How can I make my thesis supervisor be more responsive?

First of all, any relationship is a two way street. You can not blame everything on your supervisor, you are the one who chose him/her; and you are the one that should have request regular meeting with him/her in the past. You have two options:

Managing the Situation: You can start managing the situation and start requesting regular meeting with him/her. He/she is not responsive on email? Well, you can see him/her on his/her weekly office hours. Doesn't have office hours? Well you have to pop in into his/her office and see if he/she is there and kindly ask him/her to respond to your email. You see what I'm trying to say here?
Find Another Supervisor: You did take classes, and you saw the lecturers. You can always find a supervisor that does have the "common sense" part and kindly ask/her to do the master thesis with him/her instead. There are always young and talented lecturers (and not yet popular) that do take such cases at least because to gain some experience and also help such students.

Note: At the end of the day, you need to write your own thesis, and you are the one that present/defend your thesis at the end. So also pay attention to your own work and try to finish it ASAP as any supervisor has some limitation to help you figure out your own path.


What should I write as affiliated institute?

Your affiliation should be whatever institute you were located at when you did your research. Wherever you are at the time the research is presented is listed as "current affiliation" or "present address."

If you have not started or matriculated at an institution, you should not list it as either an actual affiliation or a present address.


Qualitative data but quantitative outcome; what type of research methodology is this?

Well, according to Alan Bryman in his research article Integrating quantitative and qualitative research: how is it done?, this is a theme that is still open to debate. He uses these 5 questions in separating qualitative, quantitative and mixed-methods approaches:

  Are the quantitative and qualitative data collected simultaneously or sequentially? (Morgan, 1998; Morse, 1991).
  Which has priority – the quantitative or the qualitative data? (Morgan, 1998; Morse, 1991).
  What is the function of the integration – for example, triangulation, explanation, or exploration? (Creswell, 2003; Creswell
  et al., 2003; Greene et al., 1989).
  At what stage(s) in the research process does multi-strategy research occur? (Tashakkori and Teddlie, 1998). It may be at stages of
  research question formulation, data collection, data analysis, or data
  interpret- ation.
  Is there more than one data strand? (Tashakkori and Teddlie, 2003). With a multi-strand study, there is more than one research method and
  hence source of data. With a mono-strand study, there is one research
  method and hence one source of data. However, whether a mono-strand
  study can genuinely be regarded as a form of mixing methods is
  debatable.

In regards to your question, I would say that if by "criteria" you mean forming hypotheses that you later test with quantitative methods, that would clearly be a mixed-methods approach. If not, you are probably more in a grey area.


How to "keep in touch" with a potential advisor?

When a member of academic staff says "Keep in touch" to a leaving student or researcher it often means "Keep me informed with major events in your career or family". Yes, it probably has the expectation of an email, but not too regularly.

They are probably interested in where you might be working when you have left and want to be informed of how to contact you when your contact details change. I sometimes get an email from students who have left 5, 10, 15, 20 years in the past. They tell me "I now work for XYZ corp as VP of ABC, how are things back at the University?", or "My child is applying to study with you, is Prof. PQR still there?". It is all good to know.

There are other times† I might used the phrase in an email with someone. If I was telling them that I was the wrong person to contact about an issue, or that this is the wrong time to discuss an issue; in other words, if I was refusing an answer, I might add "Let's stay in touch" to indicate I was not refusing all contact for all time. Sometimes students mistake a refusal to answer with an end to all communication. For example, at this precise moment in time I know all graduates results but could not answer any questions about progression to a Phd programme as that might imply what the grades may be‡. In that case it would mean, "At the appropriate time you will have the information you need.." or similar.

†This paragraph added based  on further details in the comments.
‡Result discussions are currently embargoed till transcripts are officially released.


Must I share my transcripts with my supervisor?

I think there are two questions here: 1) if you need to share your data with your supervisor and 2) what happens if they use it in their own research.

To question #1: The answer to this is yes as they are in a supervisory role and part of their job is to help guide you in your development as a scientist. This is also not an unusual request in my experience. Keeping data secret from your PhD supervisor would also complicated possible publication of said data in a peer reviewed journal. The usual standard around publication ethics hold that all authors are responsible for the entirety of the manuscript and in order for them to bear that responsibility they have access to whatever part they want to see: https://www.etikkom.no/en/library/topics/authorship-and-co-authorship/authorship-and-co-authorship-in-medical-and-health-research/

That said if your supervisor is absolutely not involved in your project and would not be a co-author on any publication or you don't trust your supervisor to act in a fair way then I think that there is a larger issue that is beyond the ability of strangers on the internet to give you advice on. My recommendation would be to go talk to your supervisor about this situation and if you are uncomfortable doing that then I would recommend you seek out someone who you can trust in your department/at your university and try to explore your options.

2) It is not uncommon for data to be reused in different publications. In the extreme example the entire concept of a meta-analysis is reanalyzing existing publications. So having your supervisor use your data for a different analysis/research project is normal. That being said they need to cite your publication as the source for the data and if you significantly contribute to their research then they should add you as a coauthor. If they fail to cite your publication/thesis as the source of the data then they are engaging in misconduct.


You should have been asked for transcripts of all your previous work, and those transcripts will fill in what you may have omitted.


How to attend conferences without funding

I know your question is based around the assumption that "funding cannot be found" but I write my answer as a challenge to this assumption.

Short answer: Sometimes you can go out and find funding in odd places.

Long anecdote: I was working in a research lab as an undergraduate.  We had very little funds pretty much all the time being in an undergraduate-only institution (with respect to my field of study which is chemistry).  We had some great work that we wanted to take to a fairly prestigious conference halfway across the country but we had no money to go.  Myself and a co-worker knew how much this conference would mean to our boss so we decided to go on a crusade to find money to make this happen.  We marched out of the lab with all pertinent information in hand and took it straight to the top.  We literally walked into the president's office (of the Uni) and asked the secretary if we could meet with him.  She was immediately concerned and amused at what we were trying to do.  Of course we weren't able to see him straightaway, if at all, for our shenanigans.  But she did allow us to make our case to her to see if she could help us out any.

This turned out to be a very profitable and endearing experience.  She dropped some contacts in various departments and suggested we go talk to them.  She even left us with some business cards to take with us.  We immediately contacted every single person on her list and, much to our surprise, we received some very positive responses.  I remember one office in general, "Undergraduate Enrichment", which dealt directly with the promotion and advancement of undergraduates.  They were nearing the end of the fiscal year and they had money lying around in some accounts that had not been used.  Well, long story short, they gave it to us.  All of it.  We managed to pick up a little bit here, a little bit there, through a few departments, and were able to come up with all the funds we needed.  It wasn't a cakewalk though.  My friend and I went as far as to appear before Student Government where we asked for funds and had to present our case to, for all intents and purposes, a group of dimwits who were not only apart of Greek life, but ran Student Government strictly around the idea of advancing Greek life (i.e. they didn't give two squats about anything we had to say) and it was one of the most painful and grueling 40 minutes of my life standing before them.  We managed to squeak about $500 from them which topped us off.

Summary: My friend and I dove in feet first and asked around for money.  Found the funds in some of the oddest places.  We went on the trip and were able to present our research in a prestigious conference.

Don't give up my friend.  Be proactive and think outside the box. You may walk away being quite surprised.


Is it advisable to emphasize (italicize) good research qualities in a research statement?

The preferred details for typesetting your research statement are likely to be highly subjective. Different things are likely to be pleasing, striking, or off-putting, depending on the individual preferences of whoever is reading your application.

I would agree that italics are one of the preferred methods to provide emphasis without being too flashy or distracting. Whether or not that is the appropriate choice for your research statement should probably depend to some extent on the style and content of the rest of your application as well. If you have access to a university writing center, you should try to speak with someone there to decide on the style and arrangement of your application.

To speak to my own experience, I generally will not consider a candidate more capable or skilled in independent thought, rigorous work, or attention to detail, because it is typographically emphasized on their application.


How include contributions to a manuscript of a paper in CV

As a student, it is entirely appropriate for you to list manuscripts "in progress." However, I would make sure that the manuscript is actually progressing before listing it on your CV.

If it's in preparation, you then list it as you would any other publication, except where it's published (journal, volume, page, year), you instead list where you plan to submit it (if you know that):

  Author List (including you). Title of manuscript. To be submitted to Journal X.

or, if you don't know where it's going to be submitted:

  Author List. Title of Manuscript. In preparation.


Job Market in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)

In HCI, you've set your sights on what I think is a very interesting hybrid field.  On the one hand, there is the hard-core technological aspect of creating new approaches to user interfaces, which these days often also involves some extremely sophisticated machine learning and signal processing.  On the other hand, there is the human aspect of it, in finding out how people actually interact with their technology and what are the ways that it can make the most difference in human lives, which has a lot more to do with sociological and psychological studies.

From what you've said about your background and ambitions, it sounds like you are more inclined toward the human aspect, which is great.  In terms of building your career, I would recommend thinking about what you need to do from the perspective of gaining the skills that you need in order to study the human aspects.  A solid grounding in statistics and analysis will definitely important, as well as learning how to design and conduct effective human subject studies.  Even if there's no HCI programs in your area, I'm guessing that it is much more likely that there will be programs where you can study some of these others.

For the programming side and for getting involved in the field, you might want to look into AppInventor and Technovation. AppInventor is a programming toolkit intended to lower the barrier of entry for people to develop apps for phones and other Android devices.  Technovation is a worldwide program/contest for getting young women involved in software engineering by building their own applications.  In fact, I notice that one of this year's finalist teams was from Lagos!  You might look to get involved in some fashion, such as coaching a team.  It's not something that will make you money, but it might be a good way to pick up experience and connections.

There is probably no easy path, but it sounds like you have good ambitions of a sort that a number of international programs are intended to encourage, if you can only build yourself a solid foundation and find the right connections.  Finally, as I am an American who knows a lot more about computer science than developing countries, please take all of my advice with a big grain of salt.  I hope that others will be able to speak to your situation more directly as well.


Is any of today's applied mathematics research in academia still done primarily on pencil and paper?

I am an applied mathematician and I can't work without paper and pencil and in most cases I can't get things done without a computer.

My computer can't tell me in advance if my algorithm will converge, at what rate and what the error will be. My computer can't figure out how to discretize some new problem (unless I tell him how). My computer (up to now) never had a great idea.

On the other hand, I can't invert matrices with pen and paper and I even can multiply a large matrix like that. In fact I can't even store most data I use on paper... (and also access rates for data on paper are pretty slow).

tl;dr I basically always use paper, pen and computer.


Should I quit a project where I can't see how to contribute?

I am part of a collaboration [that] met for a few days to develop an idea, and it seems quite promising. However, I did not feel like I contributed much, and since the project is a bit outside my expertise, I am not sure how much more I can even contribute...Should I quit the collaboration, so as not to "get in the way" of the others? Or is it worth staying on, even if my main contributions are high-level (e.g., organizing shared files, adding code descriptions, sending "check-in" e-mails, etc.)?

You could share your concerns with your collaborators and ask them whether they want you to continue collaborating. You might discover you've already contributed more than you've realised. Regardless, you'll be making it clear what you can offer moving forwards.


How hard is it to get admitted to a PhD programm in UK/Ireland having specialist's degree from a mediocre Russian university?

tl;dr: Don't do this.

Long version: Studying in a second-class university for a 5-year long program will significantly reduce your chances to get admitted to a MSc/PhD program in UK, Europe and US. In particular:

The "specialist" programs are not known in western world. While a specialist diploma from MSU could be recognised by some Universities as a MSc degree and allow admittance to a PhD program, a similar diploma from unknown universities will be only recognised as an evidence of BSc-level education or not recognised at all.
The educational program in Mordova University is likely to be outdated and the assessment standards are likely to be low. It will be very difficult for you to keep yourself motivated through all 5 years. Inevitably, people get sidetracked from such programs into self-education and tend to become IT specialists or self-learnt coders rather than scientists.
Your current level of English is decent; it is likely that a second-class University program will not help you to improve you language skills above your current level.
It is very likely that lecturers in Mordova University are not really involved  in international research. You will not obtain essential understanding of how the research is done in the western world, and this could significantly limit the scope and success of your applications.

Suggestion: Try to get yourself a stipend/scholarship/loan and get yourself to a decent program in Moscow / St. Petesburgh. Alternatively, search for any BSc program which admits you in any EU country.

Remember, 5 years of your life is a huge commodity. If you are going to spend them on education, make sure this time is not wasted. Good luck.


What can I do if I still have not recieved the rights review from ACM?

They claim to have sent an email that you didn't receive? First, check your spam box. It's quite possible that automated emails sent by conference organizers get caught in that.
It that doesn't help, escalate to the program chairs. They accepted your paper, they want the publication process to succeed, so to make it hang on a rights review email that may or may not have been sent is not in their best interest.


Is it okay to publish your entire work of PhD in low tier?

Back in the old days, it was quite common for mathematics and theoretical computer science PhD students to graduate with zero publications.  Their research contributions, while valid, were not significant enough to be published.  This isn't so true now, principally because there are many more low-tier conferences and journals to publish low-significance results, so the bar of significance to be published has gone down.

As far as the goals of a PhD are concerned, as long as you have done enough research, it's a valid PhD.

However, the job market is not so friendly.  It's useful here to bring out the sports analogy.  Getting a permanent academic job is like getting to play on a major league baseball team (or a first division football team).  Getting a PhD is like becoming competent in a minor league (or lower division) team.  Not everyone who starts out playing professional baseball (or football) makes it to the top, and you need talent and luck as well as hard work.

Most people who finish a PhD don't have the right combination of talent and luck to land a permanent academic job, just because there are fewer jobs than people with PhDs.

In the current job market, in order to land a permanent academic job where research is a significant portion of your duties, you need research results that can be published in a higher-tier venue.  If you don't get them as a grad student, you might get them as a postdoc, and it even happens that people get them doing research nights and weekends while working at a non-academic job, or a teaching-only academic job.

But, just as the sports analogy suggests, while there are things you can do that will help your chances of making it to the major leagues, there is nothing you can do that will guarantee (or even make it highly probable) you make it to the majors.


Can I update my research paper before the camera ready date?

I would say the common-sense rule is that minor updates are ok, but major updates - roughly, something that makes it into another paper, or would have required a new peer review - are to be avoided unless explicitly authorized.

Adding a few more sentences mentioning related work is fine, but if you think your changes are significant, describe them in a few (short) sentences and ask the editor/program committee chair.

Also: consult your co-authors before making changes and before requesting authorization for the changes!


When replicating results, what should I do when the author didn't use the method the paper said they did?

Given that you don't have space enough to present all three sets of results, I would suggest that you choose the parameters that best illustrate the scientific point that you are aiming to make.

When you state the parameters, however, you should add a parenthetical note or footnote that says something along the lines of:

  Note that we have chosen these parameters because [REASON].  Alternative parameters given [in the original paper / by the author] produce results that are [better / worse].

This balances the openness of making sure the reader is aware of the choice you have made and its consequences, while at the same time restricting your presentation space budget to only the most relevant set of results.


Is verbatim copying several paragraphs of text with citation considered plagiarism?

If you copy something verbatim, you are required to put quotations mark around it, and also cite where the quotation came from. Anything less could be construed as plagiarism.


Is it correct protocol to thank your committee members in a PhD dissertation?

In the American style, at least, your acknowledgements are yours to do with what you like.  Other answers on this site include thanking the makers of Dr. Pepper or dieties and pets.  Thus, if you feel thankful to the members of your committee, you should feel free to thank them in your acknowledgements section.


What would be the proper way to ask for reference letters

Dear Professor Smith:

My name is Freya ASE.  I was a student in your class on widget design at Enormous State University in 2014.  I am writing to request a letter of recommendation.

After 3 productive years in the workforce at Ballbearings Anonymous, I have decided to apply for the Ph.D. MechE program at CalTech and a few competing programs.  While BA has been great practical experience and good use of my ESU training, now I want to move into cutting edge fluid flow research.

Would you be able to write a positive letter for my applications?  If helpful, I can supply some bullets to refresh your memory on my class project, class performance and our interactions.

Sincerely,

Freya ASE


Is work experience necessary for tenure-track positions?

There are no universal rules regarding employment status and being hired at US universities. In some fields, such as engineering, graduate students may be hired before they have completed any post-graduate professional experience. In contrast, in departments such as physics, it may be required to complete several post-doctoral appointments before being considered for faculty positions.

There are some general guidelines, however:

In less "applied" STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields, more time is generally required in academic positions before earning a full-time faculty position.
In more "applied" fields, the time spent is reduced. Unfortunately, in some cases, although industrial experience is often seen as a good thing, it also has a tendency to make it difficult to jump back into a research field—unless one has been employed in an industrial research capacity.
In humanities fields, it's very difficult of to be able to continue to a faculty position after leaving academia.


For a mirror of Google Scholar:

https://scholar.glgoo.org/


Where is it acceptable to mention an abnormally high stipend?

Salary negotiations are about supply and demand.  If your stipend has come to an end, it is no longer relevant to that supply and demand.  If your stipend is ongoing, you can say you will only accept a new position if it pays more than the stipend.
Your past stipend pay is not very convincing evidence of your merit.
Your past stipend pay is not relevant to the selection of PhD students.  Discussing money may give the impression you would be more suited for an industrial position.


National vs Regional vs Institutional conference

I don't know that there are any hard and fast rules for this - I see it as referring to the organization that hosts the conference. Is it a international or national organization or a regional/provincial/local branch of an international or national organization.

Institutional conference = hosted by an institution and attended mostly by people from one institution.

Regional = generally a regional division of a national organization. For example, the American Psychological Association has different regions, which hold their own conferences. See http://www.apa.org/about/apa/organizations/regionals.aspx

Provincial = similar to regional, but when the national organization is subdivided into provinces.

National conference = hosted by a national professional organization.

International = hosted by an international professional organization.

The name of the conference doesn't necessarily indicate if it is a national, regional, provincial, local, or institutional conference. For example, a national conference might be held at the same location every year, and thus might have the name of that location in its title, but it is still a national conference.

Good luck with your scholarship!


Professor uploaded a recommendation meant for university 'A' to a different university 'B'

How it affects you is impossible to say, not knowing nearly enough.

But it is really the professor's job to make the correction if it is needed as s/he made the error. You can send mail to the program(s) informing them of the error, of course, and they may, individually have some suggestions. But if the mail comes from the professor it would have more weight. The prof can include the proper letter in the mail, of course.

But if radically different things were said about you (unlikely) it might have an effect.

But ask your professor to provide the remedy.


First, the use of the earlier material may have been plagiarism or not. If the methodology was "common knowledge" then it need not be cited.
Second, if sections were copied, verbatim, without citation, then it is still an error but one of copyright violation, not plagiarism. Copyright is about words (actually "creative expression"). Plagiarism is about ideas. Not the same thing. But both need to be avoided.
But, you don't really need to take any action unless you are somehow responsible for academic integrity at the institution. Even then, it may be too late to impose any penalty. Vigilanteism isn't called for. The responsibility for evaluating the thesis was with the university at the time and while they may have failed, it isn't your responsibility to raise a now-dead issue.
If you need to give her advice, talk about the dangers to her career from repeating such things in the future. But I think you can, with a clear conscience, let the past be the past. And be sure that you understand and communicate the difference between plagiarism (mis attribution of ideas, even if paraphrased) and copyright infringement.


How much editing can one ethically accept from one's advisor on a fellowship proposal (e.g. NSF/NDSEG/etc.)

You apply for money and your adviser will profit from getting you granted the money, too. He will get some research he is interested. Why shouldn't every adviser support his student in that way?

You should also learn how to write proposals. Not just by writing it, but also to give it the finishing touches and fixing the issues you could not yet identify yourself. That's why its good to get the feedback and support you received from your adviser.

I don't see it unethical at all. It would be problematic if you could not perform the research you describe in your proposal or know it will not work or know someone already did it.


Do Professors Get An Education "Allowance"?

This is probably as variable as the educational system generally. But I'd doubt that more than a few professors get special allowances for such things.

Some of the books you see are text books given to professors by publishers in hope that the professor will adopt them for a class. Some of them are "ancient" texts that the professor used as a student back in the ice ages.

Some quite useful advanced books might be given to a professor by some publisher when the professor adopts some elementary text. It is a form of bribery, I suppose.

When professors retire they sometimes open their own bookshelves to their colleagues (or students) who are free to carry away things that interest them. Some books actually wind up in boxes outside a professor's door and others are free to expand their own libraries with them. Sometimes such books actually have some educational value.

Some of the books are funded by grants also, but normally grants from funding agencies outside the university.

A few new professors will get some "start up funds" from a university department and while intended for bootstrapping research, books and papers are part of that.

I accumulated hundreds of books over the many years. Some were donated to educational systems in Kenya eventually. But I still have far too many. No one other than publishers ever funded them, however.

Generally, however, the salary of a professor should be high enough to support quite a lot of such things out of pocket. I paid for professional memberships myself, for example, which generated a lot of journals on my shelves.


Issue creating IEEE Xplore-compatible document: accepted with caution

Rewrite the paper without hyperlinking.  If you want to refer to a wiki or github, use a typed citation.


Colleagues don't congratulate me or cheer me on when I do good work

You're right that many academics (and I suppose not only academics) somehow systematically fail to encourage their colleagues, and do not congratulate their successes.
Ideally, yes, at least "mentors" would do so, all the more in light of the general failure. But, in my experience, mentorship is not to be reliably expected. Sadly. Let's not bother to talk about certain tendencies to "keep people down"...
So your situation doesn't surprise me, and I wouldn't expect much change anytime soon. If you can find a situation where people give you positive feedback, cherish it. And, as I've been thinking about more and more, you might remind yourself to be sure to give other people positive feedback, when you are in a relatively senior position at least!


Finding math articles of small length in a given journal

If you have access to Web of Science (and perhaps other databases), this is (kind of) straightforward.
Search for Journal of Algebra in Publication Name, limiting the date range at least initially to something reasonable. As of mid-September 2020, searching on year-to-date yielded 410 entries.
The search results can then be dumped into Excel, choosing to get the full record.
That record includes the start and end page number of each article. Add a column that is the difference of those numbers, and sort the sheet on that column. You may then need to go through and throw away things like editorials and whatnot.
Done.


Is it okay to cite the same source in two consecutive sentences?

Is it ok from an academic point of view? Absolutely. It is never wrong to cite a source that you use. However, it might be "wrong" from an flow-of-the-text point of view. I would sidestep the issue by just reformulating the two sentences. Something along the following lines would perhaps resolve your problem:

"As noted in [SOURCE1], wind and PV contributed about 12% of Europe's electricity supply in 2016. That study, carried out by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, concludes that a tripling of this contribution is needed in order to reach the 2030 target."

or even

"As noted by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, wind and PV contributed about 12% of Europe's electricity supply in 2016 [SOURCE1]. There, it is concluded that a tripling of this contribution is needed in order to reach the 2030 target."


Eykanal is basically right, but there's a fine line between networking and being annoying.  There are plenty of circumstances where sending email to more famous/senior colleagues is perfectly fine.

If you already have a professional relationship with someone, it's perfectly fine to write a quick email saying something like "Thanks for the great lunch conversation we had at [conference] last month.  You might be interested in this paper I just wrote."  Yes, a recent lunch conversation counts as a professional relationship.

If you don't already have a professional relationship, then you should probably limit emails to a few key people who have a direct connection to your paper -- either you build on one of their results (which your paper cites), or improve one of their results (which your paper cites), or they've written papers on closely related topics (which your paper cites) .  But within those constraints, emailing your paper is perfectly fine; everyone likes to hear that their work is useful and interesting.

If you do send your paper out, be sure to welcome comments, but don't expect a response from anyone.  That silence from Famous Person On The Internet doesn't necessarily mean that they aren't reading your paper; they're probably just really busy.


Which affiliation to put as a student in a different branch than the research paper?

For an undergraduate student, the affiliation is usually the same as the affiliation of your supervisor.  If you are unsure, ask them.
If you are writing the paper independently, typically the affiliation is in the format:

Department, University Name, Address

At some universities, undergraduates do not have a department, in which case that might be omitted.
It is perfectly fine if your affiliation is unrelated to your paper topic.


APA format - hyperlinking the citation rather than providing a separate URL

In a strict reading of the relevant passage in the APA Manual, hyperlinking the reference without providing the DOI/URL as a readable string seems not possible. (At least using a URL shortener is okay to APA.)
If your paper is intended for a journal or conference, you should ask the editors whether they grant you a little excess in word count.
If your paper for a university course, simply do as you wish and tell your professor about your approach and why you did that.
In such a case, I would prefer to hyperlink only the title of the cited publication (again, there are no official guidelines, so perhaps one can deviate according to one's own taste).
However, just for the record, an Elsevier journal (not APA style) actually hyperlinks the whole reference:

By the way, note that if your cited reference has a DOI, you should link to the DOI and not to the URL. In your example, the DOI Is http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.1977.tb05147.x - - see the APA Manual (linked above):

Include a DOI for all works that have a DOI, regardless of whether you used the online version or the print version.
If a print work does not have a DOI, do not include any DOI or URL in the reference.
If an online work has both a DOI and a URL, include only the DOI.


What to do when research is ending up in useless clinical trial

The problems you indicate should result in non-replicable results. The way this can be shown is repeat the published experiments as closely to the published protocol as humanly possible, with a correct design, carefully documented, etc. etc., and get different results. That is a publishable result.

Whether such a replication will somehow violate your confidentiality contract is something you need to discuss with a lawyer. My feeling of justice says that it should not violate that, but justice and law are two very different beasts.

Just writing down your experiences, risks ending up in a "he said, she said" situation, which is not going to resolve anything. Moreover there is the legal aspect of you signing a confidentiality contract. Anything legal needs to be discussed with a lawyer, not random persons on the internet.


Should you list acceptance of an abstract to a prestigious conference on CV when unable to attend due to personal reasons?

As it is a peer-reviewed conference, I think it is OK to mention it the CV.

I am not sure about your particular conference, but in such conferences the biggest step is to get accepted (extended abstract/paper) and you did. So you did the job, they liked your idea and in normal situation you would present there.

It can happen that you are not able to present and you cannot find anyone to do it for you. However, you met all the requirements to be there, so it has its place in your CV.

If you want to be more correct you can mention the abstract as well because not everybody can know if the abstract or whole paper is required.

  "A genius solution to an insanely difficult problem". Conference
  Everybody Wants To Attend XXIV, May 2014, Prestigious American
  University (accepted abstract, unable to present)


Is it proper to propose a thesis collaboration to a professor you don't know?

A few students work with professors from another department of the same school, and in a few cases, their advisor has recently moved schools, but mostly most students are advised by professors in their own department.

In my limited experience, professors are interested in supervising thesis projects only when they have a preexisting relationship with the student.When i was a student, I once asked a professor to advise my master's project and was told, "no, you have to take my class first".

It's more than helpful to cultivate relationships that will support your work, but when you cold-call people, avoid asking them to trust you or commit to work with you.


Handling reviewer comment challenging the novelty of a used method

I think there's no contradiction. The reviewer said "...first to use subjective questionnaires to develop predictive models", while you said "...first to use subjective questionnaires to develop predictive models for the particular disorder" (emphasis mine).

I would just write in a response what you said, and ask for clarification - something like "I have done a thorough check ... the particular disorder. If the reviewer is aware of a previous paper has also used subjective questionnaires for this disorder, please point it out".


Blurry digital signatures in letter of recommendation on letterhead

The answer mainly depends on the pipeline of the scheme you are applying to. Without knowing their exact rules and regulations, it is not possible to answer your question exactly.

Having said that, if I received a LOR with signs of digital manipulation / forgery (such as blur signature), my first step would be to contact the referee directly. First, I would try to locate them online and use email / telephone from their official university page. Failing that, I would try email / number from the LOR. If it is absent, I would consider dropping the case, unless the rest of the evidence shows completely outstanding candidate.

Unfortunately, it is not uncommon to see forgery, lies and other dishonest ways of gaining advantage in academic applications. After all, Universities are reluctant or incapable to assign any penalty for this, encouraging such dishonest behaviour.  The duty of checking the paperwork falls down on academics appointed as "admission tutors" or "scholarship administrators", who usually do not have tools and time to perform rigorous checks. In case of doubt, they may decide to drop the application or at least de-prioritise it.

tl;dr: if your LOR looks forged, it may negatively impact your application.


What is expected when "novel" and "innovative" ideas are requested as part of a research grant application?

The purpose of adding words like "novel" and "innovative" is to weed out proposals that may be poorly researched and thus copying others or or involve repeating other works in a slightly different setting (or equivalent). The phrasings makes rejecting proposals easier since it provides a critieria (one among many) against which it can be judged. Funding agencies are also keen to see their funding go to research that can be judged to contribute "significant" results.

My experience says that what constitutes "novel" and "innovative" is difficult to assess in detail. In my field, environmental/earth science, some themes become "fashionable" or hot and signals these aspects, or rather absence means less likelihood to receive funding. These themes include finite element modelling (70s), acid rain(70s/80s) and climate change (currently). This can be seen as a communal will or interest to steer research in certain ways and so showing you can significantly contribute to these goals was/is more or less necessary to provide you with a good chance for obtaining funding.

So to define "novel" and "innovative" will be difficult. And, as a side point, your research either is or is not "novel" or "innovative", there are no degrees. You need to come up with ideas that are truly new (testing new grounds) or which promise results that are significantly advancing science but more importantly, you need to convince the reviewers in the funding agency about your case. This means to avoid "more of the same" proposals, to be sure your idea has not been worked on before (know your field).

A book, I strongly recommend for all is

  Friedland, A., Fold, C.L., 2009.  Writing Successful Science Proposals, Second Edition. Yale Univ. Press


Clarification on taking Calculus subjects as prerequisites for Economics classes?

I believe it depends on the Microeconomics class you take. Some Micro classes are calculus heavy but primarily at the upper division level, intro Micro classes generally are not, the equivalent to Econ 100 (versus Intro Econ/Econ 001) I took in school was Calculus heavy, but it involved methods you wouldn't learn in a standard Calculus I or Calculus II (presumably) e.g. Lagrange multipliers.

Swallowing my pride, I also took a Calculus II equivalent for "non-science" majors, this class introduced Lagrange Multipliers,  while the "science" track wasn't introduced to the method until multivariate calculus.

so my advice would be to talk to an advisor and or faculty to see if one of the classes is better suited to what you will be studying, as far as Econometrics goes, someone else will need to take that one.


How to promote young researchers at a conference designed for young researchers?

This reminds me of maybe relevant idea. When I went to a summer-school on mathematical physics in Heidelberg, the organizers made a "Gong show". The idea was that everyone had to stand up before the auditorium and introduce themselves, both professionally and personally. The point of the gong was that you got only something like 2 minutes to do so, then the organizer hit the "gong" (he hit a glass with a spoon I guess) meaning you should finish. After that came 2nd gong and after the 3rd you had to go off stage. This was very nice as even the speakers attended this event and introduced themselves.

Moreover it really helped that we were given as a part of the conference materials printed list of names and email addresses so we could take notes on who is who.


How early should one request a letter of recommendation for graduate school?

Contact the professors now! There's no reason to wait. You can just tell them you are interested in having them write letters for you, if they are willing; they can at least start thinking about what to write. Then as soon as you have decided which schools to apply to, send them the details on  how to submit the letters and the deadlines. I would say this should be a bare minimum of 2 weeks before the deadline, preferably much sooner.

After that, don't hesitate to remind them periodically of the deadline, until they tell you the letters have been submitted.


Have some universities already tried to temporarily disable their journal subscriptions

This has certainly happened, at large scale to boot. For example in 2014 60+ German institutions all let their contracts with Elsevier expire while they negotiated a new contract. Elsevier went ahead and gave them free access while negotiations were ongoing. In 2018-2019, Norway and Sweden did the same thing at national level, and so did the University of California.

If you want to know more about how this impacted usage, I'm sure you can ask your institution librarian for details. I'm sure they can tell you a lot: how they decide which journals to subscribe to, what would happen (e.g. how many complaints) if they unsubscribed from a popular journal, how they can secure access even if they unsubscribed, and so on.


How to use lemmas and proofs from another paper?

You should certainly cite paper A in any case.

One way this is commonly handled: state your Lemma B.1 and give the complete proof.  At the beginning of the proof, write something like "This closely follows the proof of Lemma A.1 from [A]."  Now your paper is self-contained and you have given appropriate credit.  It is fine if your proof is similar in structure to theirs; in some ways this is better, because a reader who looks at both will more easily be able to see the similarities and differences.  But do not simply copy and paste their proof and change the necessary words.  Your proof should be your words, even if it is from their ideas.

Or, state your Lemma B.1, but instead of giving a complete proof, say "The proof is very similar to that of Lemma A.1 from [A]".  This saves space but will be more annoying to the reader, who in order to check your result will have to find the paper [A] and read through the proof, adapting it to prove B.1 instead of A.1.  (The referee may be similarly annoyed.)

Some people would omit the statement of Lemma B.1 altogether, and when they need to use it, would say "By a slight modification of the proof of Lemma A.1 from [A], we have blah blah blah...".  This is even more annoying.

Worst of all is to just say "By Lemma A.1 from [A], we have blah blah blah" where Lemma A.1 claims something different from (and not obviously implying) the statement you want.


Confused about potential supervisor response

To me this sounds like a polite rejection. Depending on your culture this may differ.
If you push harder, likely either you will find a stronger rejection (though this isn't necessarily a bad thing, just confirms where you stand), or in a worst case scenario you will convince them to supervise you but you will never receive the supervision you need and find yourself like many of the question askers here who can't get advice from their advisors when they need it and find themselves lost in academia.
An active supervisor is much more useful to you than a "best professor" who never answers your emails.
I would probably respond with something like, "It sounds to me like you think you are too busy to take me on as a student, and that I should find someone else to supervise me. Is this correct, or should we plan to speak again in (several weeks/a couple months) to discuss?"


In a statement of purpose for a PhD in computer science in the US is it better to express interest in a single subdiscipline or multiple?

A PhD is about expertise in a narrow field. Showing too wide spread interests is counterproductive, you should have a rather clear idea what your principal interest is. It is OK to have wider interests, but you need a focus.

Do your homework beforehand, select prospective advisors and contact them for openings.


I think grad schools are used to dealing with different grading schemes.  This is one reason, why GREs exist also.  But they can probably infer that top 10-20% is an A.  Bottom 50% is bad, etc.  Maybe even implicitly compensating for differences in how competitive the undergrad is.

Maybe grad schools aren't perfect but they seem to even be able to (in the US) evaluate students from all over the globe to try to pick the better ones.  Although even the US is very different from school to school.


Good responses to "Ivory Tower" accusations?

There is no point talking to people about the job they cannot do themselves or about the parts of reality they cannot even see, not to say enter. Most of them are, probably, just envious (that's why the words "easy life", "good salary", and "tenure" appear in such articles more often than not). The rest are frustrated that our work doesn't provide any immediate personal benefit for them. As to "stepping down from ivory towers", in Soviet Union the students and professors were sent for a month to collective farms to help with harvesting every year. It turned out that we could do the farm work. Sending help in the other direction wasn't considered practical.


Should I consult my professor before sending my newly written research paper to a journal?

Unless the professor should be a co-author or you need their permission to include their name in acknowledgements, there is no need to have it reviewed. If the work is yours, you can decide to submit it.

But if you have any doubts about it or any part of it, having a review by a professor can be worth it. You may get advice that results in a revision or you may get advice that is worthless. But again, you are in control.

Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. While it happens, it is rare and not something that reputable people do. If you have doubts about the ethics of someone, don't send it to them, but that is obvious.

If you send it, you will get feedback from independent referees. It is to your advantage to start out with the best product you can create, but the review process itself can lead to some improvement.

If you don't have a particular journal in mind then a professor might be able to give advice on that, just from reading an abstract. Lots of possibilities.

But the work is yours. You choose.


“Areas” vs. “Themes” in the classification of a university’s topics

Many departments will organize themselves internally in multiple various different ways, base on how they've organized their program.  For example, where I went the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department was organized in at least the following (partially independent) ways:

Three different degree tracks (EE, CS, and EECS): which one you chose dictated your graduation requirements.
Seven focus areas (devices, signal processing, electrodynamics, AI, algorithms, systems, biomedical): these were used in organizing graduation requirements.
Several major "laboratories" comprising up to 100 faculty or more, which were primarily EECS but also overlapped with other departments: these were the primary organizations of research and graduate life (beyond one's own supervisor, of course)
A number of "themes" within the focus areas, that were used for determining aspects of Ph.D. qualification.

Other departments are likely to have similar degrees of intricacy, as the result of the evolution of complex negotiations between different people and organizations over many decades.  Moreover, they are likely to use the same words differently, because there are only so many ways to say things like "area" and "theme" and lots of different odd organizational specifics that one might be mapping them to.

In your own case, it sounds like the "areas" are more durable aspects of study, where the "themes" are current hot topics.  The only way to know for certain what they mean to that organization, however, is to read the university's documentation online (if they are well organized) or to contact the people there directly.


Improving conditions of a tenure-track job offer

Your question, "how should I argue my case?" is unanswerable without a statement of what your "case" is. With any job offer, you state what you want, and the other party agrees or disagrees. A vague feeling that you should be "recognised a bit more" doesn't matter. What is it that would make you more likely to take the position, or make it more likely that, given the position, you'd be successful at it? Also: Congratulations!


How early should I start asking professors for a summer position?

I would look at https://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/reu/reu_search.jsp and https://cadrek12.org for programs at universities in your area that have open applications for the upcoming spring and summer semesters. These are likely to be low-paying internships that are part of ongoing research programs NSF already funds which are going to be looking for high-achieving high-school students to participate in research. The "U" in "REU" is for "Undergraduates", so college students, but many of the programs have portions for late high-school students, too, so read carefully. Your ability to read about the program and follow instructions will help determine your acceptability to them.
Broader Impacts, including impacts on K-12 students are a big part of NSF grant funding, and so many NSF-funded organizations in the US have something to offer throughout the year. That being said, individual professors may not. I think you'd be better served by looking at organizations within academic institutions (museums, computing centers, laboratories, etc.) than trying to talk directly with a single professor. For the reasons noted in the comments about busy-ness, a single prof. might not have the resources to supervise a single high-school student or even assign that supervision to a grad student. Look for labs and institutions that have such programs.


What are interests of a country to fund international PhD students?

To the host country:

Positive:  A host country that is able to import top talent from other countries has a greater chance of keeping them in the country after graduation.  This, undoubtedly, is an effort to promote national interests in a specific field (typically, scientific).  Often, importing students to to do research is low cost (in comparison to hiring full time scientists or professors) and typically yields lots of deliverables (e.g. research papers) in a short time.

Negative:  A host country takes a lot of risks when it invests in a foreign student.  There no guarantee that student even graduates, much less that he/she remains in the country after graduation, or in any way promotes the host country's national interests.

To the home country:

Positive:  A home country that can produce top talent gains a reputation international level for its education system (for better or worse, regardless of whether this is actually true or not).

Negative: A home country has the potential to lose its top talent to other countries, which is often counterproductive to its national interests (especially scientific interests).

In addition to the countries, i feel it is important to discuss the benefits and risks that this presents to the student as well:

To the student:

Positive:  The student can gain a high quality education, typically with no strings attached.  When they graduate, they are free to choose their destiny (assuming that they even have the option of staying in their host country).

Negative:  The student effectively becomes low-wage, indentured migrant labor to the host institution.  Students are often not promised jobs or citizenship in their host country, but are often led to believe that "it is possible if you work hard enough".  This will often lead to foreign students out performing their domestic counterparts, but sadly offers little pay, benefits, or guarantees to the foreign student.  As J.J. points out, if a foreign student screws up in some way, they lose (potentially) their only chance of a better life outside of their home country.


I find a work title similar to mine without any published paper, what I have to do?

There are at least three options. One is to contact the original authors for more information, perhaps including a copy of the paper. If the work is too similar you may have to change direction. But perhaps the change in direction is to extend that work.

The second option is just to carry on and hope for the best while continuing to check to see if more information becomes available. This is the risky option, of course, as you will be spending time now on work that may need to be modified or abandoned later.

The third, maybe best option, is to have your advisor or another faculty member request the earlier work and make a judgement on your behalf. One option of the advisor is to analyze the work in light of your own and give you advice. This has the additional benefit that you don't see the work and so can't be influenced by it unless that is necessary for ethical reasons. While this doesn't preserve the claim of "parallel work" it helps protect you from any charge of improperly benefitting from the work of others. Of course it also depends on the solid reputation of your advisor.


Are lower case sub-headings a common formatting convention?

I have never in my academic life seen this convention: I have always seen lower-level sub-headings follow exactly the same convention as higher-level headings.

Do what they tell you to do (the world has lots of strange Official Requirements for Our Unique And Special Snowflake Publication Venue), but I wouldn't worry about it for anywhere else in life.


Is it appropriate to include dollar amounts for awards granted when applying to a math PHD?

It is entirely your choice -- doesn't hurt, but not necessary either.

Readers of grad school applications generally have a decent idea of how much REU or travel grants (a couple of thousand dollars) and how much departmental awards are worth (a few hundred dollars, typically). So not stating a number is not a big deal. Stating a number also doesn't hurt: if it's within the range a reader would expect, then there is no harm done, space is cheap; if the dollar amount is surprisingly large -- say, a $5,000 award for your work, then that's useful knowledge and should have been on your CV indeed.


How do these UK certificates convert to the US?

The different levels of UK higher education conform to the internationally agreed Bologna Process and the corresponding levels can be read in the regulators documentation.
An undergraduate certificate is one year (the fresher's year) of a three year Bachelor degree and also known as level 4 study.
An undergraduate diploma is the first and second years (freshers plus sophomore) or level 4 + 5.
The others also map to the same thing. An advanced diploma is usually at diploma level but more advanced material (perhaps a professional qualification).
Postgraduate certificate would be the first trimester of a Masters degree (i.e. 1/3rd)
Postgraduate diplomas would be a Masters without a completed dissertation.


Usually European universities have a course schedule that shows also the European credits adjusted. You could access the website of the university that offers the course, look for the class and see in the syllabus/course content how many credits it is. Usually this is not shown in application pages but rather in tabs such as “class search” or something similar


How to draft a SOP when one wants to work on a sub-domain they have never worked on before? (CS PhD USA)

A person with a bachelors degree entering into doctoral studies directly in the US has a long road ahead. First there will be (mostly or entirely) coursework in advanced topics that will give you the background necessary to pass comprehensive exams and assure you have a broad knowledge. Specialization and research only comes later in most programs.
Given that structure, there is nothing unusual in naming a research area that interests you before you have direct experience in it, provided you have the general background knowledge to begin to explore that area.
My advice, then, is just to say what your goals are and the direction you see yourself following. It will show that you have given thought to the options and have a plan. And, no one will hold you to that plan once you are accepted. Your initial advisor might be in the desired area or not, and may be more likely to be if you state the goal, but it is possible to change advisors when you get closer to choosing a research topic.
And, even stating what you now think of as a "narrow" area of focus, it will become much narrower once you start to choose a research question.
So, just say it and don't worry that you don't yet have background in it. That will come and is the purpose of advanced study.


Can I use a figure under CC BY-SA 3.0 in an academic paper

Of course your revised figure must be released under a compatible license. However, I doubt that the paper as a whole can be considered a "derived work" under copyright law. Of course it is possible that the paper focuses so much on that figure that it actually is derived from it, but that seems unlikely.


Citations in a Paper After the Whole Quotation is Shown

I'd look for some form of "short citation" format in whatever style you are using. E.g. the first time around give the full citation, and later on the short one. Another technique would be to cite once, and then just go "As Leauthor says, ...", or even just try to keep all this together. If it is a long discussion, you might even dedicate a (sub)section to this, using sectioning to have it hang together.

In LaTeX/BibTeX I use the plain citation style, which gives a unintrusive [42] only. But that is major surgery...


How to avoid using "I" in a research paper in case of referring to my previous work?

There are two options I know of (I've seen both).

One is to ignore that the person you are referring to is one of the authors, and write exactly the same way as if they were a third party. I guess this makes some sort of sense if there is no direct link between the two sets of work.

The other option is to use 'the first author' (or 'the second author', as applicable).


Is it possible to create a mutual relationship between full-time work and a PhD program?

It is not unheard of to have people work outside of an academic setting on their PhD thesis. For instance, in the US national laboratory system, there are a number of graduate students working on their PhD thesis. It's not a large number—maybe a dozen or so per laboratory—but it's not zero, either. In countries such as Germany and the Netherlands, it is also not uncommon to be employed as a PhD student in industry; however, the financing of that is somewhat unclear to me. (They may receive the equivalent of their stipend, or they may receive a "professional" salary.)

That said, I suspect it will be difficult to find an arrangement which will allow you to work full-time and receive both a graduate stipend and a full-time salary. Such arrangements would be generally frowned upon by both university and the external sponsor.


If someone provided you with data does he become a co-author?

The issue of whether or not merely providing data for a project constitutes "authorship" is a thorny one. Many medical journals, for example, are asserting that merely having generated data is not grounds for authorship all on its own.

So if he's just providing you with a data file, and that's the last you'll hear from him? In my mind, that lands you in the acknowledgements section of a paper.

On the other hand, if he's going back and forth retrieving data as you refine your question, providing advice on how it came about, what it means, etc. and may end up reviewing the draft of the paper, etc.? I'd make him an author. Essentially, I would extend him the chance to take up the slightly more burdensome mantle of authorship, and let him turn it down.


Should I use reference manager software?

You do not need to use reference managers. However, if you use some reference managers like Mendeley then, some of the benefits are obvious:

The pdf of your article is linked to the reference itself.
You can organize references into logical groups (areas, subjects, disciplines, sub-disciplines) by utilizing folders and tags.
You can one-click save articles and organize them from your browser. This is invaluable in saving time on organizing.
You can sync across multiple devices like desktops, laptops and tablets. For instance, Mendeley has an iOS app which does this for you. I use Android so I workaround using Droideley or Scholarley.
You can read your articles inside the reference manager and then do useful things like highlighting and annotations which can then be saved as notes for future reference.
You can export to specific citation styles. This is very useful for someone doing interdisciplinary work. For instance, I have to constantly use the same or similar bibliography using APA style, ACM style, IEEE style.
They are very useful for multiple collaborative platforms. For instance, when collaborating with some computer science colleagues, I generally use LaTeX and Mendeley does a brilliant one-click job of exporting to BibTeX. When I work with social scientists, I generally use MS Word and there is a MS Word plugin for Mendeley which dynamically adds references in-line as well as the full bibliography at the end of the document.

I hope this has been partially useful to you. This is a little Mendeley focused and I am in no certain terms claiming that it is the best or the most useful. However, for me, it certainly has its advantages.


Can we actively ask an editor to take a decision?

You can, but there's no guarantee the editor will make a decision. It's her journal - until she's satisfied nothing gets published.

A few things to think about:

I personally find it pretty unusual to invite a fourth reviewer for a paper that already has three reviews. I might invite more reviewers if the reviews I received were poor or if I didn't have enough reviews to be confident the first time round, which doesn't seem like the case here. Hence I suspect the "fourth review" was written by the third reviewer.
It's true that this can go on and on, but it's more likely that you're already at least halfway to a final decision. My experience is that very few papers reach four rounds of revisions.
If the paper-to-editor ratio is high, then it's possible the editor is operating on autopilot. If you ask the editor to make a decision quickly, your paper could come under greater scrutiny. This could e.g. lead to the editor inserting some comments of her own or challenging some of your revisions that the 1st/2nd reviewer has already approved of. Conversely if the paper-to-editor ratio is low, then your request is much less likely to change anything.
People don't like to be told what to do, especially in this situation where the editor is the person in charge of the journal. If you decide to ask for a decision, write something non-accusatory, e.g. "we've been through two rounds of major revisions. When can we expect a decision?"


Do editors of other journals get asked to review papers?

Probably not in their capacity as editor of journal B, but certainly probable in their capacity as known expert in the field (and if the fields are near, they'll probably have professional connections anyway).


What order should teaching experience be listed in a teaching dossier when applying for teaching jobs?

There is no official standard, but chronological order is always easiest to follow. However, if you have a non-standard dossier, you could sort your teaching experience according to what is most important.

But the best place to emphasize your relevant experience is in the teaching statement.


I was rejected from my dream graduate school...what should I do?

Disappointment is a real part of life, especially in academia.

My belief is that, in order to succeed in academia, one needs to maintain a concrete yet ultimately attainable set of goals. These goals should be things that have a realistic probability of being achieved, but allows you some room to maneuver around in which to attain them.

Saying "I want to go to graduate school to get a PhD in [insert field of choice here]" is reasonable and gives you several routes to get there. Saying "I want to go to graduate school X to work with professor Y on topic Z" places way too many constraints on yourself: first you need to get into graduate school X, then hope that professor Y is still offering projects in topic Z, and prefers you to other applicants in the program. This is a way of setting yourself up for disappointment.

So, what I would recommend is regrouping. Find an alternate strategy for yourself. What do you want to do in graduate school—beyond working with Prof. X or Y (who by the way, might not be a very good graduate mentor)? Figure out what the goals you have are, both for your graduate degree and beyond, and then figure out what options, among the ones you still have available, will be the ones that best get you there.


Difference in business school pay across developed countries

Many universities are not funded by tuition by students. Funding from the government is not rare.
Did you remember to take into account such issues as whether the society offers reasonable healthcare for everyone, kindergarten and school for children, reasonable holidays, unemployment benefits, rights for employees, etc.? Adjusting for these might not always be in favour of USA. This also makes it very difficult to compare wages across countries.
That said, USA is a very rich country with some very rich universities that can afford to pay well.


I was also enrolled in a Math PhD (Numerical Optimization), with difficulties due to lack of time (I was working as a Math teacher simultaneously); when I finished my PhD courses my advisor proposed a research topic... One year at a half later, I also was at a dead end, unable to find any good result and doubting myself.

When I told my advisor at last that I'd decided to move to another program in another university, he propose another topic, assuring me success. He was sure I would get it (as we know, advisors spend time with their doctoral students, and a student failure is also a fiasco for them) because he knew the subject well (the first topic was more unknown to him, and therefore more challenging, but it was also possible that there was no solution!).

He was right: In the new topic, I quickly got results, tutored for my advisor, I was able to present partial results in congresses, got some articles accepted in journals, and at last, two years later, I finally got my PhD. I lost almost two years, but seen from afar (ten years have passed since then) everything is OK.

By the way, recently I saw (in www.researchgate.net) that somebody has the answer to the first problem that I wasn't able to solve ... so it was solvable, and my advisor was right in proposing it to me!

Well, that was my experience, I think similar to yours. Hope this is helpful.


Should I leave my PhD after 3 years with a Masters?

I might be the person you're looking for an answer from. I left my PhD program in 2016 and took my Master's with me into the job market. I do not regret this decision.

When I was an undergraduate, I looked at the PhD as the ultimate life challenge and the ultimate accomplishment. I wanted to prove to myself I could do it even more than I wanted to make a career out of the PhD.

My first year of graduate school was shockingly hard. I struggled to adjust to the workload and I always felt dumber than my colleagues, even though they assured me they all felt the same. After a year, I adjusted, and even began to excel. I began to recognize the patterns of graduate school, and I developed a rhythm that helped me anticipate and overcome the major challenges.

After completing my Master's thesis, I started studying for the Qualifying Examinations. This was the period where I began to consider leaving the program altogether. Aside from one exam, the second half of the program was exactly identical to the first: I'd do a bit of traveling for research, I'd spend long hours writing my dissertation, and I'd continue to TA and run summer courses.

At this point I was absolutely confident I could finish the PhD if I wanted to. I had already published three books (as a hobby, unrelated to academia), so I was certain I could complete the long-term project of dissertation writing. In fact, one night I counted out all of the pages of research I had written for articles and papers in the past two years, and the number totaled right around the average length of a doctoral dissertation in my field. Writing and research was not going to be a problem.

But completing the program would require another 3 years of my life, and I was already approaching my 30s. My fiancee had been working for years and had her career already built up. She was making real money while I was living off of TA stipends and begging random institutions for grant money. With my income, we weren't going to be able to have a family, buy a house, live the American dream, etc. Our lives were just on hold.

Then I began hearing the horror stories of PhDs struggling to find jobs. Every recent grad I knew, regardless of major, couldn't find work because our university wasn't a top 10. The only exception were the CS majors, who had no problem securing gainful employment. But my housemate, for example, a man who completed his Chemistry PhD by contributing to a new HIV drug, was unable to find a job for two years after he finished.

In the end I had to make a value judgment: was my pride worth my family's future? The answer was no. So I left. My advisor abandoned me (she won't even respond to my happy holiday emails that I occasionally send to my former professors) and some of the guys in my cohort probably considered me a washout. But I've got a happy marriage, a great job, and I'm buying a house within the next two years, so. I got what I wanted out of the experience, and I feel like I stopped at the right time.

I strongly recommend you prioritize your mental health above everything else in your life. Because if you don't have that, then you have nothing. All the money and job security in the world won't make you happy, and therapy might not put you back together. The thing about the PhD is that you have to be 1000% committed to that vision of your life. If you aren't really interested in research, and if you always feel in your heart that you don't want to be there...maybe you should listen.

Before you leave your program, consider taking a Leave of Absence, which is totally acceptable and common, especially for mental health-related reasons.

edit:

One more question for you to answer for yourself: Is there any additional benefit to having the PhD instead of just the Master's? Usually the MS is plenty for landing a job in the corporate sector, and the PhD is if you want to do full-time research (which you obviously don't) or lecturing as a professor (which you didn't mention).


Professional ways of saying "Keep me in the loop in case you have some other projects I may be able to contribute to"

I really enjoy working with you.  I hope you'll think of me if an
  opportunity arises where I might contribute to one of your projects.


Should a thesis of the author be listed as "related work"?

Write something along the lines of:

A preliminary version of this paper appeared in Segal-Halevi's thesis [1], new results include X, Y, and Z.

That could appear as a footnote on the opening page, in your related work section (perhaps at the end), or maybe even in the acknowledgements. (Placement in the acknowledgements seems like a corner case that isn't relevant to the OP.)
For anonymous submission, replace Segal-Halevi's thesis [1] with one of the author's thesis, optionally adding, (citation omitted for anonymity).


The following constitutes my $0.02 with regards to your inquiries. First of all, some fragments of your statement caught my attention. I list them below:

"Eventually, I decided that I want to go into academia. Based on what I’ve read on the internet" - I would suggest you try and get some input aside from information you've gathered from the internet. Your current CS professors might be a good choice. Ask them about what PhD programs, about their experiences, about their opinions, etc.

"[...]but my undergraduate college will not help me on applications." - This fragment leads me to believe you attend a college (undergrad-based) and not a Research-1 university. Is this the case?

To answer one of your questions (the last one), see if (Summer next year) you could join a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program. Those are usually big resumé boosters when it comes to Ph.D. program applications.


I had an experience with along these lines from the other side recently, working with a student to write a plan for the research that he would be doing under me during a three-month visit.  We had to be ultra-specific in order to meet visa requirements, but the project had a lot of uncertainties in it.
In fact, however, the challenge of writing a specific research statement was quite useful for making sure we thought a bit more in advance and were able to get a fast start once my student arrived.

I would recommend getting in touch with the person that you are expected be working with abroad, and set up a time to talk (Skype, Gchat, whatever) about some more specific goals.  Some good examples of starting points for a discussion:

Are there particular types of analysis technique that are likely to be used?
Are there particular pieces of software that are likely to be good test cases?
What is the goal? Do you want to find security issues, bugs, inefficiencies, usability, portability, robustness, something else?  Or are you just trying to exercise the scalability of the techniques?
What are some intermediate checkpoints that you can use to know if you are making progress towards your thesis?  What should be done in 1 month? 3 months? 6 months?

It's OK if the answers change while you're there.  Everybody understands that research is research and that things may change.  But going in with a concrete plan will help a lot in making good use of your time, in understanding whether something has changed, and if so what you want to do about it.

And if the potential supervisor abroad can't make time for a meeting with you?  Then maybe you should rethink whether this would be the right place to go...


Can I use a section title from another paper as my paper's title?

General advice is hard here, not knowing the specifics. If the title actually represents an intellectual contribution, then probably not. But if it is just language cleverness there is likely no harm, but a note on the origin would be appropriate.
For example "Differentiation, As She Is Played" is probably just a tricky pop culture reference and has no intellectual content, so safe enough. With apologies to Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics fame and who plays that game occasionally


Is it acceptable to report private incident of a PhD candidate to the university

No, it would be inappropriate to report misconduct to a university if the misconduct has no relation to the university, except that the perpetrator was a student.

If the misconduct occurred on campus, involved university equipment/resources, or involved an official supervisory relationship, then it might be reported.


A thesis is only one part of a doctoral program.  Generally, there are also classes, qualifying examinations (to make sure you have sufficient breadth and depth), and general apprenticeship as a researcher.  The goal of all of this is to prepare you for a scientific career (whether in traditional academia or elsewhere), which requires more than just the ability to produce a single project once.  In my experience and observation, life as a practicing researcher typically involves producing another Ph.D. worth of work every year or two---a Ph.D. thesis is just the capstone demonstration that you have been educated enough to be capable of doing it at least once.

As such, I think that it is unlikely that any good institution will allow you to skip straight ahead to using a completed project as a thesis, no matter how good the material.  If you want to use the work as an entry-point into academia, I would instead recommend publishing it as a paper paper and simultaneously using the work as a springboard for admission into a good Ph.D. program.  If your field supports use of preprint archives, this is a good way to put your paper formally out there even while it is going through peer review.

If this is truly the direction you want to go, don't worry about rushing to the end-point.  As other questions on this site indicate, age need not be a bar to an academic career.  Instead, I would recommend that you take the time of graduate school as an opportunity---if your independent experiences give you a head start, so much the better for being able to do even more awesome work during graduate school, and also better positioning yourself for what comes after.


Are there any undergraduate research programs available online?

I think you should check The Open University's site.

Under the Studying for a Research Degree section in the Faculty of Mathematics, Computing and Technology site I found this:

  Part-time research students pursue their projects at a distance, under individual guidance from expert supervisors.

So maybe it is a possibility if you actually would like to earn a degree from that university, but since this institute is famous for the excellent quality online and distance education I think you should write them a message and ask for information. I guess they would have good suggestions about your question.

PS. I've taken an online course from this University on the FutureLearn site, and the material's quality was very good.


Telling PhD supervisor I published a paper about my thesis without telling them or listing them as authors?

The answers here are generally explaining the fact that supervisors should not be omitted from the authorship as they are supposed to direct and contribute to the research.

The critical problem is, you are saying that they did not contribute at all, and they, naturally, did not write or review the published article. Still they try to add their names as authors when they learned about the article submitted. You can not be an author if you did not even review the article, just this information is sufficient to see that the ethical misconduct is mostly on their side.

Your problem is, you can not both submit an article without making "such" people authors and at the same time maintain a good relationship with them. A one-author paper is, for me, much better than giving credit to the people who disregard the functioning of the academy, by both hardening the situations unnecessarily and also making academic misconducts. Even if you somehow get your advisors' names added to the paper, they will never ever forget this. At the same time, you shake the ethical ground of your publication by this act of "correction", and it may, in the end, cause the rejection to your paper.  All the while, you will still be considered untrustworthy by your advisors, quite rightly in their perspectives.

Your only choice is to forget about updating the author names, and find some other ways to correct your relationship with the advisors.

And please keep in mind that in academy, at least in Turkey, almost everyone faced in a situation that more than the bulk of work done by someone and just because their advisors don't like them they don't give authorship to the corresponding researcher. And these advisors made their Ph.D. in top-tier universities of USA. I think you will most likely face such problems from now on.


Almost any published work has one or more people listed as authors: they are those people who made a significant contribution to the creation of the work.  If there is more than one author, they are called co-authors, and one might say they co-authored the work.  Usage like "become co-authored into a paper" would be non-standard and perhaps non-grammatical; one would instead say that a person became a co-author of the paper (typically for having contributed to it in a significant way).


Are academic questions (used in textbooks etc.) owned by the publisher, or is anyone able to use them in their own content?

To write this in more detail, the text of the questions is clearly owned by the copyright holder. The ideas embodied in the questions are not protected by copyright. It's usually considered plagiarism to completely rephrase and rewrite a question without citing the original source, but plagiarism generally isn't illegal.

As noted in the downvoted answer, in some communities there is a broad acceptance of some kinds of copying when it comes to exercises, but I wouldn't want to endorse wholesale copying of homework exercises from one book to another. There are likely to be canonical problems that should be worked by every student in a particular discipline, and those would probably have the least claim to protection and the least interest in protection from the publisher. The more creativity going into the question, the more protection it has and the more enforcement you are likely to see.

Writing good exercises is challenging, but you should endeavor to do so for your website. You should cite to sources when you adapt an exercise from somewhere, and you should mention that an exercise is a classical example that all students should be able to do when you draw on something that Gauss or Euler proved as an exercise centuries ago.


I have somehow completed my PhD without having the required theoretical understanding of my field. Can I have an academic career?

This is a pretty solid case of Imposter Syndrome, I think. Yes, lots of other people have experienced it. Part of it is the letdown after completing a degree, perhaps. Part of it is the realization that your field is very wide and no one can really grok all of it.

But you seem to be able to function pretty well in your field. Thesis? Check. Papers? Check. Specialization? Well, yes, of course. Doctorates are like that.

The test of it, is whether you can get a suitable position. If you don't fall in to depression and sabotage your own applications then I doubt that there are any real barriers. The research you love is valued by academia. Do that.

If you are still connected to the university, they probably have a counseling office where there is someone familiar with these sorts of feelings and can give you some professional advice.

As to your grades, they were apparently strong enough that people let you continue your education to the end. No one will care much anymore about them. They can be a poor, or at least imperfect, surrogate for measuring knowledge in any case.


Why are some professors critical of even casual use of Wikipedia?

A small sidenote to start things off:

  If I tell them "I read from Wikipedia that..." I get dismissed immediately, yet in online forums we use it like a Bible.

Well, one of the reasons for that is that "I read in Wikipedia" is almost synonymous with "I have exactly 5 minutes worth of knowledge on the topic". The problem here really isn't the fact that you read Wikipedia, but that citing from it implies that you have read nothing else on the topic. If I am an expert in whatever field, I would probably not take a concern from somebody who implies that all his knowledge comes from a few-minute Internet recherché very seriously, either (no matter what source (s)he actually found). Also, which online forums "use it like a Bible"? Most that I hang around at are very critical of Wikipedia quotes, mostly for the reason I stated above - arguing based on a Wikipedia entry does not exactly establish creds as a person knowledgeable about the subject.

Now, let's discuss the real question here:

  What is the real reason Wikipedia is perceived negatively among many professors, even for informal use (e.g. as an introduction to a subject)?

(note that the question is specifically about using Wikipedia as an introduction to a subject, not as a primary, citable source)

Honestly? It is probably a combination of feeling threatened, reluctance to embrace change, and lack of knowledge how Wikipedia articles actually evolve over time.

"Feeling threatened" in the sense that Wikipedia is kind of decentralising knowledge compilation, which is of course not necessarily something that makes academics (the people that used to be more or less the definition of "compiled knowledge" in pre-internet times) very comfortable.

"Reluctance to embrace change" in the sense that Wikipedia is (in comparison to text books or lectures) a very new (and radically different) way to get an introduction to a topic, and most humans tend to be sceptical of this kind of disruptive technology.

"Lack of knowledge" in the sense that many critical academics simply have not taken the time to study how (especially popular) Wikipedia articles actually evolve over time. I am convinced many would be positively surprised if they knew how well quality control in Wikipedia actually works in practice. I remember that in 2004, c't (a well-known German magazine widely read by IT professionals) ran an experiment where they took random articles out of various encyclopaedias, anonymised them so that one could not tell the source anymore, and had domain experts compare them to anonymised Wikipedia articles for quality and technical errors. Wikipedia was consistently rated higher-quality than even well-respected standard encyclopaedias. That being said, I assume that the average quality of Wikipedia articles degrades a lot for entries on more esoteric topics, so I actually agree that for deeply scientific topics, one should be somewhat skeptical of Wikipedia, just as one would be about any other single source.

Finally, I have to say that I know many professors that don't have a problem with using Wikipedia as a starting point for your review of a subject. However, if you write, for instance, an seminar paper, you are expected to read the primary sources (and I fully agree with this).


I have a UK DClinPsy. Can I use a plain 'Dr.' title in Germany?

There is a department in every state in Germany at the Kultusminister / Senator for Science & Education that deals with exactly this issue. You submit your degree papers and they will tell you in a written letter if your degree is able to be used as "Dr." in Germany. But we are trying so hard to lose this business in Germany about being "Herr Doktor" and "Frau Doktor", why would you want this? Indeed, the KMK paper is just about the EU partners, so if there is a Brexit, this may change. No one knows yet what the results of Brexit will be.


What are good platforms for collaborative writing with multiple senior authors with limited technical background?

If you are in a hurry, you might want to try an online TeX editor such as Overleaf.

Another solution if you are using TeX would be to work alongside a version control system, e.g. git. Keep in mind that it takes some time to get used to it, though.

I do not know about non-TeX-solutions but i feel that a plain-text format has a couple of advantages for this kind of application.

I am looking forward to read other responses to learn about other options.


Journal Editor does not respond about status of paper ~1 year

Getting no response to status inquiries at all is not normal. Make sure you're contacting the right editor. Unless the journal is dead (i.e. no new papers accepted and published), someone out there is organizing peer review. That someone should be able to answer your question. However if you're writing to the wrong email address which might not even work anymore, then your email might not even be getting read.

See if you can reach the journal office (i.e. Springer's employees). I don't know what journal you're referring to, but e.g., for AIDS Research and Therapy they say at the bottom "General enquiries: info@biomedcentral.com". Try writing there.
See if you can reach the editor-in-chief.
If you've already tried and the editor-in-chief isn't responding: search for him/her via Google, see if their email address has changed.
If you've confirmed that the email address is correct: try sending from a different email address, in case your current email address is blacklisted for whatever reason.
Failing all of the above, try contacting a different member of the editorial board.


Is the "Journal of Advances in Mathematics" a real journal?

The Journal of Advances in Mathematics and its publisher are mentioned in this blog post at Scholarly Open Access.  The post explains why the post's author, Jeffrey Beall, believes that the journal and its publisher are not legitimate.


Is there anything that I can do while waiting for the decision on scholarship

The period between admissions and scholarship decisions is not really any different from the period between submission and acceptance notification.

If you have any major changes in your status—if you receive a significant award ("Best paper," teaching award, or similar), or if you have made a notable research contribution (published a paper, or at least submitted one), then that would be relevant information for the department. Otherwise, you'll just have to bide your time.


I don't have a precise answer. However, the fact that some papers & abstracts are indexed in Scopus or Web of Science implies that the conference is indexed there.

If the funding agency wants the conference to be indexed, it might mean that some of the papers/abstracts should be indexed, not necessarily yours. With that, they will be able to judge the quality of the conference (very subjective, but that not's the point), and your acceptance letter is enough for them.

One example is IEEE APS/URSI. There are different formats of submissions:

full papers (that are indexed for sure)
two-page abstracts in IEEE 2-column template (which are indexed unless author opts out)
one-page abstracts in a 1-column template (which are not indexed)

Thus, some submitted papers will not be indexed; however, the presentations will be made during the conference for all submissions. So, the conference is indexed, but not all the proceedings.


Access to scientific articles that cite mine after leaving academia

You can write an e-mail to the authors and ask for a copy of their published paper. Almost everyone will be happy to send you one.

Before doing that, check if the paper is already published on their webpage, or if they have submitted it to a preprint server. Use of preprint servers and embargo periods vary among the various disciplines --- in some fields you are more likely to find it online earlier, in others it's almost impossible.


4th year PhD, considering leaving for different program

My dilemma was broadly similar: I was doing a PhD in a top-tier university I hated; my advisor was awful; and I was considering leaving for a different program. What stopped me from actually doing the latter was that even with explicit invitations and introductions from helpful professors who liked me, I didn't get anything more useful than a desultory suggestion to find the department's webpage and send an application there to start again as a first-year grad student. I was three rather than four years in at that point, but I thought that was enough time that I didn't want to restart from scratch.

In retrospect, that was a bad decision. In my case, I finished the PhD program but didn't get the contacts or publications that I needed to get an actual academic career out of it, so the five years I wound up spending at the university were a waste of time. Grad school can be miserable, advisors can be worse than worthless, and the academic market is terrible. It's just about the only way of getting the opportunity to do certain things, though, most notably serious research. If you're trying to just tough it out and finish, that may not actually get you what you want.


Should I talk about service in my job application?

Many (if not most) academic CVs have a section labeled "Service" that lists committee memberships, reviewing experience, outreach activities, and other university and community service.  You could also reasonably include a brief "service statement", as an addendum to your teaching (or research) statement, that explains those service activities (and future goals) in more detail.

But keep in mind that you're not describing who you are as a human being, but rather who you are as a potential colleague.  The service activities you describe should have direct bearing on your suitability for a teaching job in a university mathematics department.  So coaching your daughter's robotics team could reasonably be included, but coaching her baseball team probably shouldn't.

Also remember that your service activities are almost certainly less important than your record in teaching and research.  "Service" should be the last section of your CV, and any service statement should be significantly shorter than your teaching or research statements.


How much vacation time is typical during a PhD in Singapore?

I got my Ph.D. at NTU.  Ph.D. students would generally be getting 21 days of leave for each calendar year (i.e. Jan-Dec) in both NUS and NTU (see links below).

With a 5 day work-week, that means a maximum of 4 weeks + 1 day of leave.  This can be increased if the period coincides with one or more of Singapore's 11 public holidays (as published by the Ministry of Manpower).  No-pay leave may also be possible, if the Ph.D. supervisor agrees.

Note that Ph.D. students would be still be working during the undergraduate summer break vacation periods.

References:

http://nus.edu.sg/ngs/leave_ngss.html
http://www3.ntu.edu.sg/asis/gso/rsls_leave_policy.pdf
http://www.cee.ntu.edu.sg/Students/Graduate/PhD_MEng/Documents/Leave%20Scheme.pdf