What To Do About An Apparently Non-Replicable Paper

I would suggest focusing far, far less on this non-peer-reviewed paper.

Publish the results you have. Use methodology that is as sound as you can achieve with the data and tools that you have. Cite previous work that agrees and disagrees with what you find. Contextualize your findings in an understanding informed by an entire body of work, not just individual papers.

The only time it makes good strategic sense to focus on replication of a particular result is if that result is influential and relied upon in practical use. A discerning reader of the literature will approach any single finding with appropriate skepticism.


Should interviews be arranged by less-preferred schools first?

This is a common strategy, but it can backfire on you in the following way.

If you interview for the position that least interests you and are given a job offer, you may have to respond to that offer before you have a chance to complete the other interviews (or before those institutions are ready to make an offer.)  If this happens you may be faced with the choice of accepting an offer from your least favorite institution or refusing that offer and then running the risk that none of the other interviews will result in an offer.


Most universities in the US (90% according to this website according to), are on the semester system in which there are two academic terms, fall semester (sept-dec) and spring semester (jan-may). In this semester system, exams happen at the end of each semester, not in a separate time period.

Some universities have a quarter system, where each quarter is identified with a season and students typically have the summer quarter off. Still other universities have a trimester system which "divides the academic year into three terms of 14 to 16 weeks each, with attendance required in two trimesters per year, to total 28 to 32 weeks of instruction" (wikipedia).


Can a school change their admission decision before April 15th?

I am very experienced with admissions in the U.S., in particular in math programs at my R1 university: unless you grossly falsified something in your application, it would be very unusual, and substantial professional misconduct, and would not be even contemplated as a dignified option, for a grad program to recant on an offer of admission and funding.

The only to-me-conceivable scenario would involve catastrophic budget problems at the university ... since, after all, grad student funding is a tiny bit of the whole.

So, at least approximately, I'd recommend thinking of the offer of grad admission and funding as a far more reliable contract than most others you'll encounter in life. (Car repair estimates? Real estate appraisal? Promises of eternal friendship :)

So, quite seriously, you should not worry about it (if the offer is from a reputable, long-established university (e.g.) in the U.S. that is not filing for bankruptcy etc.


Should résumés be attached in a mail to a professor?

I slightly prefer attachments.  The problem is that I'm reluctant to reply to e-mails asking for more information, or even to show up on server logs following links, because it may be interpreted as a sign of interest.

Like most faculty members (at least in technical areas), I get enormous numbers of junk e-mails regarding PhD positions or summer research.  The general pattern is that they are form letters sent to large numbers of people, almost all of whom ignore the letters.  If anyone replies in anything but the most discouraging way, then it inspires a potentially lengthy e-mail exchange that will probably just waste everyone's time.

This is a real problem, and I don't know what to do about it.  It's not really fair, but right now the burden is on applicants to stand out from the junk e-mails.  In particular, your e-mail should provide compelling proof that you spent at least as long thinking about it and writing it as you expect the faculty member to spend on it.  If it looks like it could be a form letter with the professor's name and research topic pasted in, then I'll ignore it, as will many other people.  [I should point out that I work in a department with centralized admissions, so I cannot accept students on my own.  This is explained on my web page and the department's.]

For example, a clearly personalized e-mail that discusses the professor's research in detail is good.  Keep in mind that plenty of people are trying to cheat with this.  For example, I regularly receive e-mails saying something like "I found your paper X fascinating when we read it in our seminar", with no further details.  This looks like a form letter, and there have been a couple of times when I've received e-mails from the same sender that were identical except for having different paper titles pasted in, with no indication that they had previously e-mailed me about another paper.  Maybe a few e-mails are genuine, but they sure look like lies.

So when I get an e-mail regarding PhD admissions or summer research, I'm very skeptical that it's more than spam.  There's a five or ten second window to convince me that it's different from the other e-mails, before I set it aside.  If it looks promising, then I'll read further, and I'm a little more likely to do so if any information I need is available right there.  So I'd recommend attaching whatever is needed.


Will turn down a graduate (Master's) program have effect on my application for the same program?

In most programs, each application is judged on its merits. That said, however, it is likely that a little note will be appended to your file to state that you were accepted into the program last year and that you rejected the offer. How this note will be judged will depend on the admissions committee, of course. However, unless you can provide reasonable evidence explaining your rejection of the offer of admission, I would imagine that it would count negatively in your favour. I suggest that you provide this reason in the statement of purpose.

@Buzz has commented that your question about deferred admission is pertinent here. If there is no reason for you to reject the offer outright, then a program that offers you the chance to defer acceptance should be the way to go. This is usually the case for students wishing to do a "gap year thing".


Why do some publications mention the phone of the corresponding author?

So you can call them?

I've been reached out to by readers before via telephone, particularly reporters trying to get a story together, on one of my more media-friendly papers.

It's rare, and phone numbers are hardly stable things (though neither are email addresses), but it's also a pretty close to no-cost addition.


It's hard for me to understand how this can really be an issue for the professor, because in this day and age of online submission, once she has written a letter, it takes very little time to submit it to each additional school.  Twelve schools is a little on the high side but certainly not ridiculous.  However, it won't really help the situation for you to tell her that.  Of course, overwork and burnout are definitely things for faculty, and there could be issues like that in play.  But my point is that based on what you've said, it sounds like your request is totally reasonable, and this is unprofessional behavior on her part.

I would suggest you discuss this with her department chair.  You could share your email chain with the chair, making it clear that  you requested the letters well in advance and the professor agreed to send them; that she has actually already written the letter; and that the reason for her balking is not apparently related to any concerns about your qualifications.

The chair will be better positioned to speak to the faculty member about sending the letters.  Departments have an interest in seeing students succeed, and I think most chairs would not be happy about seeing this obstructed for relatively trivial reasons.  The chair may also be able to offer to adjust the professor's workload, or have the letters submitted by some other staff member.  As a last resort, the chair may be able to lean on some other professor to write a substitute letter at short notice.

Be prompt about this, but don't panic too much about approaching deadlines.  Graduate programs are usually able to have some flexibility about letters submitted after a deadline, as long as the student's portion of the application was in on time.

This might hurt your relationship with the professor somewhat.  However, I would say she already blew up your relationship by refusing to submit your letters.  That's a breach of a very straightforward professional obligation.


If your resume has a text statement about this work, describe your contribution, not your authorship position.
The point of author ordering is to give a rough guide of level of contribution.  But if you are actually describing the work in words, you can do better than that: give specifics that highlight the importance of your role.  Examples:

Was the primary person responsible for developing algorithm X.
Designed and executed experiments showing Y.
Conceived of the original idea for the work and contributed to experimental design and statistical analysis.

This is much better information about what you did.
If in some context you need a way to describe your authorship position in words, you could call yourself:

Co-first author (along with A and C).

You would need to mention A and C so that it is clear you are one of three, not one of two.
However, I'm not convinced that people will give you much credit for being one of three "first" authors.  I probably wouldn't bother to mention it.


How can teaching staff improve a passive student group?

Some are busy in coding, some are reading research articles, some are doing something else.

I have seen (and participated in) this exact behaviour in classes that are minor and irrelevant to the study path students take. This might be an Ecology class for Physics majors, or a Science class for Language majors. Thus, step 1 is to understand students' motivations behind taking your class. If your students only take classes because some governing body requires them to, you have little room to improve their motivation.

To find if this is the case, try asking the students: either directly or by collecting an anonymous poll with 'What is your motivation for this course?' question. If the answers indicate that their motivation is external, adapt.

One strategy I can think of is changing the lectures to project work, literally making the students learn on their own. However, what to do with students who only have external motivation is a separate question.
EDIT: since the students seem to be taking the class for the sake of a good transcript, they will not interact with you in the lectures. Their goal is to sit through the lecture, "nine-to-five", and minimize the effort, subject to reaching a passing grade. (Ironically, students are good at solving these kinds of optimization problems.) My advice still holds: if a student is given a project to work on, be it a program, a research report, an essay, a survey, you name it, he has much less space to slack than in a lecture.


Can publications on research conducted before I started my tenure-track position count towards tenure? Do they need to have my new affiliation?

There is substantial variation between universities, and to an extent departments within a university, about what counts towards tenure. The best way to find out is to ask your department chair, a mentor, or someone on the tenure and promotions committee about what counts.

That said, there are ethics regarding what affiliations should be listed on publications. If your "pending publications" are in press or far along the review process, it would be unethical to switch your affiliation. If you are still writing the manuscript, or the reviews require a major revision, and you do additional work while at your new university, then it would be appropriate to add an additional affiliation.


Why is dental school a separate thing from medical school?

the dentists professional society regulates entry into the dentistry profession for the protection of the public and the maintenance of member income.

the doctors professional society does the same.

neither one is interested in admitting the others students to their respective profession.


Is it possible take take part in a research project if I'm not a part of a university?

It's certainly possible, though admittedly somewhat harder outside the framework of a university. Some potential avenues, answering generally - not all of them might apply to your particular circumstance.

Academic/Business partnerships. These are a new hot topic, and in some fields quite active. Universities love them because they're a revenue stream. Businesses like them because its harder to get closer to the cutting edge than at a major university. Look for companies that do this as potential employers? They're good for both dabbling in research, and also as a springboard into the research side of things - I've met several "private sector refugees" in my time.
Research-oriented companies. Quintiles, RTI, Westat, RAND, etc. all come to mind. There are tons of these companies, and many of them both pay quite well and actively publish. Are there any that serve your particular field?
Consulting. Research groups occasionally have funding for outside contractors of one sort or another - and if someone really wants to work with you, they may write such a position into a grant with you in mind. For example, I have some grant support for a freelance programmer. I've known other people hired for a particular expertise, or just "a warm body who isn't a student". This is probably the path you'd end up going down if you both contact your ex-professors and want to get paid.
Volunteering. Academics are cheap. It never hurts to ask if they've got some side project you might be suited for collecting dust in the back.


Is it likely that American Mathematical Monthly would eventually accept a Filler article if it asks for substantial re-writing?

As mathematical journals go, the Monthly is actually quite selective: I believe their acceptance rate is something like 10%.  For the majority of the papers submitted, the answer is a hard "no."  For instance, I have submitted five papers to the Monthly and three of them were accepted.  For the other two, the rejection was very clear -- they sure did not say "some promise" or "further consideration," so when they say that I think they mean it.

The other thing to know about the Monthly is that they are extremely picky about exposition.  They care so much more about that than any other math journal I know.  Just a few hours ago I received a rejection from a prestigious journal, which described my paper as "very nicely written." The point being that they noticed but didn't really care: they want to publish papers with amazing breakthroughs.  The Monthly is not like that: they take the style about as seriously as the content.  And though indeed I think of myself as as strong, experienced writer, all three of my accepted Monthly articles required massive, repeated expository revisions.  They are really tireless: if after five times you haven't gotten it right, they will ask for a sixth revision.  (This is not an exaggeration.)

A "Filler" is of course much shorter than an article: obviously it can be no longer than a page.  The amount of expository work per line is probably going to be higher than just about any other math piece you could write.  You say

  I'm not particularly keen on spending a lot of time re-writing and correcting the pedantic details, if there is a substantial chance of rejection after that revision.

As I said above, I don't think they're stringing you along.  Based on the response you've gotten, I think you should expect that if you pay enough attention to the exposition, they'll probably take it in the end.  Do be aware though that we're talking about lots of work, for something that is not even going to be counted as an academic publication by most.  So if you really do not enjoy the writing process, you may end up feeling that the outlay of time and effort was not worth the reward.


Differences in quality between a PhD with graduate course work, and one purely on research?

When someone earned successfully and honestly his PhD in a good research group, either in the US system or in UK/Germany (Master degree is often mandatory for starting PhD), there will probably be no strong differences in the overall quality, I wouldn't make here any generalizations based on this fine system nuances. The level and depth of research experience are very similar (also STEM students in Germany don't work on average 80-90 hours a week, 60 will be rare ;))

But, when a student did choose a distinct topic and research field for his master and PhD thesis, you can be a bit more sure he is really motivated for this work and research generally, while a US PhD student with a bachelor (and without master) maybe is just trying to finish what he started over the years, in spite of vanishing interest/motivation in research generally (see link above) or that distinct topic. During the short time of a bachelor thesis you cannot find out, if you are suited for research and a distinct field in my opinion. In Germany it's hard to get invitations to PhD job interviews at all without a master thesis near to a given research project. Motivation and background is here more important than 0,5 better grade or 3 year younger age. In interviews they mostly check, how motivated, interested, knowledgable is a candidate for that distinct field. So there will probably be no big differences in quality, but you can be more sure about long term motivation and therefore originality/quality of his research.

As we currently have a (another) case of plagiarism in Germany (our education minister obviously wasn't trained, e.g. by a bachelor nor master thesis, for writing a long PhD thesis correctly), I have to add that somebody who has written a bigger master and PhD thesis will also have more practice in publishing, citing, researching literature...

Side note: Personally, I think the german system is more selective, while the US system can afford this system because of a abundance of PhD students and applicants (thats also the reason they have to work 80-90 instead of 60 hours, competition being stronger and teaching of undergraduate students in Germany needs very good command of german language, we are limited in hiring foreign students for those jobs). A very good master and PhD thesis is a strong hallmark for the motivation of a student and future researcher for a distinct research field.


Can an emotional letter of motivation be harmful in a PhD application?

In brief, even after imagining that text's language cleaned up, the problem is not about "emotion" but about lack of verifiable substance. As in @aesmail's good answer, insubstantiated claims, or, worse, claims which appear to be counter to any documentable reality, are at best unpersuasive. For example, unsupported claims about the quality of one's university or department are at best pointless, and suggest that one does not know how things work. Proposing to "collect new knowledge" gives a very strange impression, as though the writer believed that learning new things was somehow unusual... while being remarkably inspecific.

That is, if I were to receive such a letter, I'd consider it basically content-free, for all practical purposes. "Emotion" is not the issue. The problem is that such letters should not be content-free, but should include tangibles, past accomplishments and connections with the future, etc. A content-free letter competes very badly with content-ful letters.


In conferences with paper bidding, reviewers get to indicate their preference for each paper (i.e. "I'm interested in reviewing this one, not interested in reviewing that one").

The bids are typically based on the abstract (which is why many conferences have an "abstract submission deadline" before the submission deadline). That way, by the time the papers are submitted, they can be distributed to reviewers immediately.


Are professors required to perform research as a necessity to teaching?

Over the course of a long career in teaching, the nature of your instruction will necessarily need to change as both our scientific understanding of the world and our society change.  This is especially true for undergraduate and graduate instruction, where the knowledge is more specialized and changes more quickly, but I would argue it is also true for much of one's earlier schooling as well.

To be a good instructor, then, I think that one absolutely must keep up with the evolving nature of one's field.  But does that require doing research?  I don't think so (except, of course, for advising graduate students who are required to do research).  Remaining involved in research is definitely one of the easiest ways to keep up with a field, but it's not a panacea either: research is typically extremely focused and narrow, and being up to date in one's particular research sub-field does not necessarily mean you will learn about everything relevant to instructing your students in a course that is only related in the more general sense (e.g., a platinum electrocatalyst researcher teaching introductory organic chemistry).  One can consume information about research without producing it oneself, however, and many other forms of professional education are also available.

Bottom line: doing research is a great way of keeping up with your field, but not necessarily sufficient and not necessarily the only way.


Does correcting the data analysis when replying to a Major Revision make a bad impression on the editors and reviewers?

Part of the point of peer review is to help correct errors before they’re published. Acknowledging that you made an error isn’t a sign of weakness, or at least shouldn’t be viewed as such, instead, it should be a sign that you are a person interested in making work that is done correctly.

A reviewer on my very first paper pointed out that one of my graphs had to be incorrect, because it violated an important principle. It turned out the reviewer was correct. I had made a math error in the code that generated the graph. I fixed it and resubmitted it, and there were no further issues.

Don’t worry about the impressions of the peer reviewers—focus on making your papers as strong and as accurate as possible.


Why do admissions committees consider the Statement of Purpose to be important?

This question assumes they do consider it important, but how it's actually viewed varies enormously between departments.  In mine, it's not considered particularly important for most applicants.  If your statement is pretty good, then that's good enough (nobody was ever admitted by writing a great personal statement).  However, it can matter in special cases:

It gives you a chance to address anything non-standard or potentially worrisome about your application.  It can be really valuable for you to make a case for why these things are not in fact a problem.
It gives you a chance to shoot yourself in the foot.  For example, applicants occasionally sound like arrogant jerks, demonstrate that they like to talk about mathematics they don't understand at all (without admitting their lack of knowledge), or reveal that they have no idea how graduate school works.  The first two are major problems, and the third is worrisome.

It can also be helpful to learn things like the intended specialization or advisor, but we ask for that elsewhere on the application as well.

If you apply to a department that takes this approach, then you shouldn't stress out too much about the statement of purpose.  But of course other departments may do things differently, so you can't relax entirely.


Self-censorship to prevent grievance being filed by classmate

You are, it appears, being bullied. You will encounter people with strong, even irrational feelings irrelevant to you and your work with some regularity over your career. Engaging is seldom useful. You are not responsible for his demands, and this issue is not one in which it appears you want to involve yourself. In your coming meeting, engage as little as possible with his narrative. Bring all topics back to how you are being made uncomfortable, and how you wish to be left alone.  You are correct in your statement, but don't seek to assert that. Just let this angry individual exit your life without engaging with his angry demands. If he escalates, your department will certainly help you; use that.


Asking Professor for teaching assistantship

There is no reason not to ask. This is all upside for you. You'll show enthusiasm, get a great letter, make an ally. You may not get it, though, for 2 reasons.

First, as mentioned in the comments, TAships are regarded as part of the graduate training process, and so are awarded to grad students first, often as part of their stipend requirements. It also offers grad students important training in classroom maintenance and teaching.

Second, from the university's perspective, having an undergraduate take responsibility for a class with undergraduates is a risk, even though you probably are worthy.  Paying students would probably feel slighted to have a peer weigh in on their grade, but that's all speculation. In any case, you are obviously a strong candidate for graduate school. Go for it!


My collaborator has asked to be only acknowledged in a paper. Should I make him a co-author?

The answer depends on how firmly Y has declined authorship.  I don't think it's appropriate to ask the referees to decide on authorship.

You cannot list Y as an author without his consent.  If he has firmly refused to be an author, that is the end of it.
If Y has simply indicated that acknowledgment is a sufficient form of credit, but left the door open to being an author then it's up to you.  I have responded in this way sometimes when I felt my contribution was sufficient for authorship but I didn't want to step on anybody's toes.  I try to err on the side of being generous with credit, so I would say to him

  "I feel that your contribution warrants authorship.  Are you willing to be listed as an author?"

If he still says no, then just acknowledge him.  You can include the statement of how critical his part was in the acknowledgment.

In the comments, there is a suggestion to state in the paper that Y has declined authorship.  I don't think this is wise; it needlessly draws attention and may make people speculate as to why.  If I were Y I would not want that statement in the paper.


Can a peer-grading system still work despite malicious students?

The goal of reducing grading effort in this way is malfeasance. As the instructor, it is your judgement that should be the dominant factor in student evaluation. And I'm a big believer and user of peer evaluation. But you can't substitute the judgement of non professionals for your own and expect any good outcome.

Self-assessment is different from peer-assessment, by the way and it is also a useful and valuable thing to do, but not if the main goal is to make the instructor into a mere clerk.

In an ethical system in which student evaluate and mark their peers the instructor effort is actually likely to increase, not decrease, since you have to both judge the original papers yourself and the evaluations given by others. It is valuable to do that if done well, but is inconsistent with the goal of reducing instructor effort.

And of course, if the students need to expend effort to evaluate their peers the results should be part of their own evaluation as well.

I've often used self and peer evaluation to get some feedback on what students do in a project setting where their work is done outside my direct view. I still have to evaluate the project, of course. But the self evaluation is to have students describe their own main contribution to the work. The peer evaluation is to ask students who were the top contributors to the effort and why they make that judgement. Note that all of the questions are stated positively. What it has taught me is that some students who don't appear to be particularly engaged in the classroom can be major contributors to group work. That is valuable to know and it has to come from students, but it doesn't reduce my effort.


Is it OK to ask your supervisor for a recommendation for attending an academic event if the PhD just started?

Rather than just ask for the support letter, it may be a good step to simply ask if your supervisor thinks that the event is appropriate for you to participate in, given your knowledge of the topic and ability to prepare for the event (if applicable, I'm not sure if the event is something you would have to prepare for, like a conference). Your supervisor may be happy that you are demonstrating such enthusiasm and effort early in your program of study!

Since the deadline is short, I would offer to draft the letter for him. This will help with the timing, plus it will help since you have not worked together very long. This will ease the burden of the task, which he will also appreciate. Good luck!


Should I meet my professors at a celebration party?

Get over your disappointment and celebrate your achievement. It's important to give yourself a pat on the back when you've done good work, no matter if it's perfect or not. If you only look at what you didn't achieve and not at what you did achieve, your motivation is going to suffer at some point.

As for your profs: If they are not total jerks, they will be very happy to celebrate with you. Nobody in their right mind is going to hold it against you that you didn't meet very high expectations, especially not on an occasion like this. You sound more disappointed than they will most likely be. In the unlikely event that someone is giving you a hard time, just turn around, grab another glass of champagne (or beer) and high-five someone nice.


As a department chair at a US university who has on various occasions negotiated these sorts of overlapping/adjacent postdoc arrangements with job candidates, I can tell you that at least in the US (and, I strongly suspect, in many other countries) it would be considered highly unethical to set up an arrangement of this sort without informing and getting the agreement of the directors/department chairs at both institutions A and B, and is very likely to get you into trouble if you are found out (an event which itself seems quite likely, although that is harder to estimate), with possibly very bad consequences for your career. You can be sure that the negative financial effects of those consequences (even assuming money is the only thing you care about, which probably is untrue) would be of a much greater order of magnitude than the extra money you are trying to squeeze out of your third month of stay at Institution B. And keep in mind that this is not just an ethical matter -- at my institution specifically you would certainly be violating some institutional policies, even if in a practical sense you would still manage to meet your teaching obligations. If you are somehow thinking that "it is better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission", please trust me -- this is not a situation where that saying applies.

In short, DON'T DO IT. Bring the department chairs and/or faculty mentors on board and see how they can help you achieve your goals. As I said, in my department we occasionally try to help postdocs combine their stay at my university with another short-term visit to another institution, and recognize that this can work to everyone's benefit, but it must be done honestly and with the full knowledge and cooperation of all involved parties.


Is it appropriate to ask my supervisor about publication of future results now?

It's actually a very smart idea to talk with your advisor about publications as early as is reasonable: that is, once you think you have a handle on what the papers will be about, you should initiate the discussion. By starting the discussion early—before you begin writing the manuscript—you can begin to deal with some of the important questions associated with writing and publishing:

What is the main messages and results of the paper?
To what journal will I send the manuscript?
What form will the manuscript take?
Who will be authors and co-authors?

The longer you put off this discussion, the greater the probability that problems that could have been easily averted earlier will persist.


Value of "nonresearch articles" section in PNAS

I had a look at the latest collection paper (Megafauna and ecosystem function from the Pleistocene to the Anthropocene). This turned out to be a PNAS Direct Submission, which appears to be a pretty standard peer-review process and definitely the standard way to submit papers to PNAS ("Direct Submissions now account for more than 95% of papers submitted and 78% of papers published in PNAS"). I couldn't find out any sort of invitation for collected papers, so my guess is that these are papers that have already been published through standard peer-review, which have been grouped after the fact by PNAS editors. So this isn't a "PNAS section", but just a thematic collection of papers that have been normally published in PNAS (which, in 2014, had an acceptance rate of 17%).


Can I use a part of figure in my published paper to supplementary information of new paper?

If you think of it as reusing an old figure you avoid self plagiarism simply by citing the original. Perhaps the citation includes "Adapted from...".

But, in changing the scale you might also think of it as a new figure, even if it has the same "shape". Does it convey new information or just restate the old information. You might want to cite the old anyway, just to make things easier for readers needing to go to the old paper.

But, you have an additional issue. If you gave up copyright to the publisher of the old article, you probably need to obtain permission to use the figure in any case (unless it is truly "new"). I doubt that any reputable publisher would deny you permission, but you need to ask to reuse even your own work if you don't hold copyright to it (US perspective - laws vary).


For those who study in the humanities, have I made a mistake in doing my Master's abroad?

You may have made a mistake, but it isn't a fatal one. You need a path forward.

First, your undergraduate professors can still have credence in writing recommendations, but you need to keep in contact with them so you aren't forgotten. They can probably give you advice now on your current situation.

I assume that you are early in your European studies. Abandoning and starting over in a US doctoral program might be an option, though perhaps as last resort.

The B) issue can, perhaps, help you with the A) issue. Professors might be a bit tired of lazy students and could possibly appreciate an approach from a student who wants to do more, both helping with the letters of recommendation issue and your C) problem.

But, it won't work if you are passive. You need to take charge. If one of your current professors does something interesting, you could make an approach and offer to help in some way. This solves all the problems. But don't just "stick it out". Take charge.


How can students with varied interests decide which to pursue in graduate school?

If you like two subjects equally, pick the better paid one for your actual career. That one should be the basis for most of your formal, documented education.

You can still treat the less well paid one as your hobby, and go for informal education in it.

Taking your first example, Physics and History, I would make Physics the subject for formal education such as a master's degree. Go on reading about history, join a historical recreation society, take on-line courses in history, blog about history as your hobby.


Standard practice when merging papers on arxiv

Option 1 should be fine if you add appropriate comments and withdraw old papers.

Here is how we did it recently:

http://arxiv.org/abs/1503.04963 (merger)
http://arxiv.org/abs/1412.2109 (withdrawn)
http://arxiv.org/abs/1412.2667 (withdrawn)

In the merged paper, it is important to add a comment; otherwise you will probably trigger https://arxiv.org/help/overlap


Well, if you want to find a good professor to work with, you could search for the available professors in a certain university (online, in their website).

After having all the names, you could "stalk" them online, find some of their papers, etc. Most of them (if not all) will have a webpage in which they post lots of information about themselves, such as, their papers, students they worked with, even their hobbies. You'll probably delete quite a few names that way.

You'll still have some professors names not crossed out. You can then try to e-mail the students they worked with and ask them what's their evaluation of said professor.

Not sure if this is what you're looking for, sorry if it's not.


Why "in Proceedings of conference...", but not "in Journal of ...."

You cite proceedings separately from articles contained within them, because proceedings have their own metadata which stands alone, while journal metadata is typically encompassed in the citation of articles.

@article - papers in journals: Chatrychan et al, "Observation of a new boson at a mass of 125 GeV with the CMS experiment at the LHC", Physics Letters B 716(1) 30--61, 17 September 2012, ISSN 0370-2693.
@proceedings - the proceedings themselves: SIGGRAPH '84 Proceedings of the 11th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, July 23-27, 1984, Minneapolis, Minnesota, ISBN:0-89791-138-5
@inproceedings - papers in proceedings: Cook et al, "Distributed Ray Tracing", in SIGGRAPH '84

You don't tend to cite journals alone (you can just write Physics Letters B, you don't usually need to give a bibliography entry) or journal issues - you rarely want to refer to 'the 17 September 2012 issue of Physics Letters B' instead of a paper inside it.


Correcting Preregistered Methods After the Fact

As a fellow statistician who assists non-statistician researchers, I sympathise with this predicament.  I actually gave a faculty talk at my university about a month ago, giving advice to researchers on writing methodological applications such as pre-registered descriptions of experiments.  One of the things I stressed in that talk was the importance of describing statistical methods without "locking yourself in" to models or tests that end up being inappropriate for the data.  Generally speaking, the statistical description in the pre-registered methodology should set out the general model form expected to be used, and give a description of the hypotheses that will be tested, but it should always give allowance for the researcher to make changes in the model when this is necessary to accommodate the data (e.g., when diagnostic plots show heteroskedasticity or non-independence of residuals).

Obviously all this is too late in the case you are dealing with, but it is a useful opportunity to raise those issues with the researchers who wrote the pre-registration document, and give some advice for future practice.  It is also worth bearing in mind that the primary purpose of pre-registration of experiments is to prevent researchers from making post hoc comparisons and then passing them off as the hypothesis of initial interest.  Pre-registration does not exist primarily to lock statisticians into model assumptions.  In any case, logically, there are three possible ways you could proceed in this case:

Good analysis trumps pre-registration: Do the correct statistical analysis, making whatever changes you need, even if this is contrary to the method/model set out in the pre-registration document.  Make sure the write-up of the analysis and subsequent academic paper clearly disclose (and explain) any deviation from the pre-registered method.  The reader will then be able to decide whether or not they still trust that the pre-registration has achieved the desired purpose.
Pre-registration trumps good analysis: Do the analysis in accordance with the pre-registration document.  Make sure the write-up of the analysis and subsequent academic paper clearly discloses the flaws in the analysis, but notes that they were fixed by the pre-registration decisions.  Don't try to sweep these problems under the rug.
Refuse to do the work: The last option is to refuse to do the statistical work on this project, on the basis that you cannot comply with the pre-registration method, while still doing good statistical analysis.  This option leaves the other researchers in a bit of a bind, but some might say that that is the proper penalty for having locked in bad methodological decisions in the pre-registration document.  (And even if you choose this option, some other statistician might take up the work, so they will still need to read this answer for advice!)

In my opinion, the first of these options is clearly superior to the second.  You get a good analysis that is done properly, and the reader is able to decide if the pre-registration has achieved its purpose (usually to prevent post hoc comparisons) despite the changes.  If you decide to go ahead with the analysis, I would suggest that you adopt this method, but make sure the other researchers agree that they will clearly disclose the changes you make to the method in the final paper (so that the reader knows that there was a deviation from the pre-registered method).


What to call paragraph in relevant work chapter that explains relation to own thesis/research?

Why do you think it needs a title? You can just leave it as another paragraph in the same section.


Is there a correlation between being a good teacher and being a good researcher?

It seems likely that there's some nonzero correlation.  Certainly, there are factors that should lead to positive correlation; for example, some personality traits (like conscientiousness) should lead to both better research and better teaching.  There are also factors that should lead to negative correlation; for example, teaching and research are activities that are competing for a limited amount of time.  It would be strange if all these factors nearly cancelled each other out, so we should expect some net correlation.  Here's an argument for positive:

Let's distinguish between two aspects of teaching, namely exposition and psychology.  Exposition means finding simple explanations, coming up with illuminating examples and analogies, mapping out the most important topics and the relationships between them, etc.  Psychology means understanding where students are coming from and what they do or don't understand, empathizing and bonding with them, arousing their interest and inspiring them to achieve great things, etc.  Both of these are important factors in good teaching, although neither is absolutely essential.  A master of exposition without a good understanding of psychology may be clear but dull, and someone who understands psychology but isn't good at exposition may have to follow a textbook closely, but either one will be much better than some teachers.

Expository ability is almost certainly correlated with research ability, since they both rely on a deep, creative understanding of the subject matter.  In mathematics, the standard example is Jean-Pierre Serre, who is both a brilliant mathematician and the author of several amazing graduate textbooks, and one can see similar characteristics in his research papers and textbooks.

However, the psychology side of teaching is probably not closely connected with research ability.  There may be some correlation, just because smart people tend to be better than average at all kinds of thinking, but I'd bet the correlation is small.  Certainly, there are wonderful researchers who have a terrible understanding of psychology, and vice versa, in a far more dramatic way than for exposition.

I see this split as perhaps explaining why there's so much debate about whether good research and good teaching are correlated, with some people saying obviously yes and others obviously no.  The answer depends on which aspects of teaching you view as most important.


My first meeting with both my PhD and MS supervisor were fairly informal. Talk about research, talk about moving to the new area, ect. Generally set up stuff. They also showed me my new office. You don't really need to prepare unless you don't know much about what your new supervisor does. Relax, there will be plenty of time to stress in graduate school: now is not the time.


Is a description of product development work suitable for a journal paper?

Academic journals generally publish papers describing original research results that advance (or try to advance) a particular field of study.  Development of a product is not necessarily an original research result.

Does your design involve a new approach or technique that has not previously been used in the field? Does it represent a new way of thinking about a problem? Then it may be an original research result.
Is your design an application or straightforward extension of previously known techniques, possibly with some small tweaks and optimizations? Then it may be a great new product, but is probably not a research result.


Is it possible to do research in cell/molecular biology without doing experimental work myself?

I don't think it is possible or constructive to avoid lab work in your field at PhD level.

The point of a PhD is to train you as an independent researcher, and therefore you need to be familiar with all stages of the research process, including data collection. There are plenty of fields for which data collection does not involve lab work, but unfortunately for you, cell and molecular biology are not among them.

Going through the process of lab work is not just important in terms of getting the data, it informs the rest of your work. I don't believe you will design an experiment as effectively if you are not familiar with exactly how long the different processes will take, where the challenges lie, where errors might creep in, and so on. Likewise, you are better able to interpret the data if you understand how it was collected. This stuff can be learnt to some extent by reading/talking to people/being given a demo, but by far the best way is to do it yourself.

"Paying your dues" may be a part of it - certainly, someone needs to do the legwork! - but I would encourage you not to look at it that way. At this stage in your career, it is highly valuable to you to gain an overview of the research process, even if later on (and you might not have to wait until you are a PI) you specialise in a particular phase of research.

EDIT: Others have pointed out fields, such as bioinformatics, in which it is possible to avoid lab work. Perhaps I was considering "cell and molecular biology" too narrowly. Nonetheless, bioinformatics still ultimately relies on data, and so I still believe that gaining experience of how that data is gathered is highly valuable.


Can I write publications if I don't have co-authors?

Yes it definitely can be done.

If you have an idea then do a literature review of the subject and if you have a contribution that builds on the activity in one of the journals you find then publish there. Perhaps also look into doing a conference paper first. See here for the difference between the two.

The best co-author for your case would probably be a professor or grad student at your university.

No, co-authors are not required. They can be useful though if you need their help/skills in the project.

In computer science, journal papers usually occur during one’s PhD. Bright Masters and Honours students usually start publishing conference papers, but journal papers are not unheard of.


I am a PhD student and hate it here. How can I warn prospective students during admit weekend without ruining my reputation?

Focus on facts, rather than your emotional impressions.
Don't try to overgeneralize. Say what didn't work for you, rather than imply that it does not work for everyone (unless everyone agrees) or it won't work for the prospective student (who knows...).
You could say "I would have chosen differently" (ideally, adding the other possible options) or "overall, I dislike this program" rather than "this program sucks" or going into long rants.


Is it possible to publish without adviser?

The response to this depends to a degree on the type of institution you were studying at and the norms for that educational system.
In most countries now the norm would be for the Graduate School to have the final say on matters like this. Particularly if the advisor(s) involved are retired (or remaining as semi-retired adjuncts).
Given your OS research was on exchange, the Graduate School at the host institution would typically defer to that in the home country on matters like this.
If the agreement you signed appears to be binding they may discourage you from publishing. If not, I expect they would encourage you to publish. They may even recommend this irrespective of the opinion or the status of the advisor, but that would depend on the culture (and politics) of your home institution.
Graduate Schools often have expertise on these kinds of issues as IP issues are common in collaborative projects. Broadly speaking, most Graduate Schools want their PhD candidates and graduates to be publishing. It's a good look for them and its what they are there to support you to do.
My advice would also to be raise the apparent sharing of your work as a separate issue. Not that I'm saying don't raise it - but if your goal is to be able to publish the results of your research then aim to sort that out as a separate issue.
I would then consider if you think that the sharing of findings with other students looks like the kind of academic misconduct that is defined by your institution and if so consider raising this as a separate matter. I would handle the prospect of academic misconduct with care if you are thinking of raising this.


How should I cite 3 images that were used to compose a new image?

The first image is sourced to OpenClipArt.org, which releases images into the public domain specifically to simplify your life in cases like this.  OpenClipArt specifically releases under the Creative Commons Zero license to enable this.  For such images, as well as anything else in the public domain (e.g., most images published by the US Government), there is no requirement for specific attribution.

It is courteous to add a discrete note on the sourcing, and it would be dishonest for you to claim to be the artist, but the a major part of the reason that people build public domain image repositories is to let people build them into diagrams and other images without dealing with the attribution problem that you face. Since there are lots of these sorts of server diagram images on OpenClipArt.org, I would strongly suggest that you see if you can replace your current images with public domain images.

If you don't do this, then for the attribution-required images the figure caption should include the website references, just as you would reference a paper that you reproduced an image from.  For example, you may phrase it: "Server images adapted from [cite1,cite2]" where the citations give the appropriate online document citation, just as you would if you were citing any other webpage.  This is kind of a pain, and easy to lose track of if you reuse the images in other contexts, which is why I strongly recommend using non-attribution licensed images whenever possible.


Four papers accepted for publication however not published due to some monetary issues?

Reputable journals will waive publication charges for authors who cannot pay them, so you should ask about that.  If everything goes well, then that will simply solve your financial problems.  I see only two ways you can get stuck:

(1)  The journal insists you can pay, perhaps because your advisor has plenty of grant money, but your advisor refuses.  In that case you have a serious problem, and it is much deeper than just paying for these publication charges; you need to sort things out with your advisor.

(2)  The journal does not have a procedure for waiving the charges.  In that case, the journal acceptance is worthless.  The journals in this category are money-making operations with no academic validity.  Nobody will care that they accepted your paper, because they just wanted your publication fees.

The first thing you need to determine is which case you are in.  For example, one valid reason for an advisor to refuse to pay is because the journals are not reputable.  If you are in that case, then you need to rethink everything.  Otherwise, it sounds like you may be in a complicated situation with your advisor.


Is the classical chair system (in which a senior professor supervises junior professors) obsolete?

I know of no American university in which any tenure track faculty member works under any other tenure track faculty member in any official capacity.

The main difference between assistant professors and full professors is that assistant professors do not have tenure.  (Going far enough back in the history of my department, one sees "tenured assistant professors".  I don't know what that's about.  I am not willing to claim that nowadays no American university has tenured assistant professors, but I do not know of any.)  "Associate professor" is ambiguous on this point: in most cases associate professors have tenure, but at my university the promotion and the tenure are distinct processes with slightly different rules, although they are similar enough and onerous enough that candidates get pressured -- perhaps a little unfairly, in my view -- to carry them out simultaneously.  There are a few really good places where "associate professor" is a title awarded to young faculty for which their future tenure is by no means assured -- I'm thinking of you, MIT.  But that's rare.

You write that an assistant professor is "with a lower salary and possibilities".  I wanted to let you know that this really need not be the case.  Academic salaries are most competitive now at the assistant professor level; since annual raises have been meager or nonexistent in many recent years, an associate or even full professor cannot be counted on to have a higher salary than a new-hire assistant professor.  In fact the amount of our first offer to new-hire assistant professors in my department is very close to my current salary (I am an associate professor not so far away from promotion to full).  This means that if the candidate negotiates at all, they will get offered a higher salary than mine.  This has certainly happened.  (All this is a matter of public record.)  I think that there are no full professors in my department making less than new hire assistant professors, but there are some who are not making substantially more.

Also, in my department and at many others, assistant professors do not have fewer "possibilities": with the exception of certain voting rights in faculty meetings, they have identical privileges with all other faculty.  They may begin with less "service responsibility" than older faculty; that is probably an advantage.


Is it acceptable to ask a potential supervisor about my suitability for a PhD with them?

Why not?

Ideally, write them a short intro letter introducing yourself and telling them something about your background and interests and whether it would be worthwhile applying. Worst case, you don't hear back. Second worst, they tell you thanks, but it's not relevant. Third worst, they are interested, but have no funding.

Make sure you check their website for their interests and research and ideally identify one or more papers which resonate with your intended direction and introduction. Some applicants manage to hit just upon something that the supervisor may just be interested in doing but never found someone to cover.


What incentives does an advisor have to help PhD students graduate in a timely manner?

This is very simple. I care about my students, and want the best for them. Languishing in graduate school is rarely optimal for anyone. And then there is the issue of funding. For the same reason -- concern for my students' wellbeing -- it is very important to me to provide them with RA funding as close to year-around as possible. If funding starts to get tight, it doesn't help to have someone taking a luxury sixth year when he or she could have graduated earlier. I'd rather have everyone funded on RAships than have so-called "cheap labor" from senior students while junior students are forced to TA.

If the question is referring to why even a sociopathic advisor would want his or her students to graduate on time, there is some prestige in having students graduate quickly and move on to good positions, and some shame in having students in their sixth, seventh, and later years.


How can I decline the request to help a fellow student cheat?


How detrimental is involvement in politics to a scientific career?

I will direct my answer at an American academic career in the sciences.

You certainly have a right to make your political opinions known.  Unfortunately the internet makes it possible (indeed, trivial) to search through every public remark someone has ever made, and this means that everyone can be held to a higher level of scrutiny in this regard than in the past.  As others have said, there are situations in which remarks people have made have had a negative impact on their academic career.  Most academics believe that "academic freedom" should ensure immunity from retribution for a range of such political remarks...but certainly not all of them.

In fact, it is not entirely clear what constitutes a political remark as opposed to something else.  For instance, one of Steven Salaita's tweets was

  Israel: transforming 'antisemitism' from something horrible to something honorable since 1948.

This is taken from this article in which he explains the context.  The additional context he provides convinced me to view it is as a truly political remark that should come under the protections of "free speech" and "academic freedom".  However, without that context....in that it contains the claim that antisemitism is honorable, it looks pretty bad.  If my colleague had posted this and asked me to defend his right to keep it there, I would on the contrary ask him to take it down.

Here are some thoughts on how to be politically active in a way which is not to the detriment of one's academic career:

Don't post on twitter.

Really, "don't post on twitter" seems close to being universally good advice.  [Added: David Z disagrees.  I can see that if you want to post academic/scientific content only then the twitter effect would be at least non-negative.  I cannot agree that twitter has had a significant effect in disseminating work in my field, especially in comparison to so many other electronic media.  But maybe it is different for others.]  But the combination of telling the whole world and strict character limits make it anathema to academic discourse or even, I would advise, to discourse by academics.  In general, young people need to use social media carefully: political articles are different, but one's off-hand political, social and religious comments are best not shown to the entire world.

Make sure that your political remarks can only be construed as political.

This is the moral from the above example.  Political remarks advocate policy, support or criticize governments, or support or criticize political figures on political matters.  Salaita's tweet (intentionally, and even rather cleverly) plays on the distinction between criticizing the Iraeli government and criticizing Jewish people.  But don't play with that.  Don't criticize or denigrate any ethnic group.  When you want to criticize a group of people aligned around a certain practice, make sure you are criticizing the practice, not the people as people.  For instance, if you are pro-life, don't (publicly) paint women who get abortions as immoral or unclean: that's not a political statement.  Don't (publicly) criticize conservative politicians who are against gay rights by saying that they must either have terrible sex lives, be latently gay or both.

Try to have a clear separation between your political activities and your academic ones.

The OP says that he has political articles published online.  Sounds fine to me.  I would think at least three times about incorporating these articles into your science classes.  As a general rule, I feel free to discuss politics and religion in my (mathematics) courses because I feel these should not be taboo topics among human beings, but I always characterize them as digressions from the class, I never push a position, and in fact I try not to enunciate my own stance or position in a classroom environment.  If someone wants to hear how I really feel about Islam or the midterm elections, they can talk to me after class.

This "clear separation" should work just as well in the sciences as it does in math.  Academics in certain other fields might have more trouble with this: e.g. women's studies.

Hiring committees doing significant digging into candidates' extra-academic life is the exception rather than the rule.

The OP specifically mentions graduate admissions and googling.  I have done lots of graduate admissions and I cannot specifically remember ever having googled an applicant (and I often google their letter writers or their home institution).  For faculty and such: sure, sometimes I get curious, but I don't feel like such googling is part of the faculty search process.  If I found some political activity about a faculty candidate through the job search, it would have to be extremely significant or specifically problematic in some way for me to bring it up to my colleagues at all.  To give two examples of googling academics: I have learned for instance that someone had been a union organizer and someone else was a leader of a campus pro-life organization and had run for political office.  If these people applied for jobs I would keep this information to myself.

On average, it is a little safer to be on the left than on the right.

The majority of American academics that I know are not very politically active but are considerably left of the center of American politics.  This applies to me.  If I learned that a potential job candidate was very active in Tea Party politics, I would take a moment to steel myself not to let this affect my decision.  If I learned that a potential job candidate had been active in Obama's campaign, I would think "Well, that will make for a fun story sometime."  I have colleagues whose political views are very different from my own, including one whom I respect the most, because of his great personal integrity and selflessness.  But I still have to think and act a little more carefully around this colleague because of this; often I cut off a "humorous remark" just before it leaves my mouth because I remember that he will not be amused, and I don't want to make him uncomfortable.

I put this point last because it is purely contingent on "local phenomena", but I think it would be naive to expect exactly the same academic reception for political activism on the two sides of the spectrum.  On the other hand, at some state universities the local politics can be very different from the politics of the university and the faculty.  This is really beyond the scope of my answer, so I'll just say: surely it is best if state employees who run the university system know as little about a faculty member's political activity as possible, at least until tenure.


Consequences of unwittingly reinventing an idea

Ignorance is not plagiarism. If you write that "To the best of my knowledge" the algorithm is new, you imply that you researched the matter duly (I would suggest to consult some experts if you are kind of an outsider to the field) and found no prior publication. If such a publication exists, it will not be plagiarism. It may be embarrassing, but not a career killer by any means (see first comment to your question).

However, if you know that a suggestion exists for the one-dimensional case, you should state that: "This algorithm has been previously suggested for the one-dimensional case by XXXX." You can also qualify this statement to better highlight what your work adds: "...but no proof of convergence was offered." or "Here I generalize the algorithm to n dimensions and provide a proof of convergence."


Letter of recommendation from Professor who I have not done research with

Whether it helps or not depends quite a bit on where you are applying and what admissions system is used. But I don't think it will hurt. The personal touch is welcomed when appropriate but it is probably more of a letter of introduction than real recommendation. But that, alone, is good.

  Here is a student I've recently met that you should take a look at. They have some pretty good ideas for research that seems to mesh with ours. They want to study in ...

In a lot of places this wouldn't do as a formal LOR, but as a message, out of band, to a professor would be useful to you for when you arrive at a new place. It gives you a basis for a first conversation.

But, in terms of admission to a program, you are probably better served by letters from people who know you better and can attest directly to your background and your likelihood of success in the future. I don't think I'd recommend replacing a letter from this person for one that is more relevant.

But, in a place in which a professor's role is to hire researchers directly and has a heavy influence on admissions, such a letter would be much more relevant. They get a letter from someone they trust who puts their own reputation directly on the line by writing it. I think it will be strongly considered.


English certificate for postdoc in the UK

Being a Tier 2 migrant here myself, I can confirm that IELTS Academic exam is accepted for Tier 2 applications. The general rules are here.

However, a word of caution is needed. UKVI has recently changed the list of approved test providers, and IELTS franchise seems to split into "IELTS" and "IELTS for UKVI" providers. Only "IELTS for UKVI" providers are approved for immigration purposes. The exams are essentially the same, it is only the level of screening, security and scrutiny which is different.

It is not clear to me whether the  IELTS certificates issued before the split are still accepted by UKVI. Many people assume that they should because the laws can not be applied retrospectively, but IANAL. I would like to know the answer, too.


U.S. universities on-campus residence for International PhD students?

If you do the following search on Google, you will find some universities that do: "married student housing for graduate students". But I doubt that most do and the ones that provide this service would be large universities. Housing isn't free, of course, but it can be priced fairly low. It is possible that it is market priced in some places and provided only for convenience, but I think that it is most likely subsidized by the university nearly everywhere it is offered.

I took advantage of this long ago so my experience is likely no longer valid, but the search will get you started. In my case it was very very low and included all utilities.


When writing a review article, do I need to compare to or discuss limitations of previous review or primary articles on the topic?

Certainly, a good literature review paper (also frequently referred to as a survey paper) would be an attractive asset in anyone's academic portfolio. However, it is easier said then done. Some people on this site even replied to one of my related questions that such papers is more of a prerogative of senior, very experienced scholars. Perhaps, there is some truth to it; likely, a lot of truth. However, I do think that those opinions should not prevent people from attempting to write a good survey paper (or do anything, for that matter). The reason for that, in my opinion, is twofold:

1) Self-assessment. Some people are better at carrying out specific research, while others are better at synthesizing information, in general, and results of research studies, in particular. We often do not know our strengths (and weaknesses), unless we try both types of research.

2) Self-improvement. In my opinion, it is very important to set the bar high, so that, even if we do not achieve a desired level of success for particular goal today, we will learn much more, thus, increasing our chances for succeeding in that goal and in general tomorrow. Plus, even, if we will not be have our survey papers published in a respectable outlet any time soon (while that IMHO should be one of the goals), we will obtain a much better understanding of the whole field of study (or subject domain) as well as gain an excellent practice in academic writing, which is very valuable on its own ("practice makes perfect").

Now, I will cover briefly some specific aspects that are related to your question. Firstly, we need to understand that there are no ready-to-use, step-by-step recipes for success, in general, and for writing good survey papers, in particular. Sure, there are some guidelines and templates (which are indeed helpful), however, the quality of a survey paper is IMHO dependent on a variety of factors beyond those aids, such as a potential author's knowledge and understanding of a field of study, research stream of subject domain, their abilities for writing clearly and concisely as well as constructing a mental picture of a large body of research and synthesizing from it, often creating rather complex conceptual frameworks. There exist papers that demonstrate how to do that; in particular, for example, for the information systems discipline, see papers by Webster & Watson (2002) as well as by Levy & Ellis (2006). However, again, it is one thing to see how something should be done and another to do that yourself. Another issue that we need to be aware of is that approaches for writing survey papers are quite different across disciplines and/or fields of study.

Secondly, we need to understand that writing a survey paper is not the same as performing a systematic review or a meta-analysis (by the way, they are often confused as similar things, which they are not, despite some overlap). We need to understand that meta-analysis is a statistical toolset, whereas systematic review is a type of study, which might or might not use the former.

Thirdly, depending on the discipline or field of study (as well as on the author and journal/editor), a survey paper might be closer in its form to a narrative review, rather than a systematic one. While systematic reviews are often regarded as more rigorous approach to covering a topic, they are not without their shortcomings. In fact, good narrative reviews might be as valuable, if not more, to science and research community, as their systematic counterparts. See this paper for some details.

References

Levy, Y., & Ellis, T. J. (2006). A systems approach to conduct an effective literature review in support of information systems research. Informing Science, 9, 181-212. Retrieved from http://www.inform.nu/Articles/Vol9/V9p181-212Levy99.pdf

Webster, J., & Watson, R. T. (2002). Analyzing the past to prepare for the future: Writing a literature review. MIS Quarterly, 26(2), 13-23. Retrieved from https://web.njit.edu/~egan/Writing_A_Literature_Review.pdf


What should I do during my PhD program to get a faculty position right after PhD, and how can I accomplish them? (Field: Statistics)

Obtain experience teaching a variety of courses.
Develop a wide network in the field. The better "known" that you are, the more likely a school is to consider you for a faculty position.
Establish relationships with multiple people who will be able to write you strong letters of recommendation.
Begin applying for grant money right now.
Publish relevant and impactful research.
Consign yourself to the fact that your friends in industry will make more money than you.
Get lucky and find a tenure-track position.


Is an Executive Doctorate different from a typical PhD with respect to the level of assistance that is permitted on the dissertation?

Based on this article, I would guess the answer is: officially, no.  It seems quite unlikely to me that there is some other standard of intellectual honesty specifically set up for "Executive Doctoral" student, since it is such a new category.

It certainly sounds to me like this person is asking you do an inappropriate amount of work toward their doctorate; doctoral students aren't expected to be completely isolated (much of my thesis was based on joint work), but asking you to rewrite seems like crossing a line.  It's up to you to decide what you want to do, and whether you feel comfortable with the work.  You could always contact the person's advisor, but you should be prepared for that to burn your bridge with this person.


Does using a bibliography software actually save you time aside from when converting citation style?

It depends what you mean by using bibliography software. I think of bibliography software as doing three things:

They help you organize, search, and find your references. While
Pubmed and Google Scholar are quite efficient at finding references
for my field, I often prefer to search my own library of papers I am
familiar with when looking for a reference. I use JabRef for this
purpose and it saves me loads of time even when not converting
citation styles.
They help you create a reference list at the end of a
manuscript/grant/etc. If you have a database you simply need to tell
the software what papers have been referenced and what format you
want the reference list in. This saves you time when you convert
styles (and the first time you create a list). I don't think it
really does anything else. The key is that in my opinion ALL
bibliography software does this stage well for ALL styles. I see no
reason not to use bibliography software to create a reference list
at the end. This is the section where it is easy to make minor
mistakes and can waste a lot of time getting the style correct
They help you with formatting in text citations. This is where most
of the software falls down. In text citation styles have a lot of
variability (book, chapter, article, first time citation, subsequent
citation on a page, citation in a foot note, etc) that make
automation hard. Defining an automated system that can implement an
in-text citation style is no small task. Even if you can create such
a definition, many publishers have small in house tweaks. Create
software that is fully compliant with a style and allows for tweaks
to be made easily, is even harder. If you are lucky enough that your
software has the style you need, or that your target publishers are
easy going enough, then using bibliography software for your in-text
citations is a no brainer. If you are not so luck, you may not want
to use that feature.

In summary I would always use bibliography software for 1 and 2, but only for 3 if I am lucky.


In a mathematics article, how much of the argument can be given outside of "proof" environments?

It is hard to judge in the abstract, of course. But there are a number of ways to organize such a paper. It is probably best to be clear when you are giving formal arguments (i.e. proofs) and when you are just giving informal discussion.

One way is to list the main theorem early and state that you intend to prove it. You can precede this with some of your supporting lemmas (with proof, perhaps) and follow it with others. You can then show how the lemmas fit together to prove the theorem if needed.

But, I think, that a sequence of lemmas with no reveal about why you are stating and proving them followed by the theorem statement isn't very compelling reading.

Organize it so that your reader wants to read it and so that the purpose of each supporting piece is clear.

Sometimes the lemmas have independent interest. But sometimes the technique of the proof is much more interesting than the statement of any theorem. Take that into consideration.

You don't want your readers constantly asking themselves "What is the point of this?".


How to Establish a Community-Scope Means of Sharing Code/Knowledge Across Labs?

Perhaps the closest one I ever came to know is the PROMISE Repository. It is dedicated to store Software Engineering research artifacts. You can check about their history and some management policies on their "about" page.

I feel that this repository has been quite useful to the Software Engineering research community or, at least, it has been cited.


What is the closest alternative journal to journal X?

Indeed, there are tools that create maps of journals in a given area. Most of them are based on citation data, i.e. they consider that citations between articles of journal A and journal B are a good indicator of proximity of the two journals (and it seems like a good definition of “proximity”). If you are interested in the topic of how such maps are created, and how they can be analyzed, you can read on the topic. For example, see “Seed journal citation network maps: A method based on network theory” and related papers.

Now, regarding online tools available, a search lead me to VOSViewer (paper), which looks like it contains exactly what you want:

A final note: while such journal maps can be useful in discovering new journals in a field you don't know well, I will add that each journal is unique, and you have to learn about the journals in your field in order to increase your chances of success at publishing articles. It may, for example, tell you that two journals are very close in scope when they actually have very different editorial policies. Read the editorial guidelines for the journals of your field and, at least as importantly, read papers of each journal to get a feeling of what the actual policy in place are.


How can you read an excessive number of pages in a short amount of time?

One trick is to find out what the prof wants you to get out of the book, and just scan the pages for anything relevant.  You can skip over paragraphs that introduce ideas you already know or present ideas that aren't relevant to the course.

Another trick is to use Amazon books to do this for you... do a search through the book for course key words and just read the sections around those words.

If you just need to learn the subject, and it's impossible to apply tricks for this, prioritize your time: study the table of contents, line by line.  Read the introduction and one chapter from somewhere in the middle.  Read the conclusion.

At the same time, read the Wikipedia articles for the subject of each book... or for the book itself, if it's well-known enough.

When you go to answer homework using any of these tricks, you will "know the book" well-enough to go back and find the answer you need somewhere in the pages.

Unfortunately I can't say whether these methods will get you anywhere: perhaps these courses really do just require more time.


How can I improve my paper with mostly original contents and only two references?

Citations aren't just about avoiding plagiarism. They are more about embedding your work into a scientific context. Every paper should explain in an introduction section

why this work is relevant, and
how this work differs from previous approaches.

It is extremely rare that an approach is so novel that there is no meaningful prior work that can be referenced – many papers just apply an existing concept A to an  existing problem B and analyze whether this is useful, or extend an existing approach to have some desirable properties. If you can't reference such prior work, that is usually an indication that you don't understand the state of the art in your field. Such papers are unlikely to contribute to the field, and are very likely to be rejected by journals or conferences.
Most of the citations are usually in the introduction section of a paper, which is where related work is discussed. In contrast, it is somewhat normal that there are fewer references in the section where you describe your novel approach. You would still reference existing building blocks and methods of your approach. E.g. an experimental paper in CS might reference relevant software libraries that were used.
I am not an experienced author and know how hard it is to break into a field. It's difficult to get an overview of the state of the art in your field. However, this is a crucial part of writing a good paper – otherwise, it is quite likely that you're either doing something that has already been done, or that you're flaunting the methodological conventions of the field. For example, there might be existing testing methods or benchmark problems that every serious paper in that field should use. (If those existing methods were unsuitable, a paper about that could be useful as well!)


Is there anything I can do about shockingly poor quality course materials?

You mentioned that the college is accredited.  You might want to contact the accrediting body (it's usually regional, like SACS and NEACS) and alert them to what's going on here.  I'm very sorry to hear you're having such a poor experience with this distance learning program.  It's possible that it's vastly inferior to the school's on-site program, although given the overall bad impression I'm getting of the institution from your question, maybe not.  But yes, it's time to complain to an outside agency.

As for how to salvage your education, I don't think transferring credits is a bad idea.  Yes, your learning suffered, but I'm guessing you're not made of money and you want to be able to get through this degree without mortgaging a child to do it.  You need to transfer into a legitimate program as soon as you can, without waiting for the complaint process to resolve.  But I would still get in touch with the accrediting body.  This is the sort of thing they need to know about.


While contacting professors should we mention if we have contacted some other faculty in same department?

I'm assuming this is regarding admission to graduate school. I don't see any harm in mentioning this as a courtesy. The odds are high that if the two professors work in related areas they will discover this themselves. If you haven't mentioned this to them, it will seem as if you're flooding the department with applications.

It also helps personalize the letter, which is the number one thing you have to do if you expect to get any kind of response.


Why do so many publishing venues limit the length of paper submissions?

Earlier this year, I attended an editor’s panel at a conference, which included some editors of letter journals, i.e., journals with a strong length limit and higher relevance threshold (e.g., PRL with a limit of 3500 words, if you have no figures). In their presentations and answers they implied the following benefits of a length limit for these letter journals:

It accelerates the peer-review process, as the reviewers need to read less.
It makes the papers more attractive for readers (and thus increases the impact), as they need less time to read them and focus on the central results.


Why are there so few visiting (research) associate professor position postings?

At many research universities, "visiting assistant professor" actually means "postdoc with teaching duties". In other words, they are postdoc positions paid for by the department and financed at least in part through the revenues that come in through teaching.
The positions are not called "postdoc" because it is a "faculty position" so that the holder of the position is entitled to teach certain courses that only "faculty" can teach, and so that certain visa rules apply for candidates who come from abroad. The requirement for it to be a "faculty" position then prompted universities to call them "X professor". But because these are not tenure-track positions, one needs a different prefix in front of "professor" from the usual "assistant" entry-level position, and so universities chose "visiting assistant" to make it clear that the position is temporary. "Visiting" in this context is not meant to imply that that person has a position somewhere else and is only temporarily "visiting while traveling".
Given all of this, it is clear (hopefully) why there are no "visiting associate professor" positions.


A Last Minute Meeting Request at the End of the Year

This might be a very busy time - grading, exam board meetings etc.

As she is prepared to set up a meeting, then meet and thank her in person - it’s always nice to receive feedback / thanks / recognition...


Reuse text from progress report in final report of scholarship/grant

Self-plagiarism is an offense caused by violating the expectation of originality.

When you write a progress report or a final report, there is no expectation of originality of the text per se.  Rather, you are expected to have done original work during each period, and the report is expected to provide a clear and comprehensive presentation of the work that was done during the reporting period.

Thus, it is entirely legitimate to include text from an earlier report into a final report that covers the period of the earlier report. Now, it is quite likely that the text should change to some degree to fit the new context. Whatever changes you might make are not about avoiding self-plagiarism, but about how your perspective changes when you're discussing the whole project in retrospect.

To drive the point home: my own practice when preparing a final report is to begin by concatenating all of the periodic progress reports, add a writeup of the final section, and then reorganize and rewrite as necessary to provide a comprehensive final document. If I were instead to write the whole thing from scratch, I would consider that an inappropriate waste of my sponsors' money and also likely to end up accidentally omitting important information contained in the periodic reports.


What to do if most of my students have switched to a better lecturer's class?

You should discuss this with your department chair (the person who runs your department). While the teaching chair (or graduate/undergraduate chair) might seem more relevant, it is the chair of the department who you have to keep happy. Their opinion matters more than ours.

Describe the dwindling number of students as a concern, then see where the conversation goes.  Instead of offering your suggestion, invite your chair to offer their thoughts and suggestions first, before you launch into yours.  Who knows?  Perhaps they will suggest closing down your section on their own and you get what you want.  Their response probably also depends on the attractiveness of your research alternative versus their need to find instructors to cover sections they've already committed to offering.

Your chair may also be glad you invited the conversation, because they may have some feedback based on their own observations and conversations with your colleagues and students they would like to share with you.  They may be able to tell you how you could get better so you could one day be the instructor who draws away everyone else's students.

But I agree with and upvoted DBB's answer, that trying to dump the class could make you look bad and that if you care about getting good at teaching, you should simply "push through" and deliver the lectures.


How to handle someone propositioning me to collude/cheat with them on an assignment?

Putting such a request in a written, verifiable manner as this student has done is incredibly dumb, and frankly merits whatever punishment is associated with this.

Although in principle you could simply ignore the request, I think this is one of those cases where you're better off reporting it. Otherwise, there's still the possibility that "John" could bring you down with him (he wrote you a note, after all!). So I would write to him declining the offer, and then report it.


How do we solve the problem about bad behavior (unfair evaluation) in lab?

From what you have written, it appears that the fundamental problem is that you are dealing with a nakedly corrupt organization. You describe your student as having been failed for blatantly political reasons that have nothing to do with their education.

Such an action is obviously unethical, and should not be tolerated. The key questions that I see, then, are these:

Is there is anybody who you can work with in order to effectively oppose this corruption?
Does your student want to be a test case against corruption?

You describe your chair as being in favor of the current regime. You may wish to discuss in any case, as even if your chair doesn't like students who don't join the union, they may still be opposed to naked abuse of power by union members. If the chair will not act, are there deans or such who might? Are there other faculty members or student organizations who feel the same way as you? What about outside groups that might bring pressure, such as local or international media?

This does sound like an important fight to fight, but also remember that it is not only your fight. If their power is strong and you directly oppose them, the student union may choose to make life very difficult for your student, so before taking any direct action in opposition, it would be important to discuss potential consequences with your student. Since they did not simply take the expedient path and join the union, they may well be willing to fight; equally, however, they may have circumstances that make it problematic for them to do so, and it is not your right to make that choice on their behalf.


Negotiating salary before in-person interview for an administrative position

Not sure what your question is. You could respond yes I am interested in continuing the process and see where it leads. Maybe they have some benefits you don't know about. Maybe the job is even cooler than you think. In other words maybe something happens and you are willing to take the job for less money. Then again, maybe things pan out how you expect and you tell them know that you have seen the complete offer and understand the job more, you cannot take it for less than X (whatever that number is, plus some wiggle room).

You could also respond no, because do you really want to put up with crap like that.


You should familiarize yourself with recruiting procedures in Europe/Asia/Australia and how they might be different from the US. while its early now, you should (when your research direction starts crystallizing) familiarize yourself with research in your area being done in institutions of interest, and identify people at conferences to chat with.

The main disadvantage you could face is a language barrier, local competition, and general lack of awareness because of distance. But except for the first, the others are less and less of a problem.

But at least for the first few years of your Phd just focus on finding interesting research problems to work on and do work that people will pay attention to. Thats much more important  :)


Do I need to cite the source of a famous quote in my thesis?

But please don't decorate each chapter with a quote you took from a calendar. As JiK said, there are so many misattributions and misstatements around, you need to go to the source if you absolutely must use a quote. But as chapter decoration I find them silly. Okay, Knuth is allowed to do that, but until you reach the god-like status of Knuth, please refrain.


Manuscript status "Submitted to Journal" over a week in an Elsevier Journal

Have patience -- you're asking that many things happen within a short amount of time. Your paper needs to get through an initial administrative check whether the formatting is correct and/or whether there is any plagiarism. Then the editor-in-chief needs to assign the paper to an associate editor. And then the associate editor needs to assign reviewers. Only then does, in most system, the status change to "Under review".

So it requires three people. Any one of them might be on vacation for the week. Or they have a paper or proposal deadline themselves. Or they have a family emergency. Or they need to grade a term paper. You can't expect that they stop everything they do and turn to handling your paper. They'll get to it in due time -- I'd say you can start to get upset if it's been 3 weeks, but before that my recommendation is as stated at the top: Have patience.


Is there any scholarship or fellowship award for part-time PhD students in Deep Learning?

Part-time scholarships are extremely rare, regardless of the field of research. This applies across the board internationally as far as I know (thought I would be interested to hear of any examples to the contrary).

Personally I see this lack of part-time scholarships as a flaw as many candidates study part time and a scholarship for those researchers would effectively buy them time to work on their research which they would then use very efficiently, even if its just a day or two per week, without them having to quit their job and other responsibilities in order to go full-time.

There are many studies showing that part-time research candidates tend to make better use of the time available. Because they have to! :-)

Some departments have a small budget for paid research but, much like teaching work, this can have its limitations as you often end up working many more hours than you are actually getting paid for. It may be good researcher development but in many cases can be bad economics.

The best solution in my experience is to keep the job you already have if you can and negotiate for a bit more flexibility and reduced hours. Its amazing what you can achieve if you can get a good routine going and use your time effectively.


I guess you can do that by signing the offer the letter, scan it, attach to an email with a brief "thank you" write up.


What does a promise of possible funding "based on availability of departmental funding" actually mean?

Your institution has definitely met the terms laid out in your award letter, which states that there is "possibility of a fourth year based on availability of departmental funding." This does not mean that you are necessarily guaranteed a fourth year of funding. Even if most students get the fourth year, assuming you will is risky. They promised you three years of funding, and said that they might be able to give you a fourth. They gave you three years of funding, and decided that they can't afford to give you a fourth. As raised by @einpoklum there may or may not be other factors that influence your contract, legally, but any analysis of that would require much more information than what is provided and should be provided by a lawyer, not a random academic on the internet.

Regardless of the precise legality of the decision, I would advise that you spend your time looking into alternative sources of funding rather than try to dispute this decision. Trying to contest will damage your reputation within your institution, make you look foolish (especially if you have a weak case / are perceived by others as having a weak case), and use up precious time you could have spent looking for alternative sources of funding. Speak to your adviser first and foremost, as they have the best understanding of the university and what resources might be available to you (RA or teaching positions, most likely). Your government almost certainty has agencies that award grants that you may be eligible for. There are also non-profits that award academic grants that you may be eligible for, especially if you're an underrepresented minority.


Is it appropriate to include additional materials in an academic job application?

Unless the call clearly states that nothing more must be included you should do so. As you correctly identified such information provides insights into you success in teaching. An option could be to simply include a summary in the CV or make it part of the teaching statement, as support that your teaching ideas produce good results. In short, add the material but make sure it is condensed and clearly structured. I have added such material to applications (for promotion in my case) and had someone sign off that the summary reflects the material on which it is based.


Proper procedure when promised funding not given to Ph.D. graduate student

That "contingent on the availability of funds" is indeed an escape clause for the university, such that they technically have no responsibility to ensure funding.

However, it is entirely unreasonable for a Ph.D. student in a STEM field in the US to not be paid a living wage for their work.  Your friend needs to make the department aware of this situation, as departments often have resources that can be used to help to cover small gaps.  Now it's possible that neither the department nor the professor is able to obtain the necessary funds, in which case, I would recommend that your friend consider seeking paid employment in industry and finish their Ph.D. part-time.

Having a student do this would be quite embarrassing to most professors, so making it known that this is a possibility may help ensure that appropriate support can be obtained.

The situation, unfortunately, is much worse if your friend is not a U.S. citizen.  In that case, if they have the ability to seek employment through the training option on an F-1 visa, then they may be able to pursue the same strategy.  Some professors, however, will attempt to effectively enslave foreign students through visa-related threats, and this can result in very difficult problems.


Put all the evidence together with supporting statements (calendar, who contacted, responses including emails etc) and send to the Governing board as well as the accrediting institution.

However, this may get you back more attention than you wish so make sure it is what you all want.

But, I don't think the teacher should be allowed to continue and the behavior of the vice & dean may be called into question...


Being asked to review a paper in conference one has submitted to

No, there is no conflict. Your advice will be backed up or not by other reviewers. Likely the conference committee already knows that you are also a submitter.

But if you want double assurance of this, just send a note to the program chair that you have also submitted. If they see any issue, they will deal with it.

Just give an honest review as you would in any case. And trust that your paper will be accepted or not on its merits. Of course, there is quite a lot of competition, but that is always true.