for some reason) then your citation would be for example:

  (Rawls 1971, cited in Brown 2008)

See the CSE style guide for more information.
Anyway, I would strongly encourage you to find the original source and to avoid indirect, secondary citations as you do not know whether the citation is correct.


How to salvage a rejected paper when you don't have time to correct it?

One piece of advice-I-would-not-follow is to submit the paper to a lower quality conference. This could really be a waste of time if the conference is of very low quality, and if you are really proud of the work, do not do this. In the end, this may even look like a black spot on your CV.

What are you doing this weekend? Maybe canceling those plans and using the time to obtain the additional results. Then improve the paper based on the reviewer comments (evenings and other weekends) and resubmit to the next suitable venue.

Another alternative is to get help, either from a colleague or maybe even an undergraduate, if it is easy enough to the him/her how to run your experiments. Reward them with co-authorship, even if they haven't written a word of the paper. (This won't hurt you any.)

Ultimately, you cannot get something for nothing.


Does wearing a university t-shirt imply that the wearer is affiliated with the university?

No. Many of the top universities are tourist attractions and it is not uncommon to see tourists wandering around campus taking photos and eventually buying paraphernalia. While in the US it is not uncommon to see students wearing standard school t-shirts and sweatshirts, in the UK, students generally do not wear clothes that are available in the bookstore. Rather, they wear clothes made for particular clubs that they are involved in.


Is it common that advisor has no idea about what is going on and totally helpless?

No, it is not common.

However, everyone in academia probably will meet someone like your supervisor along the years. Incompetence and unprofessionalism can be found in every corner of society and academia is not an exception.

If you are able, change to another supervisor as soon as possible.


Do letters of recommendation typically include a biography of the writer?

Yes, this is relatively common. (In my opinion, not common enough.)

Recommendation letters carry more weight if he reader knows the writer's qualifications.  In particular, letters about qualification for graduate school carry more weight if the reader has some sense of the writer's track record for judging students' research ability.  (This is why letters from senior faculty are more valued — not because of their vast research experience, but because they've presumably seen and evaluated more students.)  The best way for the reader to understand your track record is to tell them.

But briefly, because as you suggest, the letter isn't about you.

I don't think there's a standard way to do this.  Some people put their bio early in the letter, say in the second paragraph (because the first paragraph is the actual recommendation).  I put mine in a footnote on the last page.


Is there any problem with giving lots of extra credit?

I think the answer to your question is "No one knows, but you are about to find out."  The only thing that can be guaranteed is that there will be some unexpected consequences, because the nature of human interaction--and the diversity of things like motivation and preparation--is such that it's too complex a system for us to know what the introduction of a novel approach is going to do.

You are attempting to transfer power to the students which is traditionally vested almost exclusively in the instructor.  I feel that this is a good thing, but that it is difficult to predict what people will do when given power that they previously did not have.

To give you an example (which I don't think will happen in your case, but there could be some analogous effect), I know of an instructor that tried dispensing with grade pressure altogether by announcing on the first day that everyone in the class had an A for the course [the highest rating possible, for those not familiar with common practice in the US].  The consequence that surprised him was that at the end of (or perhaps during as well, I don't remember) the course, students expressed resentment toward the policy.  The realities of time pressures put on them by other courses meant that they ended up spending little to no time on the gradeless class, because they knew ultimately that it would not affect their record.  The resentment came from the fact that they wanted to learn the material, but with nothing to force them to spend time on it, they ended up not giving it any time but instead allowing the other demands on their time to crowd it out completely.

In my opinion, I think you've covered your bases as well as you can (in particular, it's not a wild shot in the dark, but a further change to a previous, successful modification), and all there is for you to do is observe the effects and see what student feedback is.  The most interesting question in my mind is whether the most talented students will do as well (in terms of "total learning outcome") under this system as they did under your original one.  For similar reasons as the example I gave, they may just make a decision not to put as much effort in because of time pressures from other classes.


PhD advisor making start up company based on my thesis work. How do I prevent this from delaying my graduation?

How should I approach this?

Jump at the opportunity! Your professor considers your work a "gold mine" and wants to commercialise. This is an extremely rare opportunity for any student and I recommend that you seriously consider embracing the opportunity. Let me consider some of your ideas and alleviate some of your concerns:

  I prefer to publish it and make most of the data open source.

This is a worthy academic goal, but it mightn't result in your desired outcome. Academics share results for others to build on, yet many results have no impact: If you're hoping your results will have impact, then why not make sure they do yourself? Keep the results private, build a company, make an impact.

  Today, my advisor hired a senior research scientist who intends to learn my work and start a company based on it...The scientist intends on becoming CEO of this company

Is there any reason to believe that this scientist should be CEO? As opposed to CTO, for instance? Why is the scientist even necessary? Consider taking the CEO role for yourself and maybe consider hiring the scientist.

Whether your supervisor should be involved is open for debate. They seem well-connected, so they could perhaps be very useful.

  [The senior research scientist] eventually wants equal inventorship

Inventorship (in terms of IP law) cannot be shared: An inventor has to have invented, they cannot come onboard. Perhaps you meant equal ownership?

  I have argued with him that this work is not ready for a company, and such a start-up would rest on shaky foundations (I have not published or patented, or finished animal studies).

You can start a company, strengthen the foundations, and patent the results. (NB: Your university may actually own the rights to any patents, it depends on your precise scenario. Regardless, you might not need to patent results that would be owned by the university, since patenting later results might suffice.)


Second master and phd in math after phd in mechanical engineering

My story is somewhat similar to yours. I did statistics, then switched to math as I found I love it. Here is my pathway in France. I didn't restudy the whole bachelor. I applied for (and got accepted to) the 3rd year undergraduate at a French uni. After that, I applied for (and got accepted easily to) the 1st year of master (aka M1) in math at a top French uni (as I got good marks). If my mark is good enough, I can apply for the 2nd year of master (aka M2) (in France, 1st year and 2nd year of master are seperated, you have to apply for both seperately).

So, for your questions:

I would highly recommend you to retake the 3rd year undergraduate (aka Licence 3) in math, and it should be sufficient for you to go further. As you have a technical background (and even better, at PhD level), it's not difficult for you to get admitted directly. The chance would be lower if you apply directly for the master in math because the math in France is highly theoritical, they would prefer someone with a math degree for the master degree in math. Of course, if you can show that you have done sufficient advanced math (especially topology, integration, measure theory, which are a must if you want to do PDE), then no problem. However, due to French-style math, I still recommend you to start from the 3rd year of bachelor rather than 1st year of master.

2) If your mark is good, you can apply for many masters at top uni (like Paris 6, Paris 11, which are strong in applied math, including PDE) or "Grandes Ecoles". Also your chance to be admitted to a PhD in math should be good as well. Applied math is, at least easier to be admitted than pure math.

3) Even though you have two degrees, they are quite closely related. So I don't see any problems with that. Actually I think you even have some advantages to others.


Why does academia.edu reserve the right to sell, modify, and "exploit" my papers if I post them there?

It's not necessarily crazy for academia.edu to ask for these things (although, as I say below, I certainly don't think users should agree to these terms).  I imagine their lawyers advised them to use an agreement that covers all possible use cases as their business model evolves.  For example, if they decided to charge their users membership fees, and only users who paid the fees got access to the site and could view profiles and download papers, then that would be tantamount to selling the papers and other user data (so they couldn't do it unless they had permission to sell this content).  Posting ads on their web pages could be considered a form of commercial exploitation of the data, so they want to make sure they can do it.  They might someday want to change file formats, such as converting PDFs into future super-PDF formats, and having permission to modify content submitted by users guarantees that they could do this.  Even if they intend to take things down upon receiving requests from users, having irrevocable permission to post them means users cannot sue them for failing to take them down quickly enough.  Basically, this agreement says they can do anything they want, which is obviously very convenient for them.

For comparison, Harvard's model open access policy also retains very broad rights (although not the right to sell papers for a profit).  I believe the motivation is that universities can be trusted, and it's better for them to retain more rights than fewer, in case they need them someday.  See the notes to line 7 in the model policy for more discussion of this point.  Of course, the difference is that academia.edu is a commercial website, and even if they are trustworthy now, they might become less so in the future or be bought by someone untrustworthy.

On the other hand, even if it's not crazy for the site to ask for these rights, it's certainly crazy for users to agree!  I'm amazed that these terms of service are being used, and I assume just about nobody using the site has actually read them and understood that they are permanently granting the right to sell arbitrarily modified versions of their papers.  I hope you send them a complaint, as well as publicize this on the internet, because they need to change these terms as soon as possible.  In addition to being completely unreasonable, they clearly conflict with a large majority of copyright agreements for papers, as you point out.


In person and Skype are completely different. Writing math that you can both see becomes a challenge (in person, it's called a blackboard). I get up to fetch a book: communication is lost. Meeting takes longer than expected and it'd be nice to continue talking over lunch? Very difficult with Skype. More than two people in a meeting? Complete nightmare.

And a postdoc position is not just about talking with your supervisor every now and then. IMO, that's just a recipe for having a terrible time. You are expected to participate in your department's life. This means going to seminars, talk with people who you don't collaborate with, etc. Impossible if you are restricted to formal Skype meetings with your supervisor. Let's say you have a quick question about something you're reading. Are you going to call your supervisor about it? Or go to the office next door and ask, maybe even someone else, like another postdoc or a PhD student who works on the same kind of topic?

What you are describing is a research collaboration with someone else. You check up every now and then for status updates. It's not what most people envision when they think of a postdoc.


How long does it take before an academic article can no longer be kept behind a paywall?

Strictly speaking, the answer to your question is Never.  Even after the copyright has expired, there is nothing to prevent a journal from keeping articles behind a paywall.  Many journals will make articles open access after a certain amount of time, and after the copyright has expired, other people may freely distribute public domain articles.  However, there are some journals that nonetheless have paywalled archives going back to the nineteenth century.


When a STEM research topic can be studied experimentally, computationally, and theoretically, do PhD programs typically focus on only one approach?

From my experience, such focuses are often called something like "Concentrations" or "Tracks". The intent of these programs is to allow the student with a very specific interest to tailor the program to their own interests. Again from my experience, these tracks mostly affect the courseload that a student will have.

Students are always encouraged to network within the department, talk to other people, and if interested take seminars or possibly even full courses (if their advisor is the type to allow that sort of thing) outside of their interest, simply to learn more about their field.

Your training will consist mostly of two parts, your research and your coursework. If you choose experimental physics, your courses will be mostly related to that, and (I assume) your research will be in that field as well. The extent to which you move laterally within your field is really up to you. I think you'll find that your main enemy here is simply time; there's too much to learn and not enough time to learn it. Best of luck with that battle! :)


Is it ethical to share names and emails of survey participants?

Your friend can seek retroactive permission from the participants. They can email all of the participants to ask them for permission to disclose their contact details with the friend's advisor for the purpose of validating the survey. They should probably also ask them to complete a consent form of some kind, the details of which your friend should discuss with their advisor. Without seeking permission, it would be unethical. Depending on what the survey is about, the participants may not want their details being shared with your friend's advisor.


What should I do if a professor is not writing the recommendation letter whom I already suggested?

Use a different referee, time is now not on your side and she did not plan to be sick.

If she is not capable of replying to emails she might be very sick so have some respect.

You might consider sending her reference late with a note of explanation but I suggest you send the initial application fully complete. Many times the first stage of the sorting process is « is it complete » and only those that are get to the next round.


Is it acceptable for a professor to tell male students to not think that they are smarter than female students?

(edited this answer to consider some points raised in the comments and try to address OP more constructively)

Yes, it is acceptable for a professor to work to counter the effects of gender discrimination.

Yes, it is acceptable for a professor to warn a male-predominant class to not discriminate against women by giving them the "easy" tasks.

The professor is not accusing you as an individual of sexism, they are pointing out researched ways in which women are discriminated against, especially in STEM areas where women are under-represented.

Although your initial reaction was that this was a waste of time, I think you can use this experience and the feedback you get here as an opportunity to reflect - it seems from your comments that you are open to this.

I'd suggest you try the implicit bias test from Harvard, I was surprised by how much implicit bias it showed that I have. Some research has shown that people who take this sort of test are more introspective about their own biases afterwards. Even if you show little bias on that test, it may be instructive to see how much bias is seen in the population as a whole because people tend to underestimate bias experienced by other groups.

I don't think having implicit bias is something that reflects poorly on any individual, it's more of a product of society. What reflects on individuals is whether they try to become aware of the biases experienced by others and how their own implicit biases might influence their behavior.

I think your professor was trying to point out some of these biases to make students in the class more aware of them. It seems unlikely to me that any men in the course would literally think to themselves "Let's give the women the easy/secretarial tasks in group work!" (and if they do, they are probably never going to be convinced otherwise) - instead, they might accidentally do it by simply not thinking. By simply thinking about it more, and even by asking this question here, it seems to me like your professor was successful, even if you ultimately decide that you disagree with the approach.

Carter, A. J., Croft, A., Lukas, D., & Sandstrom, G. M. (2018). Women’s visibility in academic seminars: Women ask fewer questions than men. PloS one, 13(9), e0202743.

Cheryan, S., Ziegler, S. A., Montoya, A. K., & Jiang, L. (2017). Why are some STEM fields more gender balanced than others?. Psychological Bulletin, 143(1), 1.

Kaatz, A., Gutierrez, B., & Carnes, M. (2014). Threats to objectivity in peer review: the case of gender. Trends in pharmacological sciences, 35(8), 371-373.

Lerback, J., & Hanson, B. (2017). Journals invite too few women to referee. Nature News, 541(7638), 455.

Monteith, M. J., Ashburn-Nardo, L., Voils, C. I., & Czopp, A. M. (2002). Putting the brakes on prejudice: On the development and operation of cues for control. Journal of personality and social psychology, 83(5), 1029.

Swim, J. K., & Sanna, L. J. (1996). He's skilled, she's lucky: A meta-analysis of observers' attributions for women's and men's successes and failures. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22(5), 507-519.


How to find response time for a given journal in engineering?

Some journals insert the submission date and acceptance date in a footnote on the first page of the article.  For those, it would be easy to look through the latest issue and see what is typical.


Thesis submitted, but not published – can I put the title on my CV?

There is no obvious reason why including the title of your thesis in your CV might be risky. Just make sure that all information is presented accurately. If your thesis has been submitted, but not accepted, then say "(submitted)".


Technically, there is obviously no problem. In the paper, you provide a link to your server that will be accessible only by reviewers. After review, you block the link. You may explain in the paper, that the code is proprietary and will not be accessible to readers. As soon as this is not a mandatory policy of the journal to provide an open-access code,  I do not think that you violates any journal policy. You will violate for sure the policy if you submit supplementary material, and then refuse to publish it. I suggest that you write to the journal that you plan to submit and suggest such a strategy. But do not explain the whole story - no one will read all these details. Just tell them that you have proprietary code that you can share with reviewers, but cannot make it open to all. Is it OK?


What are the steps and resources I can use to publish a math paper?

A partial answer: Every piece of scientific work builds on other people's publications (remember Newton's "standing on the shoulder of giants" quote), and so one can surmise that your paper also cites other publications -- and if it doesn't, it probably should.

So let me assume that you are already doing that, then a good approach is to see where these other references were published. Look up these journals: Every journal has a charter on their website that explains (i) what kinds of papers they publish, and (ii) how one can submit a paper to them.


Senior co-author is jeopardizing two years of work

I suggest that you get all of the co-authors together to have a discussion. When you organise the meeting, say something neutral like "let's get together to figure out what to with this paper".

If your senior co-author has a good point about the methodology being flawed, then the other co-authors may suggest a way to salvage the paper. They also have an incentive to get the paper published, if possible.

If the other co-authors don't agree with the senior co-author, then they can put forward their arguments, and hopefully a resolution will be reached.


How to cite a new journal in abbreviation form which is not found in existing abbreviation list?

There is a list of journal abbreviations issues by ISI where official abbreviations are found. There are many places where the list is found but the best updated will likely be the one at Web of Science. your journal is not listed here as far as I can see but abbreviations follow certain guidelines so it would not be difficult to "guess" what abbreviation should be suitable. My guess will be Syst. Sci. Contr. Eng. based on other existing abbreviations including the words that make up the title.

Note, however, that this is still not the formal abbreviation and I would add a note to the fact to the editor when submitting the manuscript so the journal can decide what to print based on what you have provided. It is possible that the copy-editing will catch this as well but declaring your actions will always help editors in their work and will be appreciated.


Which free online academic plagiarism checker is closest to Turnitin?

I have recently (2 year ago) done a fairly thorough search for good, free alternatives to TurnItIn. My motivation was that my school did not use TurnItIn but that does not stop me from caring about my students' work. In the end, I found all of them (and there are many) are simply terrible in comparison to TurnItIn.

I've been using TurnItIn for 2 years now and I find it quite solid (of course there are things I would change but the basic functionality works well). The system has flaws but as I see, they maintain it and when a vulnerability is found (allowing a student to game the system), they generally fix it.

Add to this the fact that most often (my) students copy from previous students, searching freely available online sources will not do a proper job.

TurnItIn has a bit of a natural monopoly so it seems unlikely that any free alternative will ever gain much market share, meaning they will not have the papers to check leading to a vicious circle.

I see you are a high school student which makes me wonder why you want to know. Without knowing your true intention, I'm afraid my answer will be less useful to you.

If your purpose is to recommend a system for your school, they need TurnItIn. If your purpose is to check your own papers, you should use TurnItIn's student version (I know, it's not free).


Unexpected Extra Travel Costs and Grants

These things happen, and as long as the expenses are reasonable, they should be covered by any reasonable funding body. It is a good idea to make a phone call to see whether you are permitted to spend the money, or at least to find out what budget limitations you have.

For instance, the other day my plane was diverted to a different airport. The only way I could make the PhD defence on time was using a taxi. So I took the 80 km trip and paid the 230 euro and fully expect that I'll get this money back.

If I had have purchased a used car to get me to the defence and a bottle of whisky for pain and suffering, I wouldn't expect to get that money back.


Change of interest for PhD after BA & MA? Does it look 'academically' immature?

There's nothing immature about changing research themes from MA to PhD. It's very common especially in philosophy (philosophy PhD myself).

That being said, there's something ill-advised in writing I now want to not do anything with German Philosophy at all anymore.

Instead, It's best to explain your new found interest and talk positively about it and the sort of interesting research you want to do on that. Worded another way, having good reasons for wanting to focus on political philosophy will make you sound mature.

Similarly, what's wrong with telling someone that you are interested in pursuing research lines similar to the ones they do ... when you are interested in pursuing research lines similar to the ones they do. Instead, it's precisely what you should do and be able to do at the PhD-level (note you don't need to make it seem like fawning over the person if you focus on the idea).

The one thing that's slightly troubling is what I mentioned above. Unless political philosophy is being construed very narrowly, there's quite a bit of German philosophy that interacts with it... (the point of this paragraph isn't to argue with your new-found interest -- it's to highlight that mentioning your old interest negatively inspires just this sort of reaction and focuses things on what shouldn't focus on).


Can this be one of my acceptable answers for "why do you want to study a PhD"?

When I ask the question "why do you want to study towards a PhD?", the very last thing I want to hear is something entirely unrelated to studying towards a PhD. Not because I fear that you get sidetracked (I don't necessarily worry much about that), and certainly not because I have some inherent bias against piano players, but because I worry that you actually don't know why you want to do a PhD. This is true for a surprisingly large percentage of applicants, and typically a fairly bad sign.

Consequently, if you get this question, I suggest that you explain why you want to do a PhD, and nothing else. If the question is why you want to do a PhD at exactly this university, this can be part of your answer, but it should not be the only, or even the main, answer to that question either. Quite frankly I would imagine this to be largely ignored - playing piano is not memorable enough to make you stick out from the applicant pool, and unrelated enough to virtually all fields of research that I won't count particularly positively either.


What to do if my paper is incorrectly cited in a journal?

Yes, that's a problem, and you will absolutely want to fix it. The problem is that it's actually a two-stage problem to correct:

First, you will need to contact the journal to fix the citation.
Then, after the citation has been corrected in the article, you'll need to submit a correction request to the various citation trackers (such as ISI and Scopus). They will need to fix your citation in their database, if the article has already been entered.

Note: It may or may not be possible to correct the journal—the editors may or may not be willing to issue a correction to fix a reference. However, it may be possible to correct the reference with the citation indices, even if it's not correct in the journal. However, the road will be tougher; you'll need to show that the paper that should be cited is indisputably yours.


I'm in chemistry, and I also went to a small, top-20 liberal arts school that did not offer much additional, higher-level coursework.

I experienced two main challenges:

Transitioning into graduate-level courses. This was difficult, because of not having experienced similar class-work before. However, the fundamentals you learn at liberal arts colleges are solid, and you've learned how to learn.
Transitioning to the difference in teaching quality. At most graduate programs, the course instructors are research faculty and their priority is research. It can take some time to adjust to how to learn in a class that was not well-constructed for learning.

That said, unless the masters programs are very different than the phd programs in mathematics,I think you'll encounter the same challenges in either the masters or the doctoral program. In chemistry and physics, masters students take the same coursework. Additionally, usually you have to write a thesis for a masters, so during your coursework there is more pressure to do successful research, since you only have ~2 years (instead of ~5-6, as in a PhD program). Also in my experience graduate schools only rarely grant course exemptions for masters work.

You have several options:

Apply directly to PhD program. If you do this, I highly recommend studying some of the advanced coursework over the summer before you start. MIT Open Courseware has some great materials for this.
Apply to a masters program at a less selective school, then apply to more selective PhD programs. In a less-selective school, the classes might start at a lower level, there might be more support for students, and you might be able to take advanced undergraduate coursework not offered at your undergraduate institution, if you need it.
Get a job or internship and take a few courses. You could take a gap-year in which you get a job or internship in your field. You'll grow your skills and content knowledge via that position, and you may also have time to take ~1 class at a time at a local university, online (through a university or a free service like coursera), or via independent study (like MIT OCW). This way you'll also earn money, if that's a concern. (Masters students may or may not be stipended.)


How to handle a situation where you are part of 2 competing projects?

Not sure if it applies to your field, but in some cases it is appropriate for researchers to publish simultaneously when they are working on something so similar at the same time (especially with a consistent finding but a different approach, like you suggest is the case here).

Some journals may consider the two papers side-by-side and publish them in sequence in the same issue, or they may be published in different journals. Typically there would be some acknowledgement in each paper of the presence of the other, or a third brief review/editorial possibly coauthored by some of the authors of each paper.

There's a great blog post that talks a bit about the process for simultaneous publications from the Vice President of Editorial at Cell Press (for those outside of biology, this covers some of the most respected journals in basic biology research): http://crosstalk.cell.com/blog/how-papers-from-different-groups-get-published-together

I'm not sure about the ethics overall, but it seems like the issue is being a part of both teams like this in the first place...you would have been aware of this way before the state of writing the actual papers. I think you certainly should have spoke up earlier in the process, at this point you may have already entered the "damage-control" phase, especially if the outcome ends up negative for either of the two groups (i.e., if they are unable to publish or end up publishing in a much lower journal).


Is it okay to send a paper to a journal as well as for conference

Apparently conference has different meanings in different disciplines. In the fields with which I am familiar, conference publications are either limited to abstracts or are published in proceedings which are just as official as a journal In the former case there is of course no problem but in the latter sending the same paper off to a conference (for proceedings publication) and to a journal would not be correct. Therefore, you need to figure out what norms apply in your field, particularly whether the conference proceedings is a real publication.


Should I be worried about low undergraduate grades during the COVID-19 crisis affecting grad school admission chances?

The situation is chaotic and it is difficult to make a prediction or give firm advice. Either path could be better than the other, depending on the judgments of others.

However, one prediction that I can make with confidence is that universities sending out grades will also be sending out explanations that extraordinary measures were taken in extraordinary times. Furthermore those receiving grades and such will understand that the situation was chaotic and that the ordinary procedures need to be modified.

If it were me, I'd probably opt for the grades rather than pass/fail. If necessary, I'd just explain that the general chaos affected my performance somewhat and the grades may not accurately reflect my potential. I'd suspect that letter writers would back that up. But that is partly because I'd have a history of excellent performance generally and not one that would be questioned in the absence of the current situation. (This is the hypothetical me speaking, not the real me.)

But the pass fail option can also be explained fairly easily that the risks were higher due to general disruption and you considered it the safer option as the rules were changing, making earlier assumptions invalid.

I expect that there will be more emphasis put on interviews and on letters of recommendation for a while until things settle down again. But that is just a guess.


How to handle a case of unpublished plagiarism?

Not all instances of plagiarism are equally severe. So, while your assessment that this is plagiarism may be correct, it looks like at most a fairly mild case of it.

And it may not be plagiarism at all: you say the document being read was a “draft for an essay”. Well, drafts are understood to be incomplete works-in-progress, so having some missing citations (or factually incorrect statements, bad grammar, or any number of other problems we try to avoid in finished documents) is in general acceptable. If the document was explicitly marked “draft”, I don’t see how a plagiarism accusation could make sense. If it wasn’t, then it would depend on additional contextual details - I guess we’d need to know what your description of the document as a draft is based on.

A related question is, what benefit would come to the writer of the essay from passing off the quoted sentences as their own? Was the work read in that meeting graded, or was there some other material benefit they could have hoped to gain? If there was, that could make an intentional deception more likely as a possible explanation.

At the end of the day, what you’re describing sounds sufficiently mild that I don’t think you should get too alarmed that the person is “still working at the institute and holding classes”. You can complain to their adviser or some other person in charge if you are genuinely concerned, but I would expect that this person would, at most, be told to be more careful in the future, but would not suffer (and do not sound like they deserve to suffer) any more severe career consequences.


How many resubmits of my thesis support paper can I expect from my sponsor and readers?

There’s no fixed answer here. Some advisors are willing to look at drafts in progress and pitch in a lot, while others only want to see almost finished drafts. Committee members beyond the advisor would probably only want to see one or two drafts to edit. Further, their comments will be more high-level than in depth.

But the best way to make sure is to ask!


When can I make assumptions in scientific papers?

It depends on what you mean by "is it OK".  If you write "The behavior X might be explained by...", it's certainly OK in the sense that nobody will be offended or automatically reject your paper.  You are acknowledging some uncertainty, so there's nothing to object to (while there would be if you claimed greater certainty than your work justified).  On the other hand, speculating about possible explanations is not as good as giving a compelling explanation.  It's reasonable if this is not the main point of your paper, or if the speculative explanation is awfully clever.  However, if the main point of your paper comes down to speculation that you just haven't investigated carefully enough to resolve, then it will probably not impress readers.  You could end up with a paper that's not objectionable but still isn't very good.


Writing ads to attract female PhD candidates

It is believed that the use of "gendered" language in job ads can make ads appeal more to men or women [1]. See no reason that this should not also apply to ads for PhD students.

There are several websites that claim to test your job Ads for gender bias based on the word lists in [1].

E.g.

http://gender-decoder.katmatfield.com/

or

https://www.totaljobs.com/insidejob/gender-bias-decoder/

The other common advice is to avoid specifying requirements that are not really requirements, but actually nice-to-haves. Widely cited research [2] suggests that men are far more likely than women to apply for a job even if they don't meet all of the requirements. So for example, if you say that you require students to have taken a class in X, but when it actually comes to it you get no good applicants that have, but decide to take a student who is really good in all other ways, but does not have class X, then class X shouldn't be specified as a requirement, but a nice-to-have. Saying in your ad that applicants must have X is then biasing against women.

Mind you, I always follow all this advice (the gender checkers even rate my ads as slightly feminine bias), but I still get next to no female applicants.

[1] Gaucher, Friesen, and Kay, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, July 2011, Vol 101(1)

[2] https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-for-jobs-unless-theyre-100-qualified


Can a non-committee-member ask questions while watching a friend's PhD defense?

This depends on your country, university, and department. In some places, questions by non-faculty are rare. In other places, the discussion can get out of hand.

As it sounds like you are only starting your research and that this is your first PhD defense, you may want to consider sitting quietly and watching and learning what happens. After the defense, you can contact the student, and any committee members, and strike up a conversation.


Yes, in almost all cases, a PhD student can transfer to a Masters program.  The person to contact is your department head, or dean.  This is surprisingly common, and I've personally know several people who went on to very happy careers after switching to an MS.


W2 Positions in Germany after Postdocs elsewhere

Does Germany require a Habilitation or W1 before hiring someone for a W2 position if they are coming from outside of Germany?

Not generally, and often not even for people from "within" Germany. The strict Habilitation requirement is in the decline, also and and particularly in the best universities in Germany.

What is required though is a "habilitation-like" career stage / qualification. That is, there should not be any doubt that you would be able to receive habilitation easily if you applied for it with your current CV. This is generally no problem for candidates that already hold a position comparable to a W2 professorship (say, an associate professor in the US or a Senior Lecturer in the UK), but if you are currently a postdoc it is important that you underline your independence in research and teaching, your standing in your community, as well as your ability to acquire grants and external funding (i.e., the criteria among which habilitation is usually decided).

Another factor may be academic age - in many cases academically older candidates will find it easier to communicate that they are in a career stage comparable to W2 professor than excellent younger ones. I have the impression that in Germany many commissions either do not, or fail to, properly normalize qualifications based on academic age; that is, they will often prefer more modestly qualified senior candidates over very promising younger ones.

Finally, another challenge may be language. You may still find a requirement to be able to teach in German in many job postings for positions in Germany.

  If so, is this rare? What's the standard trajectory in German academe for someone that has done postdocs elsewhere?

I think the German trajectory for most people from within and the outside is like that:

PhD student -> postdoc (sometimes for many, many years) -> [optionally] W1 / junior professorship -> either W2 or "bad" W3 professorship, depending on experience -> W3

In most cases, none of the steps after PhD student -> postdoc happens automatically or based on a tenure clock. The usual way to e.g., get one's W2 position upgraded to W3 is by getting a competitive offer for a W3 position at another university. Also note that traditionally many academics in Germany never held a W1 position, but rather did extensive postdocs and/or one or more "Vetretungsprofessuren" (akin to a visiting professor).

  is this rare?

(I am assuming the question is whether it is rare that a postdoc from the outside gets hired at a W2 position)

It's not rare, but it is also not insanely common. While full professors do commonly get hired from the outside (especially at the top institutions), my impression is that most are already in a professor-like position before making the move. This naturally also means that most outside hires seem to be on W3 rather than W2 level. As always, when one is trying to break in from the outside, you are in a slightly disadvantageous position in comparison to somebody who is already "in the system".


How can I express my motivation to join a Masters program if I have no experience in the area?

I assume that the new area isn't just a random choice. Think about what it was about that area that drew you to it and say some things about that. It would also be good to work in a bit about how your background and training makes this a natural trajectory for you. If you have read papers in the new area and find them interesting and think you can contribute to the ideas there, say something about that.

Even your statement here that you want to broaden your horizons is positive, but, alone, it is worth only a little.


Graduate student I was working with left

Speak to the professor again. There're a lot of reasons for this:

He set you up with the graduate student, so he can set you up with another graduate student if necessary.
If he set you up with his graduate student, then in some way he's also responsible for you. He won't leave you to your own devices now.
He's still working in the field, so he will know what to do with your idea. He'll probably know what to do with your idea better than the graduate student.
It sounds like you only have an idea. Ideas aren't usually publishable; you need results. Because you're an undergraduate, chances are you won't be able to get those results easily without guidance. The professor can provide that guidance.


How to network as a new graduate student in a new country

Since you

have done several internships, worked within a couple of research groups for some time, attended many seminars & workshops, taken several graduate-level courses

You have probably done a fair amount of networking already. And I'd say likely more than other Master students. You're maybe not as "connected" as someone who introduced themselves at seminars or workshops, but you still know better now what the various speakers are working on. This is a big part of what networking is about.

 Secondly, what is meant by "networking" exactly in an academic setting? Just knowing each other exists, or being some kind of friends, or just knowing who is interested in what?

Since you indicate you are in Germany, networking is about getting acquainted: knowing each other exists and what their professional interests and topics are.
You may also become professional friends (and since you are in Germany, beware of the difference between English friend and German Freund - which is reserved for close friends in English terms)

 how can a graduate student network in events where most of the people are way older, and academically more senior?

The most effective way is IMHO attending conferences.

If you are at a conference on your own (noone else from your group), attach yourself to various other groups that are there in somewhat larger numbers. Easiest IMHO to attach yourself to some fellow students, who are there with also postdocs or their professor around.
If you are attending together with more senior people from your group, I'd expect "your" postdocs or professor may introduce you to their acquaintances.

You can also attend e.g. PhD student seminars. There it should be quite easy to get acquainted with your peers. This is also very relevant and useful networking: a) you can get e.g. information on working conditions in their groups when you'll be looking for a postdoc position later on. b) Like you, they'll "grow up" academically/professionally. In a few years, they'll be your experienced professional peers, PIs and professors that you know already.
Last but not least, I think it also important to get acquanted also with a group of people outside your field. In Germany, I'd recommend joining some sports club/university sports or a theater group or... depending on what your hobbies are.


If/where should I explain the reason of my low BSc GPA in a PhD application?

You need a sentence or less to get this idea across. "While illness affected my undergraduate performance, I overcame the issues as my MS performance demonstrates."
There are a lot of places for such a sentence depending on the application materials requested. Even the SOP might "host" it, provided that you make the SOP more about the future and your goals than about the past. But the personal statement, if required, is probably better. But a separate document might be rejected.
If you are required to provide letters of recommendation, make sure that the writers emphasize your current skills and ability to succeed. They don't need to mention the problems, but their impact should lead to the assumption that poor performance is not expected in future.
But having been rejected twice means little in the abstract. Perhaps they are just the wrong places for you. A broad approach (several institutions with varied reputations) is a better way to assure success than any narrowly focused program.


It's not field-dependent, it's a journal-dependent issue. Some use a format where everything is numbered, some use a format where nothing is numbered, and still others leave it up to the authors to decide.

However, when sections are numbered, everything in the main text should be numbered, including the introduction and conclusions. You don't skip numbering those sections but add numbers for the rest. That doesn't make any sense. (End matter such as acknowledgments and supporting information may be handled separately.)

The best advice is check the style guide for your journal.


Teachers and professors don't need to be clowns. However, they do need to engage their students.

The old mode of a teacher standing at the front of the lecture hall talking "at" students for an hour or ninety minutes at a time is a cultural relic, rather than necessarily the best way to educate students, as learning in a lecture is usually at best passive.

There are many ways to get around this problem—including engaging in class discussions, demonstrations, group learning, and, yes, sometimes humor can be used to make the point. But just as teaching should not be a stale recitation of facts, neither is it open mic night at your local comedy club. Learning is serious business, but it doesn't have to be boring, either.


Can I submit application on the deadline?

Most commonly the deadline is inclusive, i.e., "January 15" means that the deadline is "at some moment during January 15". What does this mean can vary:

For online applications, it's usually 23:59:59.
For mailed applications, there are two options and exactly one of them is true:

either the poststamp has to be January 15;
or it has to arrive to the institution by January 15.

For applications you deliver in person, usually the opening hours of the office where you have to bring it apply.

In either case, it should be specified in the conditions.

And please remember that timezones can play a role here, and everything is in the timezone of the institution where you apply unless stated otherwise.

/From comments/

If you doubt the precise conditions, just call them or e-mail them and ask for clarification.

It will cost you less than solving any troubles afterwards.


I have been betrayed and isolated by my advisor and I am mentally drained. What should I do now?

So essentially, what you need is someone to take you on as a PhD. It looks like your current advisor just isn't interested in having you be her PhD student. This other professor is interested in having you as a PhD student, but you aren't interested in his research.

It sounds like neither of these is an option for doing a PhD. This means that you need to find someone else to be your advisor. Think about who else is in your department.

Other than that, your only choices are probably to find a job or leave the country.

(I'm not mentioning trying to apply to another university because I think admission season is almost over for most, but there might be some places still accepting applications.)

Post-edit things:

  Why would she lie about this? Is this normal?

First of all, you don't know if she lied. You have no idea under what constraints she operates. Yes, you've been told first-years get funding, but a PhD is more than a year, so what is she supposed to do with you after that, if she really doesn't have funding? That would have been worse, spending a year working for her and then being deported, don't you think?

Secondly, if she did lie, she might have done it because she doesn't tell you what's really preventing her from taking you on. What if you're not as good a researcher as you think you are and she doesn't want you working on her project? What if she got funding from a grant that requires the participants to be citizens, and she's trying to get another student, who actually qualified for it, to join her? There are lots of possibilities.

Is it normal? Academics aren't special. People lie. I lie sometimes. I'm sure you lie sometimes. Lying is as normal in academia as it is anywhere else.

Honestly, the above answers the rest of your question too. You assume you know her situation and motivations when the fact is that you don't. You conclude that she's callous---maybe she is, maybe she isn't---again, sometimes you're going to run into a callous person, might even get (un)lucky and stumble upon a sociopath, that's just the risk you run when interacting with people. Nothing special about academia there either.


How to sell my skills in a research statement

What you write should depend in part on the type of job and the type of institution you are applying for.

To apply for a research focused position in a high level research institution, your statement should reflect something about your suitability to work with them explicitly. So different statements for different institutions would be warranted in that case. Each with a different focus, but also showing how your other interests support your work in that primary field.

For a more general position, say one that involves as much teaching as research, or the research requirements are more "casual", a general statement would probably be better as it shows flexibility that the institution might value.

But in general, make it about how you fit the needs of the position.