How do I convince professors about my research interests?

In my experience (North American research-intensive universities) and point of view, this is a good question without a hard-and-fast answer.

having a specific research topic in mind is good in that it indicates that you've made an effort to think about the topic. However:

new researchers (undergraduates) often have very unrealistic ideas about what constitutes a practical research topic, especially for a beginner in the field who will have a limited amount of time to work on the project;
even good research topics may not fit in well with the specific research program of a particular researcher. As researchers are often supporting master's students from grants, their students' projects need to fit into the scope of the grant.
researchers (and fields) vary hugely in the amount of independence they give to (or expect of) master's students. You might be able to get some ideas about a particular researcher's approach if you can track down masters' theses of their previous students and look at the range of topics covered.

It's fine (and probably best) to say "I have the following ideas about new projects I could work on ... but of course I would be happy to work on new or existing projects in your lab ..."

similarly, it's good to express some knowledge of/interest in the potential supervisor's field. HOWEVER: I get a lot of e-mails that say something along the lines of "I'm fascinated by your work in XXX and YYY", where XXX and YYY are topics that can easily be picked off of my web  page or a glance at my CV or Google Scholar page.
The most compelling aspect of an application/e-mail is evidence that a student has previously engaged with something about the subject. Even if you haven't done anything in the particular field, it  helps a lot if you highlight things that you know/have done that will make you well-prepared for research in the topic — this could be course projects you've done in related fields, or courses you've taken (or things you've taught yourself) that are good foundations for getting started in the field.

I appreciate that the last point is hard if you're just entering the field for the first time, but talk is cheap: demonstrating that you've already taken some steps to prepare yourself is much more convincing. If you can't do that, then demonstrating some awareness of which aspects of your current training would be useful is helpful.


What's the point in hiring assistant professors instead of more experienced professors?

For example:

Their salaries are far lower. (The discrepancy varies by department, high in the physical sciences, low in economics and business.)
In fields that receive startup packages, their startup packages are far lower.
Many schools cannot hire a proven superstar, but they can take a gamble on a bright young scholar and help her develop into a superstar
This doesn't apply in my department, but you could imagine that a disfunctional environment the senior faculty might like having junior faculty around to take advantage of: make them teach the big intro classes, do the unpleasant service work, etc.
Junior faculty often bring new bleeding-edge skills that are hard to find in senior faculty.
A range of career stages within a department creates long-term continuity.

I'm sure others can come up with a number of additional reasons.


How to talk to previous lab members when applying to a postdoc?

Should I let the professor know that I am going to email their previous lab members?

There is no reason to do that.
I suggest it may be more useful to contact people who have left the lab, as they are less likely to feel a conflict of interest when describing their experiences.
Ask about the supervisor's management style.  Ask about how working in the lab advanced peoples' careers.  If you are unfamiliar with the location, ask about difficulties people encountered living there.


Recommendation Letters for MS CS programs

It's important to have at least one letter from a former professor, but especially for a professional master's degree, strong recommendation letters from work supervisors can also be effective, as long as they're tuned correctly.  I did this.  It's probably best to ask someone with an advanced degree if possible — not for the pedigree, but because they might remember academic culture/goals better than someone who hasn't spent time in the ivory tower.  It's important that your letter does not simply praise you as a programmer, but as a potential computer scientist.  The letter should emphasize your intellectual and creative contributions, your problem-solving skills, and your potential for further academic study.

Remember that writing academic recommendation letters is not a standard part of most industry management jobs; you are asking for a significant favor.  Nevertheless, you should strongly resist requests to write the letter yourself.  Have an open and frank discussion about the purpose of the letter, their perceptions of your matching strengths, the points that you think should be emphasized.  Give them your CV with appropriate points highlighted.  Then ask them again if they are willing to write you a strong recommendation letter; be sincerely willing to take no for an answer.

Signing up for a short non-degree program in U.S. or Europe is an excellent idea, but it's important to take proper advantage.  Don't just sit in class and get an A.  Talk with your instructors early about your goals for graduate study.  Try to get involved with faculty research, or at lest an independent study project.

Finally, I'd recommend pursuing both of these avenues simultaneously.  Give yourself as many options as possible!


Journals that require IRB approval as a matter of policy

For example, here is the bioethics policy for the Nature journals.  It includes the sentence:

  For experiments involving human subjects, authors must identify the committee approving the experiments, and include with their submission a statement confirming that informed consent was obtained from all subjects.


Reasons for a request for reference being ignored

Professors and other researchers are typically busy people receiving a constant flood of emails in their inbox, a great many of which are time-sensitive and important.  Yours is only one of many.

The most likely reason for somebody's failure to respond promptly to an email, then, are just the typical ones for any busy person: getting lost in their inbox, technical failures (overactive spam filter, address mixups, dodgy forwarding systems), and falling through the cracks in an overcrowded schedule.

It might also be, however, that the professor is wasn't actually as strong a reference as you thought and just didn't feel comfortable saying no.  Did you ever have a non-email conversation about the references? And if they aren't responding to email, pick up the phone and call!

Finally, since this is not an uncommon occurrence, I also recommend that for important but asynchronous interactions like references, if possible one should give 1-2 more than required.


I would like to apply to a masters program in Japan but I have no research experience. Any advice?

I'm currently on a Masters program in Japan, and I also didn't have any experience with research at all when I had to write a research plan, which made me very stressed.

  As someone without research experience, how should I deal with this
  situation?

There is no other way. You'll have to write your own research plan and contact your potential advisor.
It is pretty hard to write a research plan when you have no clue, but here is what I did:

Find something you would like to research that can actually be done at the lab you pretend to go. Read about previous publications on the laboratory's homepage, read about your potential advisor's areas of interest. You should know how to justify why you chose that lab as your potential advisor will probably ask you during email exchange.
Now that you have something that can be done at where you want to go, you'll have to justify why you chose that theme. Try to write about the potential applications of [your research theme] or how that will save the world or make everybody happy. Being able to strongly justify why your research is important is also essential.
Describe concretely which approach you will take to tackle [your research theme]. Of course you might have no idea, but you should at least have a hint from the point you researched the stuff that can be done on the lab. Write a rough schedule of about how much time your research will take (literature review, experiment designs/simulations, analysis, time for writing up your thesis etc).
Your research plan should have at least introduction, objectives, methodology (possibly with a schedule), and references. Include references from japanese authors if possible.

Remember that there is some flexibility, and once you are here you might find other research themes that are also interesting and/or more feasible than the one you initially planned.

Contacting your potential advisor is also a very important step. Professors from prestigious universities receive a LOT of emails and yours may just be easily ignored depending on your attitude. Depending on the university's guidelines, you'll have to first introduce yourself to the university's international office ("Kokusai-ka" or 国際課), which will then contact your potential advisor.

You should be very humble and polite. Of course they might not expect it from an international student, but it will give you a positive image. Overdo it and you'll look desperate.

In the first email, apologize for the sudden contact, introduce yourself, write up which university you're coming from, from which major. Say that you've read [potential advisor]'s articles about [research theme] and that you're interested in doing research under his/her guidance, and ask if that is possible (the lab may be full capacity). Do NOT attach anything in the first email, it's suspicious and will look rude (like you're pushing something for them to do for you).

If you are lucky, you might receive a reply within 2 weeks. If it is positive, you may be asked to send your research plan, academic transcript, TOEFL or JLPT certificate and possibly be asked some questions via email or Skype. At this stage you will probably be fine.

In case your first option gets rejected, write another email from scratch for other potential advisors (read his/her papers, etc - they suspect when the email looks like it had just one or two names changed, it suggests that you send the same email for many other places and conveys that you are desperate).

In any case, be prepared not to receive any reply at all. I tried contacting over 15 potential advisors/laboratories and got replies from 3 of them. I got rejected from one because the lab was full, and from another one because I didn't have a JLPT certificate.

  Is there any taught master program in Japan?

I'm currently in a taught masters program in STEM field. We have many lectures, tests, appointments, seminars, etc. pretty much like undergrad, except that grading is mostly done by assignments instead of tests. Of course, it will depend on your university and department.


Swiss cheese holes in my education. Do I go back and fill them?

First, for context, I'd disagree strongly with a too strict notion that "mastery" is required before "moving forward", for several reasons. It is easier to understand the purpose of something after one sees how it is used. It is all too easy to acquire a fake mastery that is not functional, but only refers to some artificial tasks created for a textbook, and, all the worse, may be wastes of time. And, finally, the kind of "mastery" we are often led to think we should attain is basically unattainable... That is, unless one keeps ones list of things-to-master really short, very elementary, and uncomplicated, this "mastery" is just unreachable on the terms a novice or even journeyman conceives.

So... don't over-interpret "mastery".

On the other hand, _of_course_ it is good to go back and fill in. And one will find oneself doing this many times, as one discovers, upon "stressing" one's knowledge, that what one thought one knew "well enough" was not quite good enough.

For that matter, even with an excellent memory, things slip out of a person's head.

My bottom line recommendation is to maintain (at least) two "threads", one to review and backfill, the other to move forward.

The latter is surprisingly useful at helping review make more sense! :)


I put these on my CV as peer-reviewed publications and label them as 'commentary'. I also label other works 'review', 'empirical', etc. as appropriate. The title can also be used to signal the type of work, like "[Title]: Commentary on Zeller et al., 2018".


How relevant is "moving on" as an argument in peer review?

The way I see it is as follows: the reviewer's primary job is to judge whether the main claims made in the paper are borne out by the evaluation. The editor's primary job is to fill the conference/ journal with the papers that had the most interesting claims and passed review.

If you send in a paper, and the reviewer complains that additional research is needed, you actually have two options: you can add the research, or you can reduce the strength of your claim. If the editor complains that the claims are not interesting enough, you should look for a less prestigious venue.

So in short, it's perfectly fine to publish unfinished or negative research, but you need to be very honest about it.


Is it a bad thing to send an application for a master thesis late at night?

Officially and practically, no. Applicants often worry about things that faculty hardly have time to even think through. Your application is understandably your central focus but it can't be the faculty's with the same level of attention.

In a nutshell, on the faculty side, I really can't imagine a colleague would care about that unless there were instructions for the time etc.


In a submitted manuscript, how (un)usual is a note "will be inserted in the final manuscript", or other meta-information to editor&reviewers?

I recently had a similar problem and submitted a paper including the sentence:

  Data for the analysis has been submitted to Dryad (http://datadryad.org) with DOI: xxxxxxxx (Note: data will be uploaded at publication, during the review found in Appendix A).

The journal did not have any problem with this, and I have now recieved the reviews. However, I contacted the journal beforehand and asked about this, since Dryad only accepts data from papers that are published or in press. In this case I included the data as an extra, review-only, appendix, and the need for this will naturally depend on specific journal policies.

Only communicating this information to the editor (your last option) should also be fine. However, for the reviewers it can be useful to have the information in the actual manuscript when they are reading, instead of buried in an email from the editor.


How damaging are writing errors like typos in faculty application documents?

To me, typos in a faculty application suggest one or more of the following:

Detail - you do not pay enough attention to details.
Rigor - you were not rigorous enough to ensure the document is error free by double checking and letting other people check the document.
Importance - if the application was important enough you would have made sure it is error-free, therefore it may not be very important to you.
Culture - you come from a culture where typos are acceptable, and did not bother to adapt.

Having said all that, in the end it is just a tiny factor amongst many more important factors. If you are awesome, this probably won't matter.


Professor is planning on delaying our paper

Doing research means working on questions for which the answer
is unknown, and in fact may remain unknown for a long time.
Unfortunately, this simple fact is only moderately compatible
with project-based research funding, since funding agencies
would like to know right now what you're going to discover
in the next two years. Some funding agencies have a rather
relaxed attitude in this matter: My late doctoral advisor
used to begin every project progress report with the statement
"We had promised to investigate A, but in the meantime our
interests have changed, and so we've rather investigated B"
and he always got away with it, because the funding agency was
only interested in the number of publications. But if a
funding agency gets picky when comparing project proposals
and progress reports, things become more difficult. In such cases,
researchers are often tempted to simplify
writing the progress reports by
putting those problems into the project proposal for which they
already have a rather good idea how to solve them, but no publication yet.


How to approach someone who has stopped replying?

If this is a high-profile researcher, they are likely quite overcommitted and may have indeed legitimately accidentally missed connections.  When dealing with somebody like this, you also need assume that you need to be the one taking the initiative in contact until you've have an established working relationship.

But it also might be that they are uninterested, and either too polite, conflict averse, or culturally trained such that they are unwilling to express their lack of interest directly.

How to tell the difference?  I personally tend to follow the maxim: "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action."  After the third failure to connect (or whatever number you set as your threshold), then it doesn't really matter whether they're flaky or evasive: it's not productive to pursue the connection any further without some sort of positive encouragement from the other side.


Is it acceptable to graphically illustrate the steps of a research proposal?

We have used several graphics in a proposal:

to illustrate the problem to be solved
to illustrate extensions of the state-of-the-art,
to illustrate dependencies and relationships between several subprojects.

This was a large joint project (collaborative research centre) in computer science sponsored by DFG (German Research Foundation).
The application was successful, but I don't know whether the taste of reviewers for other disciplines or funding agencies differs.


Is above average number of years spent on PhD considered a red flag in future academia or industry positions?

It's well known that there is a significant amount of variability in the time that it takes for a student to finish a PhD, particularly in programs with more rigorous standards. My own graduate department, for example, preferred people to finish in 5-6 years, but was somewhat infamous for allowing some to take as long as 10 years.

In fact, I would venture to say that it is the opposite. I would typically consider it a red flag if somebody took a shorter than usual amount of time to obtain their Ph.D. Typically if you have a really good student, you don't graduate them faster, but instead you graduate them in the normal time but with a much stronger portfolio of results. Shorter-than-usual Ph.D. studies, on the other hand, are typically a sign of somebody rushing to depart the program by meeting the bare minimum of requirements.

Bottom line: if you've done good work and have good publications, the fact that you took one more year than is typical for your department will barely even be noticed, let alone held to be significant. This is even more true for most industry jobs.

If somebody does actually ask you, however, focus on the first of your reasons (time spent figuring out an appropriate area of focus) rather than the latter reason (time spent working on out-of-work projects), as the second may be of legitimate concern to future employers.


Importance of Mathematical Maturity for CS Grad School Admissions

I'd go with the graduate-level class.  But just taking one class is not likely to make much difference.

What you really need is for your recommendation letters to specifically address this point.  Nobody will believe your claim that your grades do not accurately reflect your true level of mathematical maturity (although you can certainly demonstrate your mathematical maturity in your research statement).  But people will generally believe your references if they make the same claim, especially if they back up their claim with specific and credible evidence of your mathematical maturity, and more generally of your potential for research excellence.

This will only happen if you develop a closer collaborate relationship with your professors.  Don't just sit in the back of the random-processes class and get an A.  Talk with the instructor; ask cogent questions; ask about research opportunities, or at least directions for further study.  Impress them.  Give them proof.


Should I mention professors in a Masters application?

You can certainly mention a professor and his/her research in your statement of purpose as long as it is genuine.  This can show that you are a) familiar with the school/the department and its faculty and b) you have a good understanding of the field and your interests within it.  There is certainly nothing wrong with saying 'One of the reasons that I chose this school is because Prof. X's work on XYZ is very interesting, and I would love the opportunity to learn from him/her and his/her work.'  Don't, however, try to name-drop for the sake of it.

You should also make sure that you do a little research to make sure that that professor is actually still going to be doing work during your time at that school.  It looks kind of bad if you say 'I really want to work with Prof. A,' but Prof A is going to be on sabbatical or something like that.  This kind of information is not always readily available.

In short, don't be afraid of mentioning a prof if you really mean it and are really excited, but don't look up someone from each school you are applying to for the sake of putting a name in your paper.


Writing a Personal Statement (Mathematics Ph.D Programs)

Honestly, it seems like you are worrying more than you should about not having chosen a specialization.  I wouldn't worry about that: that's not something which is expected of students finishing a BA in the US.  Even if you think you have, changing your mind about it is something which is normal and expected.  So, it's very reasonable to worry about having less background than other students, but more in the context of general preparedness, rather than your personal statement.

So what should you write in your personal statement?  Generally it's for things that the person considering your application would like to know, but which aren't clear from the other parts of your application. Things like: explaining about something unusual in your career path, like taking time off after finishing your degree; what your ultimate career plans are; how you became interested in mathematics; how your undergraduate research projects went and what you did in them; any work you did outside of courses (which is relevant to math! No one cares about your great success in the marching band). I have to admit, generally these personal statements contain no useful information, and a lot more attention is paid to transcripts and letters.  I generally only read them carefully if there's something I'm confused about with the application they should explain.


How and why would I "claim ownership" of a paper on arXiv?

By claiming ownership the paper appears in your arXiv account, and you can manage it there (e.g. uploading a new version or adding a journal reference). It also means it will appear in the list of papers associated to your arXiv author identifier, which is especially useful if you have a common name.

You can claim ownership by logging in to your arXiv account (create one first if you don't have one yet), and then click on the "Claim ownerhsip" link. It will ask for the paper ID and the password.

Edit: As Wrzlprmft pointed out in the comments, it will likely also add to your endorsement record, meaning that you are less likely to need to be endorsed for future submissions you make yourself, and will sooner be able to endorse others.


Video editing software for pre-recorded lectures

I have found Kdenlive to be a very good video-editing solution on Linux. It is free and open-source, with an active help forum and good documentation. It probably has many more features than you will ever need, but I didn't find the learning curve to be too high as a new user.


Non academic career options for PhD in Math

It really depends on the kind of mathematics you do. For example, if your work involved probability/statistics, or even certain kinds of topology, you could get a job at pretty much any tech company doing machine learning. If you were doing stochastics, then Wall street will beckon.

If your Ph.D has a computational side to it (say in numerical methods for example) the national labs in the US are interested in your expertise.

And so on and so forth. The fact that you're doing an MS in Computer science makes your profile look even stronger.

While this might be viewed as a strongly biased suggestion, you might consider a Ph.D in Computer Science: there are many parts of computer science that are all mathematics, and you'd get to do what you love, as well as getting the CS branding that will make getting an industry job way easier.


Can work experience overcome bad undergrad grades for admissions to masters programs in Germany?

The answer to all your questions depends on the university. There are only some rough standards which needs to be implemented by the universities.

If you consider computer science at my university the state dictated that one has to have a good bachelor to enroll in the master courses. Now there are two possibilities: Either you have a grade better than 2.5 (which is a B- in the European grading system and considered barely good) or you have to give reasons why your bachelor is weaker and then a committee has to decide whether you are allowed to enroll. But I know that other universities and even other departments at my university have other rules.


Is it okay to ask advisor how I am doing with my research?

Yes, this is a fine question to ask, although I might phrase is slightly differently:

  "How happy are you with the progress that I am making?"

which makes it a little more open-ended and focuses the question more on process and progress.


How to cite musical score in Turabian given the following options?

A musical score is cited like a book in this style.

Here's an example from Depauw University Libraries -

The footnote is in the form

  Composer First Name Last, Name of Musical Work
  (City, State: Publisher, Year).

e.g.,

  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Eine kleine Nachthmusik, K. 525
  (Bryn Mawr, PA:  Theodore Presser, 1960).

The bibliography is in the form

  Composer Last Name, First.  Name of Musical Work.
                  City, State (if city isn't well known): Publisher, Year.

e.g.,

  Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus.  Eine kleine Nachtmusik, K. 525.
                  Bryn Mawr, PA:  Theodore Presser, 1960.

(The Depauw site has additional information on various special cases.)


Arbitrary units or unitless plot to protect data?

If that paper is submitted to IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques (and judging by comments, this journal should be a decent enough fit for the purpose of this discussion), you would have to provide the measurement results. The journal guidelines explicitly ask for it and no arbitrary units or unitless plots will suffice.

Reproducibilty of the research is very important. And obfuscating the data certainly goes against it. If this plot & experiment itself is crucial for the paper – and you are not allowed by any means to disclose the parameters required to reproduce your experiment – you don't have a paper. Which might be sad, but that's not "the science" and "scientific process" fault, but ITAR (if that's the case) and yours, by (un)willingly accepting their terms.

One might judge that this is a conference paper, not a full journal one. But I, personally, prefer to have very similar standards for both conference & journal papers – and a lot of conferences have a similar (if not better) review process.


How to formulate in academic writing when one comes up with a novel approach

It's not enough to just say that your approach is novel.  You need to make a convincing case that your approach is actually novel.  This requires a thorough literature review of existing techniques for the problem you are attacking, together with direct comparisons between your technique and each of those existing techniques.

The message you want to send is "I have read every paper on this topic, and none of them do this thing that I'm about to do."  The novice reader will just believe you, but the expert reader, who has probably spent decades thinking about your problem, will look for their favorite handful of papers in your survey.  Make sure they find them.

You also need to understand the standards for novelty in your field.  The same technique can be considered completely revolutionary in one field and a standard modification of classical textbook methods in another.  (Yes, both views can be correct.)

Of course, the real reason to prepare this literature review is to convince yourself that your approach is actually novel.  Because it probably isn't.  Most “novel” techniques aren't.


Should I give up on pursuing a PhD in Europe if I performed poorly in my master?

Anecdotal answer: I did pretty horribly in my first higher-level, bachelors mathematics courses, partly for health reasons and partly because I had never been challenged like that before.  I also performed horribly the first year of graduate school (equivalent to first year of masters in Europe).  I had to learn (not re-learn, but learn for the first time) basic proof techniques in analysis.  Not only did I eventually get a PhD, but also subsequent postdocs, and I have a growing number of publications.  Some of us just start off a bit behind and have to work harder to catch up.

At the same time, academia isn't the only place to do research.  There are many research-like positions in industry.  If research is your goal, do research.  You don't need a PhD to do research (but it can help in some cases).


What are your thoughts about "Research Assistant Professor"?

I don't think there can be a general answer about future outcomes for a position like this. It seems like a bigger investment for the department than a typical post doc spot, though, which may be a positive.
I would look at the history of the position in the relevant department. Are there tenure-track faculty there that came from this path? I'd also ask current tenured faculty in the department, not just in leadership, for their candid opinions on the future of tenure-track slots in the department. It might be that these positions exist for political reasons that make future tenured spots unlikely, or it may be that it's a good introductory role.
Good luck.


Reproducing work of others - name them as conflicts of interest?

I don't know about general guidelines, but since the pros and cons are both reasonable, I would delegate this issue to the journal's editor.
You could mention it in the letter to the editor (and even list your pros and cons) but leave the decision to them.


Is there any benefit of being treated as "professor" by students and admin?

A certain amount of separation from your students has value. You have some power over their future, for example. The use of usted implies respect as well. This is useful if any conflicts arise in the future where you need to take a role of authority.

But, having a friendly and open relationship with your students is also useful if it gives them the "permission" to seek you out for help when they need it. Mostly I'm thinking of academic help. Even if they have personal problems (health, family,...) it is useful to them to know that you understand difficulties that may affect their performance. You can encourage them in such situations.

Sometimes you need to be understanding. And sometimes you need to speak somewhat strictly. Both can advance their educational pursuit. Less frequently you need to speak with full authority. Don't make that impossible, should the need arise.

So, a small gap is useful, and too wide a gap is probably not optimal. There are some students who will try to take advantage of you (e.g., by trying have you change grades) if you seem too much like "one of the gang".

Note that I was always Dr. Buffy or Prof. Buffy to my undergraduate and even MS level students. But with doctoral students I (and my colleagues) more or less insisted on first names. But the expectation was that they had achieved the status of colleagues at that point and we wanted them to think that way.


How to decide between sending paper to a specialized journal or to a journal with broader audience?

I tend to think that in most cases, the specialized/broad dichotomy is not very relevant. The most important point is to send it to an interested editor; if the most relevant editor for a paper happens to be at a general journal, you will often be better of sending your paper there.

I would consider two exceptions to this principle. First, top specialized journals are usually less reputed than top generalist journals, so if you get a truly impressive result, you may want to get the best of it by sending it to a top generalized journal. Second, some generalist journals will turn back papers that seems much more specialized than the average math paper (e.g. when the basic objects you study are unheard of by most mathematicians).


How to cite my earlier paper which is submitted to the same conference?

One solution would be to post one or both papers to the arXiv, and then cite the arXiv versions.

IEEE does allow posting to the arXiv with certain terms. From their FAQ:

  Can an author post his manuscript on a preprint server such as ArXiv?

  Yes. The IEEE recognizes that many authors share their unpublished manuscripts on public sites. Once manuscripts have been accepted for publication by IEEE, an author is required to post an IEEE copyright notice on his preprint. Upon publication, the author must replace the preprint with either 1) the full citation to the IEEE work with Digital Object Identifiers (DOI) or a link to the paper’s abstract in IEEE Xplore, or 2) the accepted version only (not the IEEE-published version), including the IEEE copyright notice and full citation, with a link to the final, published paper in IEEE Xplore.


How to deal with class partner who always wants to answer professor's question?

To answer your first question, there's nothing stopping you from answering or asking questions in class. If the other student answers questions by raising her hand, you could do so too; if she speaks out to answer questions, you could do so too.

There is also no way you can ask someone else to change the way they behave in class as long as it is not disruptive to others. Just as you have your own reasons for wanting to answer questions, so may your classmate - maybe she wants a letter of recommendation too; maybe she just is the kind of student who naturally tends to voice out her thoughts while learning; maybe she just doesn't like keeping silent when she knows or thinks she knows the answers. Do you really expect to ask someone to not answer something so that you could get a letter of recommendation?

To answer your broader question, trying to impress a professor by answering questions in class isn't probably the most efficient way to go about it. Make sure you get high scores in their homework/exams. If you get a good enough grade, you might even request doing a research project with them (if that's where you are interested in going). Professors understand that several bright students may stay silent in class for various reasons - maybe they are shy, maybe they aren't comfortable speaking publicly in English, or whatever other reason.


will having a different academic name than official name hurt?

Many academics have had multiple names because of marriage, immigration, or other changes. I don't anticipate this being a problem in your case. As AndreasBlass suggested in the comments, just mention it in your application materials somewhere.


In my opinion, it really depends on the type of academic job that you want/are able to land. Professional life in (1) a top tier research university, is different than in (2) a medium tier Ph.D. granting department, is different than in (3) a Master's granting department with a more modest research agenda, is different than in (4) a predominantly teaching oriented, four year college.

The teaching load/research expectation continuum certainly varies across the four. On one end of the spectrum, say at (1)-(2), the teaching load will be light (as you describe) but with research expectations in terms of papers in top tier journals and landing external funding that is very high. However, even if the actual course load is less, you will spend a chunk of time working with graduate students in reading courses, research seminars, their thesis, etc. As you move from (2) to (3), the research expectations decrease as teaching loads increase. In (4), you very well may have no requirement to produce original mathematical research in the form of journal articles, but instead be expected to demonstrate "continued scholarly activity" which can take a variety of forms. On the other hand, you may be teaching 4 classes a semester.

Pay, generally---but not always and certainly not uniformly---decreases from (1) to (4). The autonomy of academic life is usually very attractive and serves to counterbalance a salary that is less than what people in some mathematical specialties could garner in industry.

In my opinion, the type of job one shoots for (and will eventually find success/satisfaction in) is a combination of one's passions (research vs. teaching vs both), innate talents (again, in both research and teaching), aspirations, competitiveness, willingness to deal with pressure, and geography, to name a few.

As a nod to pragmatism, one thing to keep in mind is that the vast majority of jobs are in (4) and (3). Jobs in (1) and (2) are highly competitive to land. I have many friends in all four categories who are happy and very few (none?) who are unhappy, although admittedly the latter category probably self-selected out of academia.

Finally, since you are a third year undergrad, you will get a MUCH better sense of how much you really like mathematics in graduate school. During that time all of this should crystallize greatly. You will also get to see the profession much more up close than you do as an undergrad. It is great that you are thinking of these things now; keep your eyes and ears open in the coming years.

This is all just my two cents. Certainly others may have very different opinions, experiences, and perspectives...


How to politely ask for feedback following a job interview

I had a job interview three weeks back. To date I have not heard anything from them.

That really depends on the place. In most cases, I would assume to not be the first choice if not hearing anything after three weeks. However, there certainly are departments and research institutes where it takes much longer than three weeks to get any official decision on the road.

In general, and this is true for academic and industrial jobs alike, asking for "feedback" on how you did at a job interview is usually not useful as long as you do not have personal contacts to an insider (e.g., somebody on or close to the search committee). If you get any answer from the official channels at all, it will likely consist of platitudes. For instance, "the search is still ongoing" if no official notifications have been sent out, or some generic reason if you ask afterwards why you have been rejected: "Although you have been a very strong candidate, we have chosen to go with a different candidate due to a better match with the department's future development plans."

I understand that it is very awkward for a candidate to not know why they have not been selected (were you indeed just not the best match? was your job talk weak? did you not interview well? were you perceived as arrogant or not nice in some other way?). However, giving this kind of feedback truthfully is unlikely to help the employer in any way, and has a very real danger of backfiring. In the best case, it may lead to annoying discussions (e.g., you tell a candidate that she was not selected due to her research output being below the hiree's, and she starts arguing and negotiating about how this is not the case). In the worst case, and this may be true particularly if somebody from a protected class is involved, it may lead to a law suite.


Visiting assistant professor position vs Post-doc position

If your goal is to get a TT job at an R1 university, you would be a lunatic to choose a job with 3-3 teaching load with no research support over one that is research focused.  I'm extremely confused about why you're even asking this question.

EDIT: To specifically address "if getting a VAP job for a year would enhance my resume (to be able to compete for a TT position) over having a post-doc,"  the answer from everything I know is a resounding "no."  It will just look like you couldn't get a decent postdoc.  Maybe teaching 1 or 2 classes if you can arrange it with one of the postdocs would be a net positive, but the VAP job you're describing would be a disaster for your research, and that's what gets you the sort of job you say you want.  Maybe you're extremely productive and in a very in demand field, but if your research is good enough that you can take a year off (effectively) and still get a TT job at an R1 university, then you can potentially get an even better job (or be in a better negotiating position, or be in a better position to get tenure) if you keep your research up for another year.  Certainly very few people are so productive that they can afford to take such a huge risk.


What if my focus of undergraduate research does not match what I want to study in the graduate program?

I can't speak to psychology in particular, but I did a bunch of undergrad research that ended up being totally unrelated to my Master's and PhD work. Any research experience will help strengthen your application, and nobody expects you to have it all figured out during an undergrad degree. Some programs even allow for time to choose a topic in the first year of grad studies.


Relevance of Advanced Placement courses to graduate admissions

As mentioned in the comments above, the Advanced Placement (AP) program offers students the opportunity to earn college credits for courses completed during high school by successfully passing an exam of difficult comparable to that of a college course.

Directly, AP courses do not influence graduate admissions, since they are generally excluded from cumulative averages. However, they indirectly can influence master's and PhD admissions, because the ability to place out of lower-level courses can open up the possibility to complete more advanced courses in a given discipline, or allow for enough "freedom" in the course plan to allow time for graduate-level coursework. For example, I had sufficient AP credits to opt out of a number of courses as an undergraduate; as a result of this, I was able to take three different graduate-level courses plus an advanced undergraduate math elective that otherwise I would not have had time for.


What does it mean when the reviewer says "the results are rather straightforward"?

Offhand, it could mean two things:

The results are to be expected, i.e. not surprising. Normally not a good comment to receive since it implies the paper is not interesting.
The results are gotten in straightforward fashion. For example, if you were asked to take the derivative of an elementary function, there's a well-known series of rules that will lead to the derivative. If the function is complicated enough then taking the derivative will also be complicated - but it is straightforward. Apply the rules correctly and you will get there.

The rest of the sentence leads me to suspect the second interpretation is correct.
If the second interpretation is indeed correct, it wouldn't be something to worry about, and your attention is better focused on what the rest of the review says.


If a potential professor said he did not accept any more PhD students this year, could I reach to another professor?

If this is the US, then it is common for students to be accepted into a doctoral program without knowing who their advisor might be. You will be assigned an advisor by the department initially so that you get course advice, etc. But that may not be the person you actually want to work with.

Once you are accepted into the program, you have some time to look around and match up with a professor who will be your dissertation advisor, dropping the old, temporary, advisor.

So, no, you don't need to contact another professor now in order to apply. Once you are accepted you will want to attend to that, of course.

Note that the practice varies by country, by university, and by field. What I describe isn't universal. In some situations you do need to know which research group you will be part of in order to be accepted, but the response you got suggests that the situation here is as I described.


Are there resources for learning how to write a scientific paper?

Some resources on writing mathematics, which I assume will be useful in mathematical physics, are:

Donald E. Knuth, Tracy L. Larrabee, and Paul M. Roberts, Mathematical Writing, (Washington, D.C.: Mathematical Association of America, 1989), ii+115pp. ISBN 0-88385-063-X. [You can download this (minus illustrations) from Knuth's website: http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/klr.html ]

P.R. Halmos, "How to write mathematics". Enseignement Math. (2) 16 1970 123–152. [There are copies of this floating around online; I'm not linking because I'm not sure of their copyright status.]

However, in my own experience, guides like these are useful because they point out (1) a lot of things to avoid, and (2) a relatively small number of useful tips and tricks. Developing a good writing style is best accomplished by reading as much good writing as you can (including both scientific and other scholarly writing), writing as best you can, and seeking as much good feedback on your work as you can.

See also Jean-Pierre Serre's lecture "How to write mathematics badly", which is informative, funny, and (since his examples are taken from experience) tragic. Look out for the instance he highlights of "without" being abbreviated to "with."


Conventions regarding listing grant applications/funded grants on a scientific CV

My philosophy about such issues is that you can list everything on a CV, as long as you make clear what your actual role was, i.e., you may list any project or grant that officially recognizes you in some function, but of course you cannot imply that you were the PI in all of these projects if this was not the case.

Further, make sure that you list only "official" responsibilities on the CV - it may be true that you are doing all the work for a project, but that does not make you the official PI. Saying or implying otherwise is not good.

Finally, note that different roles in a project can be used to illustrate different things for you as a researcher. Personally, I have two different sections for projetcs on my CV:

Projects, which lists all funded projects I was ever involved with, plus my official role. This shows that I am experienced in working in different roles in different national and international research teams.
Successful grant proposals, which lists all successful project proposals that I was officially recognized as an author, i.e., either coordinator, PI, or co-investigator. This shows that I am able to get funding for my research.


Has anyone transfered from an MPhil to a Phd?

Some programs are designed like that, start on MPhil and transfer at a suitable point to PhD.

The suitable point is usually agreed with your advisor.

You need to discuss with your advisor and plan accordingly.


What is the difference between predatory publishers and vanity presses?

I've always seen the terms as somewhat distinct.

A predatory journal seeks to deceive and create the impression of publishing a peer-reviewed article. I take the predatory journals to always be engaged in a conspiracy to defraud the academic process (where authors can range from stooges to willing co-conspirators). Here, the reason why authors pay can be imitation of Gold-standard open-access or it can be pay-to-play to defraud their employers.

In contrast, vanity presses are sometimes just really low-tier publishers without malice. I don't think they always are trying to create the impression that what they produce is high quality academic work. The failing from an academic perspective of a vanity press is that they don't have robust (or any?) standards for what they will publish in book form and they don't engage in academically sufficient (or any?) editing practices of what they publish. The product on offer is you can say "I published a book". I think the business model here is that vanity publications don't make publishers money, so they instead charge the authors to break even (or make a profit?).

Regarding your point about a vanity presses willingness to publish an article, sure they can print it up for you -- as a book, but I severely doubt they are going to make it seem like it's volume 4 of the international journal of basketweaving and wickerwork.

I'm sure it varies by field, but in my field as I understand it, journal articles in top-tier journals tell us far more about the quality of someone's work than even books in top-tier presses, because presses publish things of sufficient quality that make them money. As you go down the scale on each side, incentives and motives shift, but the article vs. book distinction remains meaningful.


Does a prestigious internship (at google) help for PhD programs in Computer Science?

Take the internship. It's not so much about whether it helps for graduate admissions or not, but rather how it is going to broaden your horizons. If you do the REU program, when you start the PhD, you're going to be doing similar things. On the other hand taking the internship gives you firsthand experience you cannot otherwise get:

What working in the real world is like
What skills are actively useful in industry
What skills you currently lack, but can learn in a PhD
What kind of job you can do if you get a PhD, but can't do now

(This neglects the financial aspect entirely, plus the fact that you're still going to be learning things during the internship which you can write into your application.) These things are likely to change your view of the PhD entirely. In the extreme case, you might find you don't want to do a PhD anymore. Less extremely, you'll have a better idea why you're studying, what you want to learn, and how that is going to help you.

tl; dr: do the different thing, because it'll act as a great enabler even if it's not immediately helpful.


In what ways would co-authoring a graduate research paper as an undergraduate help me?

It doesn't exactly "allow you to get a Ph.D quicker". However, you would have more experience in academic writing than if you hadn't contributed to the writing in the paper. Writing a paper isn't just "writing" a report - a lot of analysis, interpretation, and technical work goes into papers and these are skills you want to have as a Ph.D student. Being a co-author on a paper will make your application stand out.

If you go into any job, you can list this as a project that you have worked on. If you are familiar with the contents of the paper, then you can talk about it as if it was another project that you've worked on. Having your name on the paper is verifiable and can look pretty impressive especially if you are familiar with the details.


pursuing PhD without relevant bachelor degree

From the research I found all I can say
This a list of United States universities with GIS PhD programs

You have a MSc in GIS even with pass, just go ahead and submit your undergraduate transcript. The admissions committee will be expecting to see one (BSc Or MSc) and your application might be screened out before consideration simply because this transcript is missing.

The fact that you've had GIS master may help to overcome the bad impression left by your BSc (even in my way of thinking there is no bad impression).
Having a good letters of recommendation and one or more publications (of high quality) will help a lot more.

You certainly need to address this matter in your application, mostly by highlighting your recent MSc in GIS and explaining what has changed in your life so that you are going to be the good student.


I supervise high school research students every summer. It is very rewarding. But, it is a lot of work, so keep that in mind when deciding whether this is something you are interested in.

Besides for the obvious issues (lacking background knowledge, field-specific skills, and other preparation), I find that high school students tend to need more emotional support from me than other students I work with, so that is something to consider as well.

I interview the students and ask them questions to assess their personalities. I look for the following qualities specifically in would-be high school researchers:

Good attitude. Younger students can be a little bit immature, and this often manifests as a bad attitude. Working with a high school student who does not have a good attitude, does not take criticism well, and is just generally unpleasant to deal with, is just not worth it.
Willingness to fail. The high school students who do research are used to being very successful at everything they do. Sometimes, research can be paralyzing to them because they aren't going to be successful at it immediately (or even after lots of work).
Works hard. (Obvious prerequisite. Without hard work, they will not be successful and working with them will be a waste of my time.)

The high school students I supervise come to me through a K-12 outreach program run by my university. (When I am contacted by a student "out of the blue", I tell them to apply to that program.) As part of that, they commit to five weeks of full-time research in my lab in the summer. After this, some continue to work with me after school during the academic year. I would not agree to work with a high school student who wasn't prepared to make a specific commitment and identify in advance exactly when and for how long (at a minimum) they'll work on the project, because of the high probability that it would end up being a waste of my time.

Designing projects for high school students is actually similar to designing projects for undergrads, because the very strong high school students have a level of preparation that is similar to a typical undergrad sophomore or junior. The basic characteristics of such a project are:

It should be appealing to the student. (I want to encourage them to get into science, not scare them off by giving them a niche project with very little general appeal.)
It should be something that I am 100% confident I could do myself, if I had to. I should be able to plan out (roughly) in advance what they will do each week that they are with me, and even prepare general instructions for every week in advance (so that they are never waiting uselessly for me to tell them what to do next).
They should be able to start doing some useful work after only a few weeks of topic-specific preparation. I give them very focused homework - lecture videos to watch, things to read and answer questions about, tutorials to go through - and expect them to do that mostly independently before they start.
It should be a project where they will be able to make some progress after about five weeks of work.
The project should have potential to turn into something bigger, in case the student turns out to be amazing!

I also have a bunch of material about doing research in my field, and about expectations I have of students I supervise. I've prepared these for my undergrad students, so I already have them on hand for the high school students. It is very helpful for them to have these as reference.

P.S. I have co-authored two papers with my high school students. Don't underestimate them :)


Forget for a moment APA style and ask what a citation is: A way for a reader to find the source you used so that they can check themselves. APA and other styles provide sort of a general format to do this, but the essence and end-all is not that you slavishly follow the style, but that you follow the spirit of making a resource retrievable with the information you provide.

In the current context, that means that whether or not you provide the author's name doesn't really matter: Knowing the author doesn't help anyone find the postcard. So just go with what is suggested on the website to cite the document.


Copyright of reproduced figure which is based on data from other sources

If you literally reprint the older figure you need permission. However, if you generate a figure from data (that is properly cited) using a different algorithm, then the similarity of the figures is a coincidence. In such a case you have a new figure, not a copy of the old one.

There is another factor that may come in to play here. There is, if  I remember correctly, an exception in copyright law for things that can be stated in only one way. If there is only one way to say something, I believe the legal doctrine is, you can't copyright it. But I'm not a lawyer.

But if both the data and the algorithm are from the old paper it is murkier and you may need legal advice. A university research office can probably help.

"Looks very similar" is not the standard for copyright.

But your explanation of the figure's source should be clear from how you present it in your paper to avoid a claim.


Dealing with intern supervisor who underestimates my abilities

I don't say this lightly, but given everything you've said: I think you should probably quit the internship, or at least present the prospect of that to your supervisor.

Some key points:

1) You say it's a "voluntary internship".  Well, all academic internships are voluntary (I hope!), so I think what you mean is that you are a volunteer, i.e., unpaid.  [Added: I just looked this up, and apparently this phrase is quite common in parts of the anglophone world outside of North America.  Sorry.]

2) You wrote

  I was hoping that I was going to work on something productive, like a research project.

That is a very reasonable expectation for a volunteer internship.  However, the parameters of the job seem to be very different:

  I'm a trainee in the lab where programming lessons are held with lots of computers available for the students.

But that doesn't sound research-related at all: it sounds like you're in a teaching lab, not a research lab.  If you were actually doing the training, you'd be some kind of TA...without pay.  Unfortunately:

  On the contrary, my supervisor...constantly assigns chores to me (cleaning, being his personal mailman on the university etc).

Having to clean up a laboratory space after using it is very reasonable.  In my branch of the academic world at least (North America), cleaning up after other people is a paid job, not part of an internship.  Similarly, mail delivery is the sort of thing for which someone is usually paid an hourly wage.  If you are doing some of this and some of something else, it might be okay if the something else were especially attractive and rewarding.  But given that you're not, it sounds to me that you're simply being exploited.  Certainly I would feel that way if I were you.

  Yet, he only has one paper, published 20 years ago.

Yikes.  So the professor is probably not even research-active, or at least not to the level necessary for it to be plausible that he is the head of some kind of research team.  He is not a good choice to supervise your research.  In view of everything else you've said, I'm afraid that it seems likely that the business about your having a "proper foundation" -- especially in the context of his willful ignorance of the skills that you already have -- is just an excuse.

I would go to this professor and say that there's been a misunderstanding.  You thought you were getting involved in a research internship, and as it hasn't panned out that way, you'd like to give notice.  If he wants to change your mind, have him mention not just the prospect of future research "when you're ready", but actually nail down research that you can get started on right away.

It would also be good to speak to at least one of the other faculty members you've mentioned.  I don't know where in the world you're writing from, so it's possible that your local academic culture is very different from mine.  But unless you find out that it would be a big bridge-burning mistake to quit your internship, I think you should be angling for that outcome.


What are the pros and cons of coursework at the doctoral level?

I think that which way one goes on the question has a lot to do with whether you are dealing with a US-style model (long program bundling Masters and Ph.D.) or a European-style model (short program assuming Masters already completed).

To my mind, the main pro of doctoral coursework is that it ensures graduates have a solid general grounding in the field at some depth, and cannot only hyper-specialize.  Complementarily, the main con is that coursework interferes with research by taking time that would otherwise be devoted to it, thereby stretching out the time expected in a program.

In a US-style program, a large amount of coursework is pretty much always included and the program is expected to take longer accordingly.  In a European-style program, I think one can make a reasonable argument that there should be no coursework, as that should have been completed during one's Masters.


Submitting an improved result before the acceptance notice of another result

Personally, when it comes to conference publications I don't worry about this type of issue.

First, there is typically a fairly low chance that the second submission will affect the chances of the first: even in the unlikely chance that the same reviewer is looking at both papers at the same time, they are likely to understand that the second paper builds on the first: if they like the second, they'll probably suggest accepting the earlier result as well.

Second, and more importantly, conference publications are typically not the final form of a strong result.  Rather, the final form is the "extended version" journal paper that follows and supersedes the conference paper.
As such, if the second conference accepts while the first conference rejects, then there is still a clear path to publication for the results sent to the first conference: combining them together with the other results into a strong journal paper.  If the two results are related, the I think that you should be considering doing this in any case, given the typically larger scope of journal papers.

It is true that, in the worst case, it will give you one less conference publication for your C.V. If you're doing good research, though, that's not a big loss, since the work will be superseded by the journal paper in any case. Certainly it is less of a loss than not submitting to the second conference and getting rejected from the first (assuming both conferences are relatively similar in quality).


If you are "on leave," meaning that you still have an appointment at your primary institution that you can expect to return to, then yes, you may use both affiliations.  Sometimes it is explicitly noted that you are on leave from this appointment, but that depends on journal policies.


Do graduate students typically finish coursework?

In every program where I have been a student, a TA, or a faculty member, the default expectation has been "Yes."

That being said, individual instructors or departments may have different policies. I have definitely known of places where balancing coursework and research was intended to be a component of the "trial by fire", and failing there was taken as a bad sign. At the same time, most programs I have been in have been fairly generous with extensions and the like.

But yes, if you're taking my course, I'm expecting you to do the coursework. If you're not, you should at the very least let me know and talk to me about it.


My advisor shared my unpublished/ongoing work with another student without notice

There are two things that you need to address here: your advisor sharing your work with the other student, and the other student's request.

Regarding your advisor sharing your work, you should talk to your advisor about this but do NOT express anger. S/he was probably doing what they thought was best and did not realize it would upset you, and it is VERY important to keep a good relationship with your advisor, so I wouldn't start a fight over this. Just a simple "I appreciate this opportunity to help them with my methods, but I would appreciate it if in the future you would check with me first before showing my drafts to someone." or something similar. Keep it low-key, do not go in angry or expecting an apology, just express your preference for how situations like this should be handled in the future.

Regarding the second situation with the other student -- ask them if they'd like you as a collaborator on their paper! It's never too early to start working collaboratively!


How to reject an advisor for master's thessis?

A simple note of thanks, but that you have made another arrangement, is enough. Only the future will tell whether you made a mistake or not.
Don't worry about it. The professor will be fine. There is nothing insulting or unusual about what you've done.


Does adding professors' names in the acknowledgement section influence acceptance of a paper?

For reputable journals, including the names of prominent researchers should not influence the acceptance of a paper, and in the top tier journals I expect this would certainly be the case.

It would be easy (but not ethical) to include the names of prominent or famous researchers in acknowledgements or as co-authors in the hope of influencing a decision for acceptance but reputable journals will not publish something that does not meet their publication standard.

If prominent researchers have provided feedback or otherwise helped with the writing (but not to the extent that they would be co-authors) then it is appropriate to include them in the acknowledgements.

Also, some journals only forward the text (without authors or acknowledgements) to reviewers in the interests of having impartial reviews, so that the reviewers will not see names and then not be influenced to recommend acceptance for a paper they might otherwise reject.

For not-so-reputable journals, they will publish regardless of the names (and if a paper includes the names of prominent researchers, the journal will sit securely behind the declaration that the submitting author has signed).


What a journal will publish is up to them. So, whether is is a problem is up to the editor(s). There is an advantage to readers if the two articles are in the same journal, but also if you just publish a single long article. I doubt that it matters much for your reputation whether the two articles are in the same or different journals. Having two papers instead of one is good, but having a longer, highly significant, single paper is also good.

But, let me point out that you may be building in a problem for yourself with two papers. It is possible (likely?) that the novelty and impact of each of the two papers is lower than that of a single paper. If that is the case, then you lessen the likelihood of either getting published. But you know the material and you may be fine here.

I would proceed strategically, however. First outline the two articles and get a good sense that both would pass the threshold of publish-ability. Your advisor can give good advice here. Then, develop one of the papers completely (rather than both) and get it off to the most appropriate journal. While that paper is in progress with the journal, develop the second paper. Make a decision about whether and where to send it based on what you hear about the first paper.

This gets you into the process earlier than if you spend the time to complete both papers and also gives you feedback.

In the worst case that the first paper is rejected or requires a lot of revision, you can then submit the other to the same or another journal, or, potentially, make a further strategic decision about how to proceed.

This seems, to me, to be a better option than spending time to develop both to the same level and sending them both together. But that is only an opinion.


How to deal with hostility from administrators when starting a new postdoc position?

Is this usual behavior

Short answer: no.
Longer answer: I have heard many stories of bad workplaces, both in academia and beyond. Even at good workplaces one occasionally encounters weird, rude, and borderline exploitative practices and staff/employer attitudes. So perhaps it’s not entirely accurate to say it’s not usual. But by and large, the situation that you describe does not sound good or normal. Self-respecting, respectable US institutions will generally go to great lengths to make their postdocs feel welcome, and will have an orderly, transparent hiring and onboarding process, clear policies, and staff that will communicate those policies to you upon request (even if not always in the most friendly or efficient manner). That’s quite a contrast with what you are describing.

and how could I deal with this most constructively?

Since you bring your own scholarship and generally sound like you are an attractive hire (and someone who has the self-confidence to not be shy about being one) I would guess that you have a fair amount of leverage in this situation, and will assume in this answer that that is the case - specifically, that you have a reasonable likelihood of finding alternate employment quickly if the current offer does not pan out. You need to put that leverage to use. The key is to make the professor/mentor-to-be aware that there is a minimum level of treatment that you are expecting from him and his department, and that should he fail to offer you credible assurance that you will be receiving that minimum, you have other options and will go elsewhere.
To put it bluntly (although in your communication with the professor you will want to be less blunt), you need to make a credible threat about withdrawing your acceptance of the offer to join the professor’s lab, assuming you’ve already accepted, or about not accepting if you haven’t yet.
In preparation for bringing this up, there are two crucial pieces of information you will need to know:

What are your options? Do you have other places you could quickly arrange to give you offers? Given that you have your own scholarship, I am hoping the answer is yes. But do your homework and explore this at least informally, by sending out feeler emails etc.

What are your minimum expectations from the current professor and his lab? That’s a personal question you’ll have to ask yourself and answer - it may include things like health benefits, a written contract or reference to a set of institutional policies governing your type of position, a conversion of the “visiting postdoc” to a title more commensurate with your qualifications, or similar things.

Once you know the answer to the above questions, ask to have a video meeting with the professor and politely bring up your concerns. Be tactful, and make sure to mention all the positive things that make you want to join his lab rather than someone else’s, but also make it clear to him that your concerns are serious enough that you can and likely will withdraw your agreement to join his lab if he does not take them seriously.
I mentioned the threat to bail out needs to be credible. That means it would be good to mention any specific facts at your disposal to make it seem like you have the ability to act on the threat (again, I am using blunt language - I trust that you can phrase it more diplomatically in the actual conversation). For example, you can mention names of specific places where you have a pending offer or promise of one, or at least adopt an attitude that signals your confidence that you can get another offer easily because you have your own funding.
Finally, part of making the threat credible is that you need to be mentally willing to act on it in the scenario where the conditions you are setting are not met. If you think you’re not willing, the approach I am proposing may not be right for you.
Good luck! I hope things work out. But cover your bases and be prepared for the possibility they may not. Honestly, this behavior does not sound normal, and should not (in an ideal world at least) be an acceptable way to treat people.


Would summarizing peer-reviewed articles on a blog be frowned upon?

How deep are your notes?

I can't give legal advice, of course, and application of "fair use" varies from country to country. In the United States, I can't imagine you ever getting into legal trouble for summarizing your notes at the level of roughly an abstract (i.e. one paragraph), perhaps a few summary paragraphs. Keep in mind that the actual abstracts are virtually always freely available. So the value that the publisher must protect is the detail in the actual paper, not the high level findings, etc.

If you're providing your own point-by-point commentary then my understanding is, that increases your flexibility under US fair use doctrine. Vigorous discussion and debate is part of why we publish, and citing someone verbatim (within reason) to reply to their points is generally smiled upon. So I'm pretty sure there's no legal problem with directly quoting a few sentences to respond to a point, as long as the total of all citations isn't more than say 10% of the paper.

Moving from legality to ethics, I see no problem unless you're quoting so much that most people won't bother to read the original. You're attributing sources so what you're doing is honest.

Practically, in US academia blogs are usually pretty worthless for hiring, tenure, and promotion decisions. I would consider them either a healthy hobby or an unhealthy time sink.


Ethics questions concerning a referee assignment

Publishing this result independently is questionable from an ethical perspective, especially because it sounds like:

(1) you would not have been working on this problem without having read their manuscript as part of your refereeing duties;

(2) the result is your justification, but it is for their claim, which they thought of;

(3) you raised this issue in your referee report, and presumably the acceptance of their manuscript depends on addressing it (in other words, it is not just tangentially related to their work, but affects their publication in a significant way).

You clearly have not done anything unethical in thinking about the problem, and you should seek credit for solving it. However, their paper, and your interaction with them as an anonymous referee, cannot go unacknowledged. How would you feel if you submitted a paper, a revision was requested on the basis of XYZ issue, and while you are trying to figure out XYZ, you find the next week that a solution to XYZ has suddenly appeared in the literature?

As for the appropriate resolution, that may depend on field and even journal. I recommend you contact the editor and explain what your situation. A reasonable compromise might be to publish this result in a separate paper collaboratively with the original authors (which obviously requires you to reveal your identity).


I went to college more than half a century ago. I accumulated and still have all (I think) of the books in math. But I never actually read any of those books front to back. They were used as a resource to make it possible to gain insight and to solve problems. Some of them were more useful on the insight part, of course.
But, to answer the question, one way to use the books is to let the lecture notes be your guide as to where you should focus within them. Use keywords from the lecture, along with the table of contents and the index to find the things you need to focus on.
Textbooks aren't novels. They provide the outline of a field and, hopefully, plenty of useful (hard) exercises to build skill. With enough hard work, insight may come.
Read textbooks in "snippets", stopping frequently to think about what you have read and find associated exercises to solidify the ideas.
This is especially true for the later chapters. It may be necessary to do more, such as re-reading, for the early parts, since you probably start out with very little skill. But the exercises may be more important than the text itself.


Should the incentive of research be discussed in the literature survey?

Since you are doing a "thesis project", which seems to be a rather particular kind of writing, you should probably ask your advisor what exactly they expect of you concerning the literature review.

In general, though, normally a literature review for such a topic should mainly cover other research that is related to your topic. Specifically, I would consider surveying research on:

other technical systems that encourage people to exercise;
other systems or approaches (non-technical) that encourage people to exercise;
other research that is generally similar to what you are doing, with "similar" being fairly broadly defined.

In general, I wouldn't expect that you would need to do anything about the advantages of exercise--that is well known and understood, and extremely general.

All that said, again, you should ask your advisor what exactly they expect.


What is the meaning of "Complete and Send Review" in Elsevier journal under History tab

From your expanded screenshot, I would guess that complete and send review is supposed to actually mean review completed and sent, i.e., one of the reviewers completed their review and submitted it to the editorial system.

However, educated guessing is all I can do, and only asking Elsevier can provide clarification. It may be a more serious bug. Either way, there is something to improve here, so it cannot harm filing a bug report.


Normally journals come in volumes, which may then be divided into issues, so volume 12 might cover all papers for a calendar year but actually be published quarterly as four separate issues: 12(1), 12(2), 12(3), 12(4). Some journals just publish volumes without subdividing, and if you're only printing annually I think it makes sense to do that.


Is it a must to collect resources from previous students to be a successful student?

No.  It is not normal for students to use a student-collected database of old questions.  I know this is done at some universities, but personally I have never seen one.

The proper thing is for faculty to supply sufficient quality and quantity of study material that students will not benefit from these databases of old questions.  Faculty also should not reuse test questions which might be in a student-collected database, but not in the study materials.

When faculty reuse tests and keep the content "secret," then student-collected databases create unfair advantages for certain student groups.  These groups often exclude minority students.  This is an unacceptable practice.


Administration possibly forcing student out

Many institutions put requirements for progress for doctoral students. This has been going on forever and isn't special to your institution. It is only unfair if the people have inadequate notice after a rule change.

The problem, for the institution, is that such students use resources that might be better applied elsewhere. It is a judgement call. Some places have very strict rules and if you don't meet them, you must move on.

State sponsored universities, in particular have this problem as many of the funds are from public sources. A private university (by the US definition) can have a bit more freedom.

There is probably little pressure you can apply as a student, unless you can convince a large part of the faculty to oppose such a rule. You are making a judgement, of course. It may be valid or not, but others have their own judgements to make as well.

Sad to say, if a person isn't making progress it may be that they should do something else, instead. My preference is to let them see the issue and make their own decision rather than having it imposed on them, but the people who need to balance budgets may have a different view.

I once had to make a difficult academic decision and wound up moving to a different institution that turned out to be better for me in every way. It isn't the end of the world.


It's not so unusual in the U.S., for example when the student is coming from abroad, with their own funding, for one semester or so. I've had to do this a handful of times in 30+ years.
I approximate a syllabus, and in a cover-note say that it is approximate. There's no real loss in doing some part of that work months in advance, hopefully.


How to copyright unpublished work during Phd

In most countries your work is copyrighted when you create it. That is simple. The other question you need to address yourself is, why would folks you have contacted steal your work? This is a fear many people have, but almost never actually happens. Get over that fear.


Duplicate data is mostly a problem when the data are experimental/real-world data and where repeating an analysis with the same data makes the overall literature seem to support a conclusion more strongly than it would if it were presented only once.
Let's say you have an experiment showing that green jelly beans cause acne. You publish it once, but people keep some healthy skepticism. Now suddenly 2 more papers appear that say green jelly beans cause acne... oh my! This is becoming quite the interesting field of study! Well, if these are 3 independent data sets, it appears to be a fairly strong conclusion supported by replication. If they're actually the same data set analyzed 3 times, now the authors of the second two papers have committed academic misconduct if they haven't made it clear that this is the same data. If you were conducting a meta analysis you would want to be careful not to include more than one of the studies.
The second issue is with copyright of figures. Typically the journal publishing a paper has copyright of figures published in that journal. Copying a figure from one paper and presenting it in another may violate that copyright. However, you can't copyright data itself, and there are only so many ways to plot some types of data, so the extent to which this sort of copyright is valid is quite narrow.

In the situation you describe, you have simulated data. The jelly bean issue isn't really relevant for simulated data. The papers are also in the same journal, so it's not going to argue with itself that the figures are too similar to a copyrighted figure that they own the rights to (to cover all the bases they could ask themselves for permission, but why?).
If the simulated data are created by some complex methodology, it is important to cite a previous paper using the same methodology to properly credit those authors, but sometimes this isn't really necessary. For example, if I generate simulated data by adding noise to a sine wave, it's probably sufficient to describe this. Sure, if another paper in a very similar area used exactly the same parameters, it's good to cite it to be thorough, but a sine wave plus noise isn't really much of an intellectual contribution and if it's skipped I don't think any major crime is committed. Maybe less so if it's the same authors not self-citing.
The only issue I can possibly see here is that the authors have perhaps padded their publications a bit by splitting one paper into two and publishing them separately. Reviewers can certainly comment on this, and can argue that the similarity of the second paper to the first makes it less suitable for publication, but this has very little to do with one set of simulated data that are the same/similar in the two, it has more to do with the rest of the publication.
I'm not sure why you're worried about this case except for some perceived unfairness in how you were treated versus them, but I don't see any benefit to you in pursuing this any further.


How to get into a top mathematics PhD program?

First off, I have a PhD in a top 20 - not top 3. I believe my school was 16 or 17 when I was doing my PhD. So I'm below what you are aiming for. So feel free not to read this post.

First of all, I'm puzzled by your comment:

  fairly vague ("good letters of recommendation", "advanced coursework",
  etc). What exactly do these terms mean, and what should I - as a first
  year student - already start doing to at least stand a chance sometime

Good letters of recommendation: You will need to get about 3 profs to write good letters of recommendation when you apply to grad school. That means you need them to say you are smart as in PhD-smart.

Advanced coursework: Take ALL the higher level courses if possible. Take some graduate level courses if possible.

Now about grad school: don't think about the top 1 or 2 or even 3 for now. If your goal is math, then your goal is math, not the school. Just focus on math for now.

I do not know you, so whatever I said below might be useless and meaningless.

What can you do as a first year student? Get a good GPA, as close to 4.0 as you can. You want to take as many math courses as you can right? So do some self-study and test out of your gen ed courses. I had a student who tested out about 8 so that he can have time to take ALL the higher level courses.

Are you taking any math courses now? Then focus on them and do well. Doing well does not mean just getting an A. It means being near the top of the class. Your prof knows. Not all profs will take note. But some do.

You have to figure out which profs are interested in growing PhD students. Profs who care will be open to chat with you and guide you. The only way you can catch their attention and learn from them is to be at the top of your class. Ask questions in class (if possible, when appropriate). Do you study ahead? Talk to them during office hours and ask questions so that they know you are interested and are studying your textbook ahead of the class.

When I was an undergraduate I always study ahead. While studying all the courses, I will pick one book and study ahead until I'm done with the book for that course. Then I'll pick another one and study ahead. Etc. Don't just read the book. Do the problems.

It's also a good idea to think about your favorite area in math and study it on your own. Unfortunately if you are not very deep into math, you might not know where to go with this. That's why knowing a prof well will help. He can guide you.

If you have time and if you have not done so, I suggest you look at the textbooks for math olympiads. Study them and do all the problems. Try to finish as much as you can so that you have some time to try some putnam competition books. Math problems in the math olympiad and the putnam are very different from the type of problems you will solve in your regular math classes. In many ways they are closer to research-type math problems. Again, I do not know you. Maybe you have already done lots of math olympiad training.

Another very important thing to note is that it is your responsibility to keep your level of interest in your area (i.e. math) as high as possible. That means spending some time reading up on the biographies of famous mathematicians. Don't do too much of that since you do have to study math.

Books are the most important resource for you right now. Ask your profs for good recommendations. Do not be surprised that your class textbook might not be the best textbook on that subject. It's just one that's convenient and easy to use. I have no idea where you are in your math education. But if you are in Calculus, then you can for instance study "Calculus" by Michael Spivak. If you are very strong in math and have already studied that, you can go on to other books.

Check your math library and see if you can find magazines you can understand. Try the American Mathematical Monthly and the Mathematical Intelligencer.

See if there's a math club you can join. Make sure it's a math club and not just a social gathering for math majors. Nothing wrong with socializing, but if the club does not have math related activities, then it won't help your goal.

If you work very hard in the first 2 years, you might know what area you want to go into. (But it might change.) And if you take some grad level course(s) in that area in your third year, you might be able to attend the research seminar in that area, which might be a weekly meeting. You might be able to start doing some research during your senior year.


Why are faculty positions in Management Information System (MIS) going down?

At least for central Europe, the number of faculty positions is definitely going down, but instead there is more money for project-based PhD positions. Unfortunetly these are usually just for three years, a timespan in which, at least in my field, most students are not able to finish. So PhD students employed in a project often become project hoppers or are unemployed towards the end of their PhD.

In general, this development from faculty positions to project-based positions is not all bad, since it requires the PIs and professors to constantly improve. The downside is the time lost for writing grant proposals and the uncertainty if a position will be funded or not.


Are delays and 'being stuck' normal in PhDs, and how much should I work to compensate?

What you describe seems pretty normal, except for the disappointed supervisors. But maybe your work habits are inefficient. It seems like you may be stressing time in the seat too much. If you don't take regular breaks, get enough sleep, and tend to your health, then your mind won't work efficiently. You will get stuck and pounding harder isn't the way to think deeper. Take a break regularly, especially when you get stuck. It doesn't need to be long or elaborate, but a short walk, run, or bike ride, can restore both your body and mind.

Your mind doesn't just work when you try to force it to. It actually works all the time, even when you are sleeping. Sometimes the break is what it takes for your mind to stop focusing on minutia and start to integrate what you have been looking at.

But, if you are really doing research, and not just going through the motions, then you can't schedule results. They come when they will.

“If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?” ~~Albert Einstein

Another trick is to talk to people about what you are doing. They need to have some knowledge, but if you just try to explain it you will, perhaps, come to a better understanding yourself. Some people even "talk" to a Rubber Ducky that they keep on their desk. Tell it to the Duck. But people can give you feedback.

The "dead ends" you explored may also actually be valuable, later if not now. They might actually do nothing more than provide a break from trying to push forward. And those breaks are essential.

If you do too many push-ups your muscles get saturated with lactic acid (I think I got that right) and weaken. Something similar happens with your brain. Work hard, but take breaks. For me, random breaks, rather than a schedule, works best. When I'm not being productive, do something else for a while.

But if your breaks take you away from your desk as they should, you can also carry a few note cards, including blank ones. You can use these to remind yourself of partially formed ideas and capture new ones if they occur during exercise. Don't force yourself to work on a break, but have them ready to capture any serendipitous thoughts.


How to know which journal is open access?

You can tell whether a journal is open access from their website. "Supports open access" doesn't immediately say if the journal is completely open access, but it does mean that you will be able to publish open access in it. In other words, it's possible the journal practices the hybrid model where it is subscription, but offers open access to whoever wants it.

For Discrete Mathematics itself, you linked a ScienceDirect webpage. ScienceDirect is not the journal's publisher - it's just a database. What you really want is the journal's webpage itself. Clicking on the "Supports open access" tab on the left leads to this page, which tells you everything you want to know. This is a hybrid journal alright, and if you want open access the article processing charge is USD 1500 excluding taxes (potentially lower if you are funded by the Wellcome trust and Research Councils UK).

If you are unable to find whether the journal is open access on its webpage, assume it isn't. If the journal claims to be open access but does not list its article processing charges, do not publish there, since one of the key criterion to calling a journal/publisher predatory is whether its APCs are clearly listed.


During one's career in academia, in the STEM fields of research at U.S. universities, what are typical examples of academic politics?

Almost every aspect of the job has politics invovled. Who teaches which classes, on what days and in which rooms. The distribution of TA support. What committees you serve on and what roles you play on those committees. Which lab space and office space you get. Rotation of sabbatical and research leaves. If there is any departmental funding, how it is spent. The hiring of new faculty and the admission of PhD students. I have even seen fights over what types of pens are kept in the supply closet.

Generally as a new faculty, there are certain thing in your contract and other thing agreed to verbally and in emails. In toxic environments, and even in some good environments, these things will come under attack. Even things in you contract will come under attack from colleagues who want to take advantage of you.

That is not to say it is all bad and not all colleagues will be out to get you. In good departments there will be more people looking out for you and only a handful of bad apples.


Why would a journal force me to register on ORCID?

Not only publishers start to collect/request/demand ORCIDs more and more but also institutions.

What is it all about?

It's about bibliometrics and author profiles. Being able to identify an author and its publications is useful for the institution and its authors. Authors benfit by having an accurate and complete publication list, even if they change the institution. Authors and institutions benefit because bibliometrics become more accurate, e.g. the author's h-index or the list of publications affiliated to authors of an institution.

Why are publishers taking action?

  We hope that our action inspires the community, including researchers, research funders, and research institutions, to join us in adopting ORCID and making it easy for researchers to connect their iD to their contributions and affiliations. source

Publishers want to enhance their services for authors by including ORCIDs in the publishing workflow.

Why are publishers making ORCIDs a requirement?

One reason I can think of is that they want ORCIDs because bibliometrics, especially impact factors, are important for them and the enterprise(s) providing the impact factor(s) are also interested in author specific factors like the h-index. Additionally, I assume, publishers also want to know and present who publishes in their journals. Think about a publisher stating that a nobel prize winner published most in their journals.

Overall, ORCIDs solve a lot of the problems regarding author identification, which benefits authors (named Smith or Wang or ...) and institutions. ORCID itself is a nonprofit organisation. So far, I haven't thought so much about the benefits for the publishers to make ORCIDs a requirement. Maybe there are different/more reasons.


Discussion section: Rough calculation to explain unexpected results

Generally yes. The purpose of a discussion section is to interpret your results, both in light of what was previously known (hopefully described in the introduction), and with new supporting arguments or hypotheses. A calculation (possibly short or rough) is a good way of providing a supporting argument, and it's quite common to see one in the discussion section of a scientific paper. However, theses are often subject to local rules, some of which may be silly, so make sure to check your institution's style or thesis guide, or check with your advisor whether they have any preferences.


How do I survive academia as a Trump supporter?

I have political views, too, but I learned not to communicate them too much.
No matter what is your view and what you vote for or believe in, there will always be someone having a different opinion. Now we might of course think that in an academic environment, such opinions can be calmly and objectively discussed, but that is often not the case.
There are, in my eyes, two ways to deal with it:

1) You voice your opinion and stand behind it, support it with arguments and stand your point; all the while respecting other view points and staying calm of course.
2) You keep quiet about your views and if you get stuck in a political discussion, you try to take the position of a neutral, outside observer, discussing the current politics like you would discuss the pro and cons of political choices in history.

The first option will make it easy to make friends, but will also make you enemies. The second option is harder, as you have to cover your opinion, but it makes it easier to get along with everyone, as you don't openly oppose their believes.

I personally chose the second option for myself and it is really interesting to look at current political developments like a historian would do; seeing how both sides influence the people and witnessing so many fail to see things critically (even, as in your case, highly educated people).

It is up to you how you deal with these things, but you should be aware that both speaking up and staying quiet has its pros and cons.

PS: These two choices do not only apply to "Trump vs. Clinton", but to almost every topic where people have different opinions and where the "others" are evil for believing "the wrong thing"...