Can I cite a URL only instead of author, title, etc. in a research paper?

No, it's not OK to cite URLs because firstly, you are citing ONLY the URL! The URL could change at any given time without notice. Also, you are assuming that everyone is reading your paper electronically and has access to the internet.

You NEED to give the name of the paper, the author(s), the Journal it was published in and the year it was published.


Etiquette for academic job interviews in Ireland

I am a USA academic, raised in the UK, who interviewed unsuccessfully in Ireland. I was partially unsuccessful as I realized a few hours in that I did not want to work there but as they had flown me over I did not want to be unpolite and leave the interview.

It is not, you may contact the head of the search but not anyone else.
Yes, both male candidates wore suits and ties and both female candidates wore skirts/pants with a shirt and jacket but neither wore a tie.
The most difficult, you could bring this up if you get to ask questions. I would not make it your first question and I would be brief. Does the university offer startup packages?

What was most different than in the US was.

I got to meet all the other applicants. We were in the same room and called one-by-one to do our presentations. I ended up really wanting another candidate to get the job.
Only one or two of the people on the panel was a faculty member in the department.
No dinner with faculty, not a tour of the town, no real contact with the department at all aside from the odd quick hello as we passed their offices.


Should I disclose my mental illness and medication in a PhD position interview?

There is no requirement to disclose and given the current climate around mental health, I would not suggest disclosing.

I would say that you had health problems that resulted in your having to leave your former school, but that these issues are under control and you are confident you will succeed at your new program.

I would be sure you tell your letter writers to also use the vague rubric of "health problems" as some may inadvertently disclose without thinking about how you want to be framed.


Should the length of a research statement and a teaching statement be the same?

I'm not sure why you think that a research statement should be 1-2 pages.  The length of a research statement depends both on the academic field and (to a lesser extent) on the type of institution one is applying to.  In my experience, when a research statement that is only 1-2 pages long is desired, the position posting will mention that explicitly, often using slightly different language ("research summary").

In my field -- mathematics -- if a length of 1-2 pages is not explicitly asked for, then 1-2 pages would be distressingly short, to the extent of jeopardizing your chances.  I would put 4-6 pages as a more reasonable range for those applying for junior faculty positions.  (More senior people can submit longer statements, but after a point people will stop reading.)

To be specific, I have been closely involved with the job search of two junior colleagues, in mathematics.  Both are interested in finding a "faculty position that emphasizes both research and undergraduate teaching."  Each of their research statements was about 4 pages plus references.  They have each done very well on the job market -- on-campus interviews from both large universities and top liberal arts colleges, and one already has a good job offer.  I would not want any student, mentee or junior colleague of mine to send out a 1-2 page research statement until they convinced me that this length was specifically wanted by the institution they're applying to.

  My question is: would it be an issue if the lengths of the 2 documents are significantly different?

In my experience -- which is centered at a math department at a state research university -- research statements are generally 2-3 times longer than teaching statements.  The only teaching statement I've ever seen that was approximately the same length as a research statement was my own.  (Regular readers of this site will be shocked to learn that I can be seduced by the sound of my own written voice.  Only over long years and after reading, writing and refereeing many technical papers have I come to a halfway decent appreciation of the virtues of brevity.)

  My question is: would it be an issue if the lengths of the 2 documents are significantly different? For example, if my teaching statement is 2 pages but my research statement is only 1 page.

To me, someone whose teaching statement is twice as long as their research statement is signalling in the strongest possible terms that they are more interested in teaching than research...i.e., up to the point where they may not be doing much post-PhD research at all.  But again: please check on your local academic culture.

  Will a hiring committee automatically view this as the candidate being unbalanced?

Not automatically, no.

  In other words, does disparity in length between the two documents outweigh the content of the documents?

No, the content is most important.  If in your one page research statement you give a clear description of very strong research, people who were expecting a much longer document will think "What a short research statement.  That's weird.  But it sounds good -- let me check the CV / publication list / candidate's webpage for more details."

Added: I'm finding some evidence online pointing to the possibility that research statements in mathematics may be longer than in many other academic fields:

This source advises that research statements in CS should be 2-3 pages.
This source suggests that research statements should be 1-2 pages.  Upon questioning, it becomes clear that the advice is scoped only for the humanities.

Anyway, you should definitely not choose the length of your research statement by what some internet academic tells you!  You should do so by (i) talking to your thesis advisor about it and (ii) comparing notes with others who are or recently were on the job market.  Getting a look at application materials of those who recently got the type of job that you want is ideal.  That's what friends are for.


Getting research jobs in Canada for immigrants

I would say that it is unlikely that you will. The reason is that even for graduates/PhD's of well known institutes like the University of Toronto, it is very hard to get an academic position in Canada. Therefore, if you come from a not well known institute, and you have not published in the top places in your field, and you have no strong connections to the relevant international academic community, then it is hard to get an academic position.

Possibly, there are some academic teaching positions available. I do not know, but they are not research, and I would assume that even for them it will be very hard.

The criteria for improving your chances are listed in the first paragraph.


Advantages of professional (student level) memberships (in computer science)

I can only address ACM. I would think that for an undergraduate, the benefits are small, though the fees are also very small. However, if you don't otherwise have access to the ACM digital library, a membership can come with a subscription (costs a bit more, though).
The digital library has just about everything published by ACM and its special interest groups, so is pretty valuable for research and some kinds of learning.
However, it is also likely that you university library can give you access for free, though it will be a bit less convenient as you have to go through a librarian.
There might be additional advantages if your university has a local student chapter depending on how active it is.
You can read more: https://www.acm.org/membership/membership-benefits


Innovative and free publication platform

The currently most complete solution is probably the Open Science Framework, which doesn't yet support peer review but is planning to - and it can be somewhat simulated by using Hypothes.is. Then there are quite a few projects working towards this goal to some extent. Thus, a relevant follow-up question would be: with what reason are you looking for existing projects? To compare, to contribute, or to build upon? That would be relevant to what platforms we could suggest.

(That said, if you want to do some research on your own, I wrote an overview of alternative platforms a while ago.)


How to spot a weak postdoc offer before you accept the position

You should look at where your prospective superviser's students and postdocs end up after leaving them. Talk to these people if you know any of them. Also, look at the group publication list. Is the group productive? Do they have strong collaborators?

I have been told to use the postdoc to learn some new technique, or whatever. Your goal should be to make the most of what you already know. It's more important to improve your academic record than your knowlegde at this point. You will not be hired as a faculty based on what you know, but based on what you have published and where.

Having that in mind, try to see, given your current skill set, how good fit you are for that group and department. If you can collaborate with enough people, you'll get more publications. You need to have access in that department to people with similar background to yours. If that's not the case, you will be isolated, and your productivity will drop.

Some red flags I'm thinking about:

postdocs and students leaving before the end of their contracts,
postdocs and students ending up in poor positions after leaving,
not enough people in the group/department with similar background to yours,
poor publication record of the professor and postdocs compared to similar groups
lack of strong collaborators.


Better organization of knowledge for courses?

TL;DR First build a knowledge base, then a knowledge community (more than 1 person), then a Q&A site...

Apart from the practical questions (software, structure) I think you miss like many trying to start a community site/wiki that there really needs to be an incentive to participate continuously in such a project and answer and document things when there is a reader count of a few dozen (like it will be for a course). You see what trouble some specialized beta sites here on stackexchange have to get 1-2 questions at all a day to attract audience. Gamification will not work for a such a small audience. I participated in some research group wikis, the will of the members to participate is defined mainly by "how easy to use" and "what's my profit from this compared to my current personal note taking system (redundancy)"

Wikis work much better for such a small community for the purpose of documenting things and sharing knowledge:

easier to share and embed PDF's
many skins to get a layout suited for good overview
often plugins to export Wiki syntax to Tex/Docbook/PDF so you can write basically your bachelor/master thesis with the wiki
easier software to handle, many wikis can be file-based and run without server (more future-proof), I would only put my knowledge into a wiki if it is simple to copy and install at another place

If you put such criterions now here you get some candidates:

Dokuwiki, MoinMoin, PHPwiki, PMwiki I can recommend

MoinMoin runs without server (even on USB stick), has WYSIWYG editor (absolutely necessary or only few will use your wiki) and is pretty future-proof as Debian and other known communities are based on it. There is also a nice sidebar theme to keep overview and allow fast navigation, don't underestimate overview when people browse a new site!

So this is my recommendation, but the bigger question is how to motivate students to participate. Already putting some knowledge and stuff up yourself is mandatory, why participate in an empty website, that's why stackexchange invented the Area51 launching system, but even this is not reliable...


What should I ask a potential PhD advisor in an informal interview?

Actually, your questions sounds like you are trying to hire him for a position, whereas he would be the one taking on an obligation to you and your future. I would probably have a chuckle if a student asked me those in a first interview. The first question would be good over coffee after we'd worked together for a while. For the last question you might first find a couple of his recent papers rather than ask.
But the more important questions are things like

Can you help me find a topic that interests both of us? Follow up on this question if some suggestions are made.

How independent do I need to be (do you expect me to be) and are you available to help if needed?

How successful have other students of yours have been in completion and in their careers?

Is there a seminar in which you and grad students share ideas?

If you already have a topic that you want to work on then:

Do you think ABC is a fruitful line of enquiry and (if so) can you help me explore it?

But approach such questions cautiously. Some will take offense. Be prepared to be the answerer of questions, not the asker.


Does McGraw Hill Connect improve student learning outcomes?

I use Connect for one semester. Some comments

About the cost: what is the alternative if you don't use Connect?  Probably a printed textbook.  Connect is probably cheaper than a printed textbook, at least it was for my class.  I did not have any students complain about the cost (out of about 80)

"Also, Connect allows me to monitor if the students actually read the textbook".  Yes, but it doesn't monitor if they understand the textbook. I had many students asking questions during class that made it obvious that they had not understood the content from the book, even though nearly everyone had done the reading assignment.

The instant feedback feature is very nice. I personally gave students several attempts at the problem.  i.e. if they got it wrong they had a chance to correct it. At least for me, this ended up driving a large number of students to attend office hours.  i.e. without instant feedback, they assume they have done it right, turn it in, and a week or two later I grade it and they see they're done it wrong, but by that time we are already onto another topic.  With instant feedback they know immediately that they are wrong, and then come to office hours to ask questions.  I think this is a plus for student learning.  You can, as you mentioned, code this into Blackboard or Canvas yourself, but have pre-coded questions will save you a lot of time.

I do plan to use it again.


How to tell what is 'widely accepted' or 'consensus'

Firstly, the "official" ways that researchers state their opinion is by stating it in either a publication or in a presentation at a conference. It is from here that we can gain any idea of what any researcher thinks about a given topic.1

That being said, the only way to know whether something is "widely accepted" is to be familiar with most of the current (academic) literature on a given topic. Only by really having read the publications of most of the preeminent researchers in a given field can you really get a sense of what the consensus is on that topic. This, of course, requires a lot of time and expertise (and, if you don't have access to a university library with journal subscriptions, money). It took me years as a graduate student to learn what was the consensus about certain topics within my own field.

Because of this, anyone can state anything and most people won't know the difference. The easiest way to really determine if it's true is to ask two or three recognized researchers if they agree with the statement of interest. You can do this via email, but they likely won't get back to you. You can ask grad students in their lab and the answer will be that much less reliable, but still close to the source. Beyond that, you'll just have to find experts you can trust and rely on them.

1 Obviously, researchers are people like anyone else, and will discuss their pet theories with friends and colleagues over email and in person; it's very hard to quantify these, and you only rarely see this sort of discourse being formally recognized. Occasionally a publication will cite "unpublished discourse", but that's a rare occasion.


As the comments have noted, it depends on the field and the referencing style. A journal will have a "style guide for authors" which will refer the appropriate referencing style as well as any idiosyncracies particular to that journal.

You will see such variety as authors being cited as cost of each behavior as detailed by Gürcan et al.[9] or cost of each behavior as detailed by Gürcan et al. (2009) or cost of each behavior[9].

If the document is not for submission to a journal then you could check previous or example submissions/documents, and in the absence of any of that you could adopt the referencing style "normally" used in your field. Or ask a colleague/collaborator/supervisor for advice if you are still unsure.


Are there any downsides to receiving BSc, MSc, and PhD all from the same university?

There is an obvious downside of staying at the same university—you will only work with one set of advisors and contacts throughout your career. That will mean that you may not benefit from the experience and diversity of viewpoints and philosophies that comes from working with different groups of people across the length of your career.

However, if there is a compelling reason to remain at your school, that's a different situation. This could be financial, personal, or educational. For instance, a family member may have a job that makes it difficult to relocate, or a new project may be starting up that provides a unique educational opportunity.

Beyond that, though, I would lean towards going somewhere else for your PhD program!


Research on relationship between how an instructor is addressed and students' evaluations of that instructor?

Multiple lines of relevant research suggest, as you said,

recognition of job titles specifically correlates strongly to
compliance, and
knowledge of an authority's gender significantly shapes the
likelihood of compliance in subjects relying on that authority.

The closest fit (to the inquiries you propose in your question) in a single publication was Eagly, Alice H. Gender and social influence: A social psychological analysis. American Psychologist 38.9 (1983): 971. There is too much here to cite. Alice Eagly enters into a rigorous investigation of compliance's relationship to gender in vein of Professor Stanley Milgram's exemplary methods on the psychology of obedience to authority (Milgram, Stanley. Obedience to authority 1978). The report finds (from p. 2 of PDF):

  Other subjects in this experiment were given information about the job
  titles as well as the gender of the communicator and recipient. Both
  high-status (e.g., bank vice-president) and low-status (e.g., bank
  teller) job titles were utilized. In these experimental conditions,
  subjects were expected to base their judgments about social influence
  on the job title information rather than gender because gender would
  not be used to infer hierarchical status in the presence of the highly
  informative job title cues. (2)  As expected (see Table 1), these
  subjects considered the communicator's recommendation more likely to
  induce compliance when the communicator had a high-status rather than
  low-status job title and when the recipient had a low-status rather
  than high-status job title. These subjects did not utilize the gender
  cues to predict compliance

  The effects of gender and status cues on perceived influence were
  expected to depend on whether the recipient's response to influence
  was public or private. Because the power of persons who have higher
  status in organizations stems primarily from their control over
  sanctions and access to resources, status differences favoring the
  communicator should increase subordinates' public compliance, and
  private, internalized opinion change should be relatively unaffected
  (Kelman, 1961). Indeed, those few effects that were obtained on
  subjects' beliefs about private opinion change were weak and
  reversed effects obtained on perceived compliance (see Eagly, A. H., &
  Wood, W. Inferred sex differences in status as a determinant of gender
  stereotypes about social influence. Journal of Personality and Social
  Psychology, 1982, 43. 915-928.).

Eagly, Alice H., Mona G. Makhijani, and Bruce G. Klonsky. Gender and the evaluation of leaders: A meta-analysis. Psychological bulletin 111.1 (1992): 3. finds further:

  […] on the evaluation of women and men that occupy leadership roles. While
  holding the characteristics, except for sex, constant and varying the
  sex of the leader, these experiments investigated whether people are
  biased against female leaders and managers. Although this research
  showed only a small overall tendency for Ss to evaluate female leaders
  less favorably than male ones, this tendency was more pronounced under
  certain circumstances. Specifically, women in leadership positions
  were devalued relative to their male counterparts when leadership was
  carried out in stereotypically masculine styles, especially when this
  style was autocratic or directive. Also, the devaluation of women was
  greater when leaders occupied male-dominated roles and when the
  evaluators were men. Findings are interpreted from a perspective that
  emphasizes the influence of gender roles within organizational
  settings.

Eagly, Alice H., and Wendy Wood. Inferred sex differences in status as a determinant of gender stereotypes about social influence. Journal of personality and social psychology 43.5 (1982): 915. is also highly relevant, but it is subsumed in the primary study cited.

Student-disciplinary investigation also corroborates this gendered relationship in students' regard for teachers. Mabeba, M. Z., and E. Prinsloo. Perceptions of discipline and ensuing discipline problems in secondary education. South African Journal of Education 20.1 (2000): 34-41. reports:

  The lack of discipline in secondary schools throughout the country has
  long been a matter of great concern for educators in South Africa.
  Numerous attempts have been made to solve the problem and to
  re-establish a culture of effective learning and teaching in the
  schools. Discipline in education, however, is a complex phenomenon
  that may evade the accuracy of one single definition. Discipline in a
  positive sense refers to learning, regulated scholarship, guidance and
  orderliness. Discipline problems, refers to disruptive behaviour that
  affects the fundamental rights to feel safe, to be treated with
  respect and to learn. Rejection of reasoning, noise, physical
  violence, threat, theft, graffiti and vandalism, verbal abuse, lack of
  consideration, boisterousness, and disrespect for authority are some
  of the manifestations of disruptive behaviour that teachers and
  parents have to deal with presently. Reasons for this negative
  attitude lie inter alia in pupils feelings of anger, frustration and
  worthlessness because educators seemingly neglect their interests and
  level of development and often base disciplinary policies on
  autocratic principles and self-interest. The purpose of this
  investigation was to determine the perceptions held of discipline by
  all the stakeholders in the education process and to verify the
  reasons for the defiance of discipline by pupils and students. The
  ultimate aim of such research would be to initiate preventative
  strategies that can solve the problem and support pupils and teachers
  towards a new culture of successful learning and teaching.


There are several algorithms for scheduled repetition of information on flash cards. It's possible that the software you liked uses one of these. This Wikipedia article on spaced repetiton discusses Pimsleur's graduated-interval recall and Leitner system, among others. This isn't the easiest topic to search for, but the Wikipedia article calls it "spaced repetition", and includes a list of alternative names. That should help you do further research.


How to deal with a student who talks too much in my class?

In the first place, I would take him aside for a quiet chat. Nothing aggressive - just explain how you see the situation he is creating. If he has some interesting points to make, do listen. But also make it clear you are teaching all the students in class, not just one. This, hopefully, should be sufficient.

The second stage -if needed- is a serious warning in class, in front of everyone. Other students need to see you are taking things in hand. He has been forewarned.

The third level is OUT, plus whatever disciplinary measures are current in your institution.

Unfortunately, just ignoring him will not help him see his errors.


The usage of citation signals such as 'see': commonly used?

That is the clear intention on how the word 'see' is to be used before citation, i.e., to support the claim you make. However, it is not always the case that the common reader would be able to differentiate the intention of use. That is why I usually state it clear when writing the similar case.

  The company can benefit from its long history. X et al. (Company X 2002, para. 1) support this claim.

But, it is perfectly acceptable to use the formal norms of writing; the usage of 'see' as you've stated. Just keep in mind the expertise of the readers you are targeting.


How can I make sure that my paper's work is unique?

The only thing you can do to ensure that your contribution is original, i.e., nobody has done the same thing before, is extensive literature research.

Use Google Scholar or Scopus to search for keywords related to your field and try to find something similar. You will notice that there is only so much literature that is closely related to your topic. If you are thorough, you should be able to say if you have done something original.

Your advisor doesn't seem to be keen on talking to you regularly. In the case that you want to continue working for him, you should probably do the literature research, write the article, send it to your advisor for corrections and hand it in. I doubt your advisor will take much time to correct your article, so you should have more experienced colleagues read your article before sending it to him. If he agrees, submit it to a journal and wait for the outcome.


How do I as a solitary student with no guide and no research lab and limited access to research material and books perform research that is of good quality?

Unless you have plenty of experience, you most likely cannot.

  PS: Is there any way I can find a mentor online?

You can study online (distance university), where you will get a mentor when you reach the point of doing research.


How to deal with the (hidden) feedback from research supervisor?

Actively ask for actual feedback.
Of course, you need to be prepared for any feedback that is to come.

I am reading things into this... but I suspect you are reading feedback into their facial expressions and body language because you in fact need more feedback.


Is it a good practice to work on multiple projects simultaneously during PhD study?

This is very subjective and environment-dependent, and my opinion is orthogonal to qsp's answer based on my experience.

My PhD topic was a continuation of my MSc topic with the same advisor. However, halfway through I found another topic, unrelated to the first one, that really interested me. Long story short, I ended up with a sandwich thesis (this was planned from the beginning) consisting of 3 published papers on the 1st topic, and having published 8 papers on the 2nd topic to fill my CV (plus 2 papers on a third topic from a completely different field, and 2 other dydactic texts in lesser peer-reviewed journals). This was enough to graduate with honors (1st topic) and to get a prestigious grant on the 2nd topic which is my main research interest now and on which I'm building my scientific career. I'm very pleased with this outcome. (I abandoned my 1st topic altogether as eventually I lost interest in it.)

So if anyone asked me if they should work on unrelated topics during their PhD I would without hesitation advise to go for it: one broadens their knowledge (some ideas from one topic may be useful for the other), builds a bigger professional network, learns to work on different things in parallel, and ― like me ― may find a topic that is a much better fit than the original one. And I think it should be considered an advantage, as it shows one is open-minded and flexible ― and it was by my thesis referees and the grant committee.

At least at my institute, it's rather common that PhD students are involved in a number of projects on different topics, lead by different senior scientists, and also conducted by themselves. One of my friends is actively involved in ~5 of them, and keeps doing well in each.

But, as I said in the beginning, this is subjective. Some people may simply not be suited for it; some advisors may dislike it (having a conflict with one's own advisor is almost always a bad idea; on the other hand, a PhD is a time to build one's independence and scientific maturity, but this is a different issue); if someone is in a short (e.g., 3 years) program with fixed duration, indeed it might be a better idea to focus on one topic for the time being (I did my PhD in 5 years); if someone loves their topic, why should they look for something else? Etc.

So one should judge by themselves if it's a good thing to work on multiple projects. This is advisor/institution/field/culture/perspectives/... dependent, so there's no one universal "yes/no" answer.


Technically, I cannot change my application documents any more or withdraw my application through the website of the hiring department.

Says who? Did you talk to a real live person about this? It's quite possible they can accept an "overwritten" re-application even if the public web interface, or what-not, doesn't support this.

  The best I could do is submit a new application using a new e-mail address.

Not so. You can write a letter, explaining how you understand that the department's hiring focus is Y rather than X, while your earlier application emphasized X, and asking the application reviewers to consider an enclosed summary of your activities and plans regarding Y.


What metrics do universities use to evaluate their performance?

The strategy of my UK university seems to be to improve on all available metrics that do not require them to spend more money. At our most recent faculty meeting we were told that we needed to simultaneously increase our student numbers, increase our admissions standards, increase the number of contact hours, and decrease our average class size. They also pointed out that we should also strive to increase our grant capture and publication rates.

I think from an inward facing perspective universities evaluate academic staff on on whatever makes them look the weakest, while from an outward facing perspective they evaluate themselves on whatever makes them look strongest.


The potential advisor suddenly stopped answering my emails. What should I do now?

At some universities, there is a quiet period between the application submission deadline and the first round of interviews, during which faculty and applicant communication is discouraged.

As faculty, I've found such quiet periods annoying but understand the rationale which is to level the playing field by suppressing off-channel communications with a secondary purpose of limiting too much badgering on the part of applicants.

Or the professor could be skiing or preparing for the new semester. Either way, I'd hesitate to badger too much.

update: If I found a prospective student used an email tracking program on me, I'd drop them from consideration immediately. See: Is it rude to use tracking softwares for the emails that you send to potential advisors?


The long and boring introductions that you've noticed are probably due to people simply reading off the "speaker biography" paragraph that is typically included with a talk announcement.  That, in turn, is usually prepared with little thought by the speaker, often by grabbing a recent bio blurb from a proposal or their website.  Thus: boring list of dates and awards.

My personal preference is to ask the speaker how they would like to be introduced and to keep things quite short: any good speaker will begin their talk with a high-level perspective on their technical vision and work in any case.


Should I cite a really bad research paper published in my small research area?

Yes you should cite it because:

You know about that paper
You read it in the context of preparing your work. Finding gaps and flaws in previous works is a major part of designing and refining your own research
By your own judgement it’s highly relevant.

Explain your rebuttal of their claims or method using proper scientific arguments. If I were you I would refrain from using words like “hand waving” or “cranks” in a scientific context.

Whether or not you are the first to discover something isn’t really something you can control. It’s possible that they actually did find something of value but were bad at communicating it. From what you say there seem to be still time for you to be the first to get it right but you won’t achieve that by ignoring previous work.


Is it ethical to offer a student a job during the final weeks of his thesis if you are partly grading it?

It is perfectly ethical to inform a student that you are currently supervising about open positions, especially if the student is about to complete the thesis and is a good fit to the position.

It is of course not ethical to let the student's action upon this information affect the grading of the thesis. That's for you to take care of, and I guess you were already aware of that.

If you have any concerns about putting pressure onto the student, an alternative way would be to have someone else inform the student about the open position. You write that you supervise the student's thesis, but your institute has the open position.

If that means that someone other than you is directly responsible for the open position, than just ask that person to contact the student about the position. That will probably make the student feel less guilty with respect to you if he or she doesn't apply for the position.


Time out of Academic Environment (Mathematics)

This seems to me like a situation in which it is better to "go for the gold". Delay doesn't sound like a backup plan, actually. If you've been accepted and it is something that you really want to do, then just do it.

I suspect that it will work out better if you start sooner. If, on the odd chance that it doesn't work out, develop a backup at that point. But being overly cautions now might make it harder to achieve your actual goals.

Take the offer that seems best to you. Make it work. It would place you better for a later doctoral program than delay would and you have no guarantee that you would be able to advance in important areas if you delay.


How to answer "Your experience in supervision of research students"?

If the jobs you are applying to expect you to have experience teaching research students and you have none, there is really no explaining away of this problem. I see basically two fixes:

Get this experience. I am not sure how feasible this is wherever you work, but in my university in Europe, everybody who wants experience teaching students can get it. There are plenty of research master students or even undergrads that need supervision, and getting involved with teaching them is usually not more complicated than telling the lab head or responsible coordinator that you would be available. Of course, then you also need to be prepared to put in the hours - teaching research students is definitely not something that you can do with an hour on the side here and there, as these inexperienced researchers typically need some serious time commitment to get them started. Incidentally, the fact that it is so easy to get experience supervising students is also the reason why universities in my area consider it as a red flag if you have none - they interpret this as "I actively tried to get out of supervising students".
Find jobs to apply to that don't require teaching research students. If you for some reason don't want to be involved with teaching research students, you shouldn't apply to positions that require this. What you could maybe still do is apply to positions that are very (undergrad) teaching-centered, such as liberal arts colleges in the US or Universities of Applied Sciences in the German-speaking areas. That being said, if you don't want to be involved with research at all, you may be drawing slim as nowadays most universities seem to expect their junior faculty to do some research on the side.

To anser your literal question:

  How to answer those kind questions properly?

Truthfully.

"I currently do not have any experience in teaching research students, as [insert accurate reason]. Of course I will be more than willing to get this experience as soon as possible should my application be accepted."


Is it accepted to refer to your own published result by your own name?

This is, unfortunately, a case where English grammar can be tricky and exactly how you phrase things is going to matter.

It is often seen a presumptuous to name something after yourself: "Newton's Laws" and "Hawking radiation" and "Rayleigh scattering" are retrospective judgements of significance by the community.  Claiming a similar name is an assertion in advance that your work will be at a similar level of significance.

The problem, then, is that if you say "Doe's growth model", it is ambiguous whether that is intended to be a construction like "Hawking radiation" or whether it just means "the growth model that happens to have been developed by Doe."

This potential problem can be avoided by rephrasing to avoid the parallel construction: "the growth model by Doe et al (2010)", or better yet, "the growth model presented in (Doe, 2010)."  The point here is that the significant item under discussion is the growth model, not Doe, and the sentence should be phrased to make that as clear as possible.

Finally, note that these sorts of phrasings can work both for double blind review and for review where the authors' identities are known: even when the identity of the author is known, the important thing should be the relationship between the work, not the fraction of authors that are shared between two papers (unless you are specifically trying to talk about independent co-discovery).


Discouraged from giving A's, but students are doing excellent work, what can a professor do?

Take special care defining the rules, previously, and stick to them. You should have a specific list of objectives and the associated grades. This is implicit on tests, more explicit on projects. For instance, when elaborating written exams, I usually try to cover the whole syllabus (for that part), with questions of different difficulties, for instance, 4 questions, one easy, two moderate, one harder. That way I can easily see who really knows the content and who is just coasting by...

If a student reaches all predefined objectives, that person earned an A. And you can easily prove it by showing that he indeed reached the objectives. It would be highly unethical not to give a deserving student an A for political concerns of some suit....


Funny 5th option in multiple choice exam?

That is hard for us to determine. This could be a legitimate way to help students relax during the exam. The fact that the professor includes this at a fixed spot at the end of each question, that this seems to be an established tradition with students expecting this and being encouraged to participate in it, points in that direction.
On the other hand attempts at humor directed towards a large number of people in a context where you cannot easily defuse misunderstandings is risky.
So based on the information you have given us, it could be either.


How to obtain funding for independent research after graduating from undergrad?

I'll make three suggestions, but these are a bit difficult to obtain.

First, if you intend to return to the country of which you are a citizen, then you might explore funding from there, since your skills would eventually benefit them. This is actually available in some places.

Second, you might be able to obtain funding indirectly. Suppose you can convince one of your professors to apply for a grant that will fund your research and permit him/her to support you under the grant, even though you are not a citizen. If you don't need personal support, but only research support, this would be much easier, of course. But you would probably have to do the actual grant writing so that your advisor(s) can submit it with little effort on their own. This, in itself, can be a valuable skill, though obtained with a bit of pain.

Third, you might explore private funding from some interested corporation. These have no real limitations, though the money might be relatively small. But if you have skills that the company might find valuable, perhaps you could work with them, without pay, but obtain a grant for research. I've done this sort of thing, but was in a different (more advanced) situation. In my case the grant didn't support me directly, but paid for such things as travel and equipment. But there might be legal issues that you would need to resolve through the university if you were directly supported.


Is it okay to switch languages in an email?

It would be weird to see an email in multiple languages, but it's not completely unusual or unheard of. It would certainly make me wonder what's going on if I received such an email, but it's not a breach of etiquette.

In my own personal experience, I had a lot of communications in German. In some cases, if someone was quoting something, or using terms that are hard to translate, they'd throw in the English and then keep on using German.


You could use ProQuest for free at the British Library.

Obtaining theses in the Reading Rooms: North American theses
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses is available online on the electronic
resources terminals in Humanities - Floors 1 and 2.

http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelprestype/theses/hrrtheses/theses.html


Applying for undergraduate research - include transcript with bad 1st year GPA?

There are two reasons I want to see a transcript when I take on research assistants:

I want to know what relevant classes they have taken, and how they did in those classes. This (hopefully) tells me something about what kind of basic knowledge I can expect them to have in my subject area, which in turn helps me evaluate whether I have a project that is well-suited for them.
I don't want to hire a student that is struggling with their coursework, because a research position is very demanding in terms of time and attention. A student who is currently barely passing classes should be focusing on that, not taking on a new major responsibilities. (My university has a minimum GPA requirement for student research assistants for this reason.)

Definitely include your transcript with your email. Don't explain the reason for the bad grades straight off - why draw attention to the negative? But ideally, you should be able to say something like "I took 'Highly Relevant Course' this spring and it made me really interested in pursuing research in this area", where 'Highly Relevant Course' is something you've done well in, that is directly related to the professor's research. The idea is to show that you have basic knowledge in the relevant area, and you're also not currently struggling to pass your courses.


Is it possible to receive private tutoring for graduate-level courses from faculty members?

As a faculty member, I feel that most students who struggle

don't put enough time into the course materials; most courses are designed with the expectation that you put into the course around 10 hours a week.
don't seek out help, or don't speak up to communicate their difficulties; there are office hours by the professor, as well as the TAs, and most of these people would be very open to hearing your opinions of the course. If the course is going too fast, tell them.
don't talk to their peers; sometimes understanding the material requires talking to others about it. You may all have been confused by the material, but by struggling through the assignments together, you will probably all learn (but remember to credit your friends).

If you have done all of the above and you are still struggling, then hiring a private TA may be the next step. One tip for choosing a good TA: I actually think that asking someone just a couple of years ahead of you is the best thing to do. They see from your perspective, and they often understand/remember what was hard about the material better than the faculty members. It's cheaper, and you'll learn better. As a faculty member, I would never agree to privately tutor a student. Teaching is only a small part of my job, and I prefer to be doing research instead of spending more of my time with an undergraduate student.


My advisor talks about me to his colleagues in their native language

Without knowing more about what was actually said, or the tone of it, I would dismiss it as your advisor concerned about how best to advise you. I think these sorts of conversations are relatively common when a prof, especially an inexperienced one, has a problem helping a student that s/he can't resolve.

Unless you think they were joking about you or implying you weren't adequate to the task, you should probably just forget it. But discussing your troubles with colleagues can be a valid way for the professor to actually find the best way to be of assistance.

There are worse interpretations, of course, but don't assume the worst unless it is really necessary.

I've had students, actually, who missed some essential things in their early education. They can be hard to advise since there isn't time for them to go back and fill in those gaps. It is an important problem.


Is it possible to ask editor-in-chief to change a reviewer?

Certainly you can ask.  It's not impossible that the editor would agree, though it's pretty unlikely.

What you describe:

  the third one had an aggressive tune and ask some questions that were completely answered in the paper or were basically wrong question.

is normal.  Many reviewers take an aggressive tone. Often they ask questions that were answered in the paper.  The correct response to "an aggressive tone" is to reply in a professional tone, and the correct response to a question that is answered in the paper is to accept that you were not clear enough in the paper, and to improve the explanation.

(Note, by the way, that this one short sentence I quoted has three grammatical/spelling errors. If this represents how the paper was written, it's not surprising that the paper was unclear, and the reviewer's annoyance is perfectly understandable.)

As for the "basically wrong question" ... here's an illustration of how common the "reviewer number three" syndrome is.

I'm not saying it's good that one out of three reviewers is borderline incompetent. I'm saying that this is part of the territory, this is something every scientist has to deal with, and we don't, can't possibly, all write to the editor and demand they remove Reviewer Number Three.  Instead, what we all do is extract the useful parts of the review, accept that if the reviewer doesn't understand something it's mainly our fault for being unclear and fix that, and work as best we can with the reviewer's concerns.  In your response to the reviewer, you can clearly and professionally explain why the point is mistaken, and explain what you have done to help clarify it.

Editors often (I think; I know it happens sometimes) unofficially deprecate particular reviews, based on their reading.  They are just as good at detecting "aggressive" and outright hostile reviews, and know to put less weight on it.

But you can ask the editor to remove a reviewer. They're more likely to listen if the reviewer is not just aggressive, but outright hostile; when the reviewer makes an unambiguous statement that isn't just a minority opinion, but is flat wrong, and you can clearly show that; or when the reviewer is just completely out of their depth.

But the burden is on you to absolutely clearly, professionally, with no trace of hurt feelings or antagonism, show that the reviewer is without doubt incompetent. If you can't do every part of that 100%, don't even bother.  Deal with it the way all the rest of us do.

You may want to look at other answers to questions in the "peer-review" tag to get a sense of the community's feelings:

How common is it to get one very positive and one very negative review?
A frequent reviewer seems to have a grudge against me. What to do?
What to do if reviewers reject a paper without understanding the content?
How to proceed when reviewers reject your manuscript but you believe there is no scientific basis for their objections?

And many more.


Were any Russian diploma mills once prestigious universities?

First, we should have some criteria on what to call a diploma mill.

This article cites the Ministry of Education claiming:

  Indeed, the number of universities that worked like diploma conveyor line was growing in Russia, comments the Ministry of Science and Education. The Ministry and Federal Education Supervision Service are regularly doing checkups to identify the so-called diploma mills, with hundreds of students per one instructor or a tremendous ratio of extramural to intramural students -- these are one of the first hallmarks. Since 2015, the state accreditation has been renounced for 34 universities and branches. This mainly concerns Humanities, including Law, Economics and Management.

Original text

  "Действительно, в России росло количество вузов, деятельность которых напоминала конвейер по выдаче дипломов,— прокомментировали эту историю в Минобрнауки.— Министерство совместно с Рособрнадзором регулярно проводит проверки, которые позволяют увидеть и так называемые конторы по продаже дипломов, когда на одного педагогического работника приходится одновременно несколько сотен студентов или же количество заочников в сотни раз превышает студентов очного отделения,— это одни из первых признаков. С начала 2015 года в результате проверок было приостановлено действие государственной аккредитации в 34 вузах и филиалах. В основном это касается укрупненных групп специальностей "Гуманитарные науки", в которую входят образовательные программы в области юриспруденции, и "Экономика и управление"".

An small sample of universities that get their accreditation renounced in early 2016 is mentioned by Federal Education Supervision Service:

  For poor quality and content of education, the state accreditation is void for the following universities:
  1. Kabardino-Balkariya business institute (founded 1998)
  2. International Slavic institute (founded 1994)
  3. Moscow Legal studies institute (founded 2000)
  4. Moscow Institute of Banking (founded 1996)
  5. Vladimir business institute (founded 1997)
  6. Institute for Advocacy, Notariate and International Relations (founded 2003)

Original text

  За неустранение несоответствий содержания и качества подготовки обучающихся полностью лишены государственной аккредитации:
  1.  НОУ ВПО «Кабардино-Балкарский институт бизнеса»;
  2.  ОАНО ВО «Международный славянский институт»;
  3.  НОУ ВПО «Московский институт юриспруденции»;
  4.  НОУ ВПО «Московский институт банковского дела»;
  5.  АНО ВПО «Владимирский институт бизнеса»;
  6.  НОУ ВПО «Институт адвокатуры, нотариата и международных отношений».

I think we're safe to assume these ones definitely were diploma mills. If you dig a bit more cases (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), you see the trend. Diploma mills in Russia are either Moscow-based Humanities universities with very general names (I think they can teach you everything if they are called International Slavic Institute) or some distant region (North Caucasus, for instance) universities with very obscure names (I particularly liked the Institute for Psychology and Acmeology, whatever they could mean).

Now, these universities weren't there in the Soviet times. An overwhelming majority of them popped up in the 1990s (I had given the foundation dates for the six universities I listed above).

Back to your questions, the universities that were highly respected in the Soviet times continue to be legit universities. I should remark that the quality of education, from my insider point of view, seems to deteriorate, in the sense that students try to slack as much as they can, including giving bribes to instructors. However, no prominent university has turned to a diploma mill as in 'never come to the classes, pay and have your diploma'. The ones that are diploma mills are the newly emerging, mayfly universities.

Further reading

If you want to learn more about diploma mills in Russia, consider reading about Dissernet. While the state-based Federal Education Supervision Service is doing a good job fighting diploma mills that give bachelor and master's diplomas, Dissernet is a non-profit volunteer organization that studies plagiarism in PhD thesis works and busts PhD diploma mills.


It sounds like you want to use a version control system, combined with a bug tracker. Luckily, Mercurial combined with an online bitbucket.org repository provides a nice workflow. When remarks or notes appear, you add them to the issue tracker at your bitbucket page (note that bitbucket provides private repositories). See this example from one of my software projects.

When working on the paper you can select one of the issues, fix it, add to your repository, with a mention of the issue number in the bug tracker. This sounds like it could provide you with two important things: managing of the growth of your paper, and organizing your workflow of handeling the interaction with the other authors.


How to ask new advisor about her "style" in a professional way?

I still don't know what you have in mind as regards "style" but here are the things I think it would be useful to ask at the beginning:

How often she would like to meet and for how long.
Would she like you to get started with research right off the bat, or would she prefer that you start by concentrating on coursework and preparation for qualifying exams?
Are there any organizational, office assistant-type chores you can do to make yourself useful?  (Or if she has a lab, include lab chores in this question.)
A propos lab (if she has one), is there a lab manager?  What tips does she have to help you be an asset to the lab?
What are her pet peeves?  (I once asked this of my soon-to-be supervisor and she said, "humming and getting to work late" -- good to know!)
Are there any particular courses she would suggest you take in the first year?  (Familiarize yourself with the offerings and descriptions prior to the meeting.)
Communication preferences (email vs. phone vs. stopping by her office).  What you're trying to find out is

what method works best when you need a quick answer
how she would prefer to get hold of you when she needs a quick answer
what phone hours she keeps, e.g. don't call after 9 pm, don't call before 10 on a Sunday, don't call during the dinner hour which is x - y pm or whatever they happen to be in her case
what turn-around time she expects from emails (e.g. 24 hours vs. there was a question here at Academia a little while back about a professor who would send an email and expect the student to pop up in his doorway within five minutes)
what she finds annoying (i.e. what to avoid)

(This would be a good time to let her know your communication preferences, for example, let her know about any chunks of time when you like to turn your phone off for your sanity.)
Any other tips?  (Here she might say something like, make sure to find one or two hobbies, try to attend all seminars and keep a seminar log....)

Note, I would not start out the meeting with a barrage of questions.  Many may be answered naturally during the flow of conversation.


How to make a paper's author willing to help me with his source code like a semi-supervisor?

No one can really 'make' anyone willing to help you.  However, some things to consider that may convince the author to help.  In your email communications:

demonstrate your understanding of the source code.
Be specific in what you ask - don't do the "I don't get any of this" type of message.  Use your understanding, research and testing to help focus your questions.

Make sure you have your understandings and questions ready before you email, do not send multiple emails before they have a chance to reply and try and put most, if not all of your questions in a single email.  Be patient when waiting for a reply and be courteous and thankful for information provided.

Have your supervisor/advisor look over your questions before sending it (if you're unsure).

Remember, most of all, the author is under no obligation to even reply, and definitely not under any obligation to do your work for you. Bear in mind that they will have time-taking obligations and duties that take priority.


In this answer, I will respond to some of the points raised in the question, however without any expectation of completeness.

  Isn't a decent fluency in English the requirement for senior academic positions (regardless of native languages)?

To some extent, it is, although there are probably many different interpretations of what "decent fluency" means around.

  If a professor in non-English speaking country is not fluent in English, how does he supervise graduate students?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding this, but ... simply in their non-English language? There is no general requirement that communication with graduate students (including foreign graduate students!) would have to happen in English.

  For supervising/conducting cutting-edge research, someone should be able to read technical literature. Research papers are published in English (and there is no translation normally).

This is true, however I have noticed that there can be extremely wide gaps between the ability to read and understand complicated English texts and the ability to express complex ideas in English. Hence, a capable researcher can be perfectly able to understand technical literature written in English, and yet be unable to publish their own ideas in English.

Of course, this is not generally the case in all non-English-speaking places, but it probably depends on how English is trained or learned.

  I understand it is easier for native English speakers to read and write in scientific literature, but we don't speak their language, we speak an international language, which is their native language too.

If it is their native language, too, then we do speak their language. Whether our motivation for learning or using English is to communicate with native speakers or with the international community doesn't matter; the result is that, as you say, "it is easier for native English speakers to read and write in scientific literature".

  is it reasonable and justifiable to give a senior academic position to someone who cannot read 99% of recent research findings in his field?

As explained above, comprehension is not necessarily the same as expression. And even then, this statement possibly neglects that some fields might rely less on English than what I am used to from CS.

  Is it acceptable for a professor or even a PhD student to have no understanding of English language?

No, rather not.

Coming back to your titular question:

  Isn't English the common academic language?

Yes, in many fields, it is. But this mere fact has little influence on the effects you allude to. It neither means that English material is inaccessible to someone with low skills at writing in English, nor that ideas and surveys are always developed and conducted in English from the start.


Interview for masters program including two minute scientific presentation

There is not much that you can explain in two minutes; therefore, the key is to choose a topic that you can do justice to in such a short time. Choose a topic that you are interested in and confident about. Additionally, make sure that the topic is relevant to the course you are applying for. Create an interesting PowerPoint presentation of 4-5 slides. Check out some short scientific presentations online to get some ideas.


Grad school with 2.62 EE GPA. Does self study help?

Grad school with a 2.62

You may need to accept grad school is not in your future.  At least not in your near future.  Exactly why do you want to go to grad school?  Have you considered starting a company working in a field you're passionate about?

If you really want to go to grad school, here is what I'd do.

1) Stay at your current company and get raises and promotions.  Be sure to stay in touch with everyone who praised your work.

2) Make sure you have a very concrete reason why your GPA will be a lot higher.  Having a few good semesters won't cancel out years of bad grades.

3) Get your company to pay for it

4) Make sure your GREs are AWESOME!


Is there any (known) way to have Arxiv waive the endorsement requirement?

Just to check, your first request for endorsement emails were hopefully to your thesis advisor/postdoc advisor. If they haven't gotten back to you, either you definitely haven't waited long enough or there may be some other issue (they don't want you to submit to arxiv without them looking at it first?).
Worth looking to see if there are other ways to get a .edu address. If you are a researcher in a relevant industry, you could potentially get some degree of honorary affiliation with a local university just by asking the right people. However, this is probably much harder than getting an endorser! You should also look into your PhD and undergraduate school's policies: many offer "alumni" email addresses that are .edu - but I'm not sure if this is sufficient for arxiv's purposes.


Post-doc positions in Mechanical Engineering

Context: I'm not in mechanical engineering, but am a potential post doc advisor.

Remember: ootential advisors are (almost) always on the lookout for good people, even when they don't have money to hire them, because they always have grants submitted, so any time soon they may receive another grant.

It is fine to contact potential advisors directly, but beware that they will receive many such emails, including many that are easily considered as SPAM, due to their impersonal and indirect nature. This means that your emails need to be personal, and they need to quickly establish what you do and what value you could be to the potential advisor, for instance by finding a real connection with their research.

Having a concrete research proposal is also a valuable idea, but beware that a potential advisor may not be interested in supervising a topic that is outside their core research focus.

Contacting a potential advisor 3 months in advance would put you in the running for any positions that the advisor may have open.

Contacting a potential advisor 6 months in advance might be a way of putting your name in the advisor's mind, but it would probably be too early to actually get a position. That said, the advisor may have applied for some funding, and this may come available after those 6 months. Then having your name in the advisor's mind would be a good thing.

Contacting a potential advisor 12 months before you finish might be useful if there is a funding opportunity that you both could apply for.

Of course, contacting the potential advisor 3 months before you finish might lead to an opportunity 12 months down the track, and so on.


Does Impact Factor reflect the quality of a journal?

No.

To answer Paul's comment:

The title of the post asks about journals.  For a well-worn list of criticisms of Impact Factor as an indicator of journal quality, see the Wikipedia article and the sources it cites.  In many disciplines, important papers receive most of their citations well outside the IF's two-year window.  Raw citation data can be manipulated by editorial policies, some more nefarious than others, or even by individual papers.  Thomson-Reuters' calculations of Impact Factor are not reproducible, even using their own citation data.  Et cetera ad nauseam.  But most importantly: Having lots of citations is not the same thing as quality.

The body of the post asks about journal articles.  Impact Factor is (roughly) the average number of citations to all papers published by a journal in a given time window.  Even if it were a reliable measure of average quality (which it isn't), it would say nothing at all about the quality of any individual paper.


LaTeX itemize options: are they allowed to use in a master thesis?

Are they allowed to use in a master thesis?

I would think it improbable that such things are specifically disallowed, because it's just not something that people typically try to do. Overall, the effect is unattractive and does not follow good typographical practice. If your university policy does not object, your supervisor probably would (and should).

One or two unobtrusive ornamental flourishes may be appropriate on the title page, but certainly not in the main text.

If you are struggling for ideas on the typographical style of your thesis, I would highly recommend looking at the classicthesis and memoir packages. Of course you still must obey any official policy on the formatting, but these styles can at least provide a good start that's a little less sterile looking than vanilla LaTeX.


Why is my mood dictated so much by how well my research is going?

Does anyone else experience this?

Yes, I'm pretty sure we all do to some extent, and that it's one of the defining characteristics of being a researcher that you get so emotionally involved in your work and are so passionate about it that it has that effect. It can be both a curse and a blessing (see the fantastic question linked to by jakebeal in the comments). Hopefully if you are talented and work hard, it will be the latter more often than the former.

As for how to manage it:

get used to it (I mean that literally, not as a sarcastic admonition) - if you plan a career in academia there will always be ups and downs of this sort. At some point one learns to be patient and not to freak out every time the research isn't going great.
Always have other more "normal" work to do, like teaching, that can help you feel like you're doing something worthwhile even during those times when you're stumped with your research.


I have an undergraduate degree and no research experience -- how to begin now?

One method you can try is to delay graduation by one year and start working on a research project under the guidance of a faculty member in your CS department. If no such undergrad research program exists in your department, it may be possible to arrange something with individual professors (under the name of senior thesis, independent study, or on-campus employment, etc.) who are interested in taking on a student. Another good option is to find an internship or research assistant position in another university after you graduate. However, even such opportunities usually come with the expectation that you have some research experience to begin with. So a more realistic approach may be to start doing research now in your undergrad institute as a stepping stone while you are still a student, and then apply for an external internship/research assistant position with the help of your research supervisor.

Getting a master's degree is a possibility. If you choose this approach make sure that you are not getting a terminal master's degree that is intended to prepare for professional work in, for example, software development, rather than to prepare for further PhD studies. Finally, getting a job in software development is probably not a good idea, because usually the practical experience you get has little direct bearing on the content of a PhD study. Spending one or two years coding does not help to develop your ability to do theoretical research.

No matter which approach you take, the key to a meaningful internship is to find someone who is 1) well-established in the academia and 2) good with mentoring. Ideally, you want to spend 1-2 years in this person's lab, so that you have enough time to grow as a researcher and demonstrate your ability (and potential) to consistently produce good research work. You may want to talk with some professors who are familiar with you for recommendations, or talk with students in your prospective mentor's lab to get to know the professor's reputation. Remember that it is not enough to simply spend 2 or 3 months in a lab just so that you can pad your resume with some extra fluff.


Encouraging students to be more social with each other via course wall exchanges

One idea that I have employed with adult learners, is to gently redirect them when the opportunity arises. For example, if a student asks me a question that I know is relevant to other students, and also doesn't require my decision making skills, then I will ask them to post that on the wall, and to address it to their colleagues. Then, to keep things moving, I might also encourage one of their peers to respond.I might pick another classmate that I know (or I might guess) has a certain POV on the question posted. To everyone else, this "crafted discussion" is inspiration, and shows a certain level of activity. Yes, it is contrived, but it can motivate others to enter into authentic discussion.

Also, a rating system that encourages good answerers to build reputation might help. ;-)


Content for slides of theoretical project

Unfortunately, most slide-based presentations have too many slides, not too few. It is very difficult to find a good balance. Of course, it depends on the time set aside for your talk. If it is 20 minutes or so, you may already be fine.

However, an additional slide for each Theorem giving the key ideas from the proof might be useful. It could be a sparse proof outline, or just a statement of what earlier work contributes to the proof.

However, since it sounds like you fellow students have done things that are based on this chapter of the book, it might be even more useful to say something about how this work leads to the more practical things. In other words, not just what are the important theorems, but why they are important to the work that follows. In other words, place that chapter in the context of the larger goals of the group. That will let you add a bit to your presentation and, perhaps, make it more useful.


Do universities prefer not to hire their own PhD graduates in faculty positions?

At my university - or at least in my department - the norm seems to be that they prefer to hire externally for tenure-track jobs (speaking from experience serving on a search committee for a tenure-track position). The line of reasoning is, "if we're the ones who taught/mentored/molded Candidate X, then they're not bringing in anything new in terms of scholarship."

This is less applicable to non-tenure track jobs, as those faculty members are usually teaching lower level classes and don't have any research obligations. There are several PhD faculty members in my department that were hired internally who work as lecturers.

Anecdotal, of course, but I've studied at/worked at a few universities over the years, and this is the pattern I've tended to see. Tenure-track: external. Non-tenure-track: internal OK.


Can I use my blog posts for an academic publication?

You'd need to ask the specific journal if they're okay with it.  I suspect many would be, since many other forms of quasi-publication prior to a paper are acceptable.


Of course you can use Greek letters.
But do not italicize them.
Here is an example of a random IEEE Conference paper that displays a formula in which Greek letters are not italicized, while other letters are:

Note that the psi (ψ) and pi (π) are not italicized, but t and e are.


Actually, you should be applying now, not when you finish. Now is starting to be a bit late for the 2020 opening. The process is pretty long.

If your application is strong, then starting a month or so late in the US might not be a problem and it is possible that an exception could be made if that is necessary. But programs in the US usually start with a fair bit of advanced coursework, depending on the field.

Also, your current record is complete enough that people will be able to send proper letters and the admitting committee will be able to judge the likelihood of your success. You don't need final year grades to make that possible.

But if you do need to take a delay then some project with one of your current professors, even if unpaid, might be a useful way to stay connected, get a bit of research experience, and build relationships that result in strong letters. But there are lots of other possibilities, some of which keep you connected and some of which let you unwind for a while before doctoral study.


Telling my department about switching to a new PhD program - moral dilemma

What's the best way to approach this and tell the department about this?

There is no magic incantation; the approach will be the same as for any other job. Tell them as soon as possible, thank them for all they've done for you, and emphasize that your decision is based on your evolving interests rather than any shortcomings of the individuals involved. See also this post.

I'm even wondering if what I'm doing is so unethical, perhaps I should stay. Is this so unethical?

There is nothing unethical about it; grad programs know that a fraction of students will choose to leave due to circumstances beyond the program's control. Losing a good student after investing effort is disappointing, but it goes with the territory. You should not let such considerations hold you back from doing what you need to do.

perhaps I should stay

You didn't really ask for advice on the decision itself, but I do want to say that many students fixate too much on the exact subject they're studying. The idea of a PhD, however, is to give you a foundation from which you can continue to learn throughout your career. Now if field A is art and field B is physics, yeah, you will have to switch; no way your art foundation will be that broad. But for most adjacent fields/subfields, either PhD should give an adequate foundation for your future work.
Beyond that, staying seems to have three key advantages:

Your department is "encouraging" you to pursue B as an interdisciplinary subject. From the outside at least, this seems like a "best of both worlds" situation.
You don't have to restart you program from the beginning, which will save you an entire year
You get to stay in your current supportive environment with a great advisor. Grad programs are a bit of a dice roll; rolling again introduces some uncertainty.

So I certainly recommend that you consider staying on. But at the same time, if you're not really passionate about A, you will not be successful in A, and it's certainly better to make the jump now rather than three years from now. So it is a dilemma, and one only you can unravel; best of luck.


Quoting or paraphrasing in a review article

In most fields verbatim copying of sources is frowned upon. You should usually paraphrase what you need to convey and adapt it to the flow of ideas in your own publication.

And of course, you need to properly attribute any material you took from any source - paraphrasing does not absolve you from the duty of proper attribution. Your university will likely offer some guidance on proper citation and attribution, and there are lots of textbooks on academic writing that cover this.

So, that's the general answer. I'd say that your situation of a review article specifically offers one added wrinkle.

A review article is supposed to condense and organize the state of the art on a particular topic. You will typically read, summarize and organize a large number of primary research articles to pull together the common strands along which you can build a coherent semantic structure. Review articles routinely have reference lists 100 or more entries long. (If this is an undergraduate project, your particular review article will likely not be that all-encompassing.)

Therefore: if you are even tempted to copy a whole passage out of one source for a review article, you can immediately deduce that you are likely going into too much detail for this one particular source. Take a big step back and concentrate on the larger picture again.


No Objection mail to potential advisor before mailing another in the same department

i Don’t understand the reason for the original admonishment, except if it’s based on the assumption that the professors might talk and thus decide to reject you from both groups. However, even given that, since the first professor has already said he can’t take on new students, there isn’t any reason you can’t still contact the others. You don’t need to ask the professor if there are no objections: the professor’s already done that by turning you down outright. The worst that can happen is that they will say no.


What corrections can you make on galley proofs?

A galley proof should primarily be proofed for typos or mistakes made in the type-setting process. It is not the time to change phrasing, exchange figures, add or remove blocks of text or anything else substantial.

Adding references might seem like a useful addition but the problem is that it would then be possible to add references without the knowledge of the editors and of course the reviewers and hence possibly make changes that could have affected reviews etc. The case of adding anew paper is a similar problem since it may change the paper in ways that the editor and reviewers have not seen and therefore ok'd. If such changes are wanted (they are probably seldom needed), it would be best to at least check with the editor if that would be appropriate. In short, no changes should be made that alters the content of the paper. All such details should have been checked and if necessary corrected before submitting the final revised manuscript for copy-editing and proof production. Any corrections called for by the copy-editor and editors after submitting the final version is of course to be made.

Updating of references are usually also acceptable, to, for example, add the publication year (from e.g. "in press") or adding doi, page numbers etc. if these were not known at the time the final version was submitted.

The proofing stage is not a stage where many changes should be made. The manuscript that is submitted for proofing should be considered the last chance to make any substantial changes. What many do not realize is that all changes done after a type-set proof has been produced may cost the journal money, apart from the extra time and trouble it causes. So, as an editor, I often have the feeling authors just send in their final manuscript without checking figures and text properly and then waiting for the proof to make final changes but is, in fact, an abuse of the system.

Regarding your last paragraph, the type-setter is usually not a scientist and has no idea of what changes might mean so to think that the type-setter would act as some form of intermediate editor is not right. In cases where type-setting is done in-house it might be a professional doing the type-setting but I would still say this is not the way to handle the type-setting/proofing stage.

So, anyone, make sure the final submitted manuscript is checked, complete and correct.


strategies to secure more independence in a postdoctoral position?

First of all, let me say that your choice of words really rings an alarm bell with me. The general impression is that you are very ready to be inhonest, and (in agreement with that) your default position seems to mistrust your future employer and you seem to expect suspicion as opposed to taking in the situation openly.

Now if someone does not trust me, a natural question for me is: why should I trust them? I would not want to work with someone with this attitude towards work. And moreover, I wouldn't want to have someone messing up the working atmosphere in my group.

(But don't worry: I'm not in the position to hire anyone.)

  Do I need to sell my PhD work as my own idea in a postdoc application, or is it reasonable to be honest?

I'd say it is even necessary to be honest, and it is most probably futile to try to get away with anything else. Academia is a small world, and phone, skype and email reach very far nowadays. Particularly if you say that your field is so small that you do not care to name it here.

  Will it arouse suspicion in an application to propose research in an area which is not closely related to my PhD research?

No. But you should have a positive reason to apply there.

  If I want to be able to develop my own ideas as a postdoctoral researcher, should I seek to clarify that goal, seek positions which advertise that option explicitly

I'd say that you are expected to develop your own ideas in a postdoc position.

So: Yes, why not. I had interviews where we discussed openly how much own ideas would be possible, welcome, and what the bottomline of things-that-need-to-be-done-no-matter-what would be.

  From my observation and reading, there's an art to developing a research objective/question. Ideally, I would like to have some kind of guidance in doing so. In my experience that is unrealistic. How can I seek meaningful mentorship, but somehow frame it in a manner that allows me to move forward and to maintain financial and intellectual freedom from the mentor?

I can ensure you that there are good mentors and leaders, including also mentors and leaders who are even good at teaching leadership in research. But such learning can only work if you trust your mentor. That in turn makes financial and intellectual dependence a non-issue. It may not be easy to find a good mentor. But on the other hand, you could also learn from someone who is not your direct supervisor. That way, you'd have the financial and intellectual freedom.

But: if you feel you need mentoring how to develop research questions, how can you feel ready to apply for a postdoc position?

  I did not develop my own research ideas or objectives as a PhD student. This was just the state of affairs and there wasn't much I could do about it.

How come? How could your supervisor prevent you from thinking your own thoughts and from having your own opinion and judging of what needs to be done and how? As a research professional, crititcal and independent thinking is one of your core tasks.

Remember: you were a professional already when you started the PhD. If that wasn't necessary, it would be appropriate for an apprentice to apply for a PhD position.
And if you had gone to work in industry instead of in academia, you'd aslo have been profesionally responsible for everything you do.


No response from Journal editor after misinformed rejection

I would personally start wrapping my head around the idea that you will (a) not get the "clear and concise" explanation from the Editor-in-Chief that you are hoping for, and that (b) this publication is unlikely to appear in this specific journal. In short, it may be time to move on and think about alternative publication venues.

On this site, we have many questions related to appealing journal decisions, and (in cross-field agreement that is rather rare around here) most experienced researchers here agree that fighting a review decision that you perceive to be unfair is a wasted effort. Decisions actually being sent out "by mistake" is very rare (to the point that I am not aware of a single such case in my circles), and that the authors do not agree with the content of a review is basically never grounds for a re-evaluation of the manuscript.

The fact that the editor is not really getting back to you on this is another strong indicator that this is not a case of a silly mistake, but that the journal stands behind their decision and wants to cut short any possible discussion related to this manuscript.

You can definitely draw your own conclusions from this experience (such as to not submit to this journal again), but there is no formal recourse against the decision of a journal to reject a paper, and them backtracking on this is unlikely enough that you should not delay your manuscript further while you are trying to fight.


What are the pros and cons of choosing my own research topic?

Along the lines of earthling's answer, you do have a strong say in your topic, and you'll definitely want to be interested in the topic as you'll be putting a lot of work into it.

However, do realize that, as an undergraduate, you have far less experience in doing research than your advisor. You will save yourself a tremendous amount of work and effort by working closely with him on your project. One way to ensure that your advisor will be willing to invest that time in you is to work on a project that (1) interests him and (2) is related to his research. Even better, both. You are definitely free to choose whatever project you want, but it would be a good idea to choose something on which he can offer his expertise.


Transition from PhD to project-manager position

If you've taken Project Management classes and have taken lead roles in regards to projects and BS and MS students, you'll find Project Management to be a more intense version of that. For example, you'll be needing to ensure everyone is working at the pace they should, getting the needed work done, and be prepared to figure out ways to remedy issues that occur. You will be working closely with stockholders, include managerial people, customers, etc, and you need to have the ability to answer any questions they may have regarding your project, even though you yourself are not the one directly creating that content. You'll need to figure out how to effectively communicate with people under you to get a sense of what they're doing and how things will impact the project. Be prepared to do scheduling of the project, which includes figuring out things in terms of Man Hours required for project in contrast to what you have available as resources. A lot of these things are similar in respect to what you've done in school, though to a higher degree: there's more riding on it, and these people aren't grading you, they're expecting it to be done right the first time.

As far as difficulties, if you have done all the above in classes or with your BS and MS students, then just be prepared for the faster pace and higher volume of stockholders. It can be a bit overwhelming, but doable.

Having a technical PhD will help you in these situations, because you'll have a better understanding of what your workers need to complete their tasks, how fast it will take them, and what it is exactly that you're working on. In fact, it will give you a leg up on other candidates or PMs that don't have technical backgrounds. If you can listen to a technical explanation of what's happening, and relay it to stockholders in a way that non-technical people can understand, you'll be fine.


I would list your internship as part of your experience and, if you think it's relevant (I'm not sure it is), mention that it was remote.  List your paper as submitted for publication.  If it's ultimately rejected, you should probably remove it.  But for now, let's be optimistic.


How to deal with a supervisor who doesn't care research and students?

So, let's guess, an older professor, winding down from research and looking toward retirement. He likes you, but doesn't provide much of any help.

This isn't an impossible situation, unlike many others reported here. In fact, if his reputation, based on past work is good, you may be able to escape successfully and start your own career.

The essential things you need from an advisor is the willingness to sign of on your work so that you get a degree and the willingness to write you good recommendation letters for your first job at least. Anything more than that is helpful and, for some students more of a requirement than others.

It is possible to lean too heavily on an advisor for ideas and direction. Some students need that. But others can work on their own, or even find outside direction to bounce ideas off of and get some feedback. If you are self directed, or can force yourself to be self directed until you finish you can still wind up successful.

It would be a problem if he severely criticizes your work or says it has little value, but it is sort of common to be a bit uninvolved at the end of a career. Some of us are even a bit looney. But, if you can find a way to carry on and the "essentials" are in place then I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Keep him involved to the extent he is willing. Mine his knowledge as much as you can, especially for contacts elsewhere who work in the same field. He may be able to help you build a network, even if he isn't a lot of help on your research problem.


How many PhD students does a typical STEM professor graduate during their entire career?

It depends on the size and staffing needs of their lab. For example, theoretical computer science and mathematics professors may need no lab support at all.  Thus, they are under no pressure to take grad students or post-docs and can choose just the ones that they want.

However, if you are doing work on stem cells, you may need a great deal of lab support. You would want a team of doctoral students and a couple of post-docs at any one time. In order to maintain continuity, you would want to accept at least one doctoral student each year. So if you had a 20 year career, you would have at least 20 students (or 20 - 7 = 13 given that it takes students 7 years to graduate and you don't want to leave students hanging at the end).

You'll need to narrow down what you mean by a "STEM" field in order to get a more precise answer.


On average how many research questions do you come up with before finding the one worth pursuing?

I guess the only valid answer to this question is literally, "As many as it takes". Research is about diving into the unknown and that is fundamentally the issue. When you start, you don't know.
First an anecdote, then some advice.
I worked on three problems for my dissertation work. The first was too easy and I was able to prove theorems every day. Easy, but therefore not significant. I gave up after a couple of weeks. The second problem was too hard. Nothing I thought of could make a dent in any way in the problem and insight was elusive. The third was just right. It was hard, but do-able, and it turned into quite a significant piece of work.
But, and this is the advice part, along the way to solving the third problem I developed insight into not only that problem but into other problems that were related, some closely and some not. I was smart enough to capture those ideas as they occurred as possible future work and when I finished the dissertation I had a file of potential expansions and parallel things to work on in the future. That is a very big deal. That file of ideas that may be more than you can do at the moment, but should be looked at later.
So, as you are doing your literature search, look for those possible extensions and/or parallel tracks that might prove fruitful and keep a file of those ideas. You can attack the most promising ones now and it might lead to success but you will probably also have other ideas as you work. Add those to your file.
If you are really doing research then there are no guarantees that anything will be both doable and significant. You have to keep looking. A good advisor (I was lucky there) can help greatly in this. But the unknown is unknown until someone makes it known.


Sharing my unpublished thesis with other students?

Of course you should share your thesis: the purpose of doing research is to increase and spread knowledge, not to keep it secret.

  Is it common to keep your thesis between you and your advisor - and potential researchers who may want to work with you?

No, it's not, and I suggest you to ask your advisor what he thinks of such an idea.

  And now he wants to do research also and try and join a research group, etc.

Well, this is a good thing, isn't it?


Extremely lost and unmotivated in new lab, what am I supposed to do?

This does seem like a difficult situation but don't lose hope!

  Moving labs is 100% NOT an option here.

That means that you will have to adapt to your current environment - i.e. to learn some core chemistry concepts. Without them, it is indeed difficult to find motivation to work on a project you don't understand.

  I don't have the time, nor the drive, to teach myself years of chemistry I never learned.

Time: I'd say that catching up on the background is one of your main priorities and is essential for your future as a researcher (given the circumstances). Luckily, you don't have to catch up on "years" of chemistry - start off with the areas that are most essential to your work (not specific questions, however, but rather general topics that are closely related to your experiments).

Drive: As you keep broadening your horizons, keep track of all the things you've learned to stay motivated! There will be a lot of things to catch up on but try to notice all those little moments when the knowledge that you've acquired makes your job easier - there will be a lot of them, and they certainly count.

  No matter how many questions I ask (and I ask a lot) I don't retain anything or understand half of it because its all upper level concepts to which I have no base to put them on.

Sounds like you already know what you need. Whether it is auditing a class, reading a textbook, or taking an online course, you need some foundational knowledge to build upon. Googling won't cut it.

Most importantly, be patient. It will take a while to become proficient in a new area, but it's certainly possible. Celebrate small victories and use this as an opportunity for growth. Good luck!


If a mistake was made when grading exams, does the prof have to fix it for every student?

For me, all the papers should be re-graded with the corrected marking scheme - ethically correct and supported by any future checking.

Edit: And as per Fabio’s comment - have had to do similar corrections due to my error or poor question so it happens but not too often...


To what extent does the prospect of a guaranteed-for-life job (tenure) motivate researchers to stay in academia?

I'll respond based on anecdotal evidence, but over 30+ years, worrying about my several PhD students, and partly in a role as director of grad studies in math, giving career advice, etc. My experience is in math, not comp sci, though.

In any case, even 25 years ago, it was clear (both anecdotally and documentably by the AMS at the time, although not so accessibly, due to lack of internet...) that the "golden days" of academic math (at least) were waning, because of growth of PhD production that surpassed growth of academic positions. There had indeed been a boom of branch campuses, but that had roughly stabilized c. 1990. Some very good people (including some of my own students) got tenure at a branch campus in rural areas, but/and decided that the heavy teaching load and isolation was not what they'd signed on for.

By the mid-90s, the job market was consistently tight enough so that new PhDs with partners very often opted for non-academic trajectories, but so they'd not have to commute crazy distances, and so they could have a family with both parents participating. Hard to argue with that. The former "monastic" model of academe, or of infinitely-accommodating spouse, etc., is not acceptable these days. (I've tried long-distance stuff myself, too, and, sad-to-report, it really only works well when one is secretly glad to be apart... uh,...)

In the last several years, some of the most able and motivated grad students have had the sense to realize that, in particular, their chances to make a big-enough contribution to get a permanent job at an R1 place were pretty slim... and they didn't want to stay in academe "at all costs", so shifted their energies to avenues where being smart, motivated, and hard working had a better chance to pay off (these days). (See @DavidZ's comment.)

I've followed up with some of the people who did stay in academe and settled in relatively remote areas at small branch campuses, and, while they're "ok", they have "confessed" that it wasn't at all what they'd hoped for. Some speculation (obviously plausible) that without forced retirement, there's a lot of "waiting around" for better positions to open. (Not unlike situations in Europe, as I gather from friends there, where saturation had occurred much earlier, apart from mandatory retirement issues.)

The palpable corporatization and commodification (or at least the greater visibility of it) of higher education does also seem to have a consistently disenchanting effect on undergrads' choices about what to do after their B.S. in math (e.g., going to work for an insurance company... is (even?) more attractive now than it may have been in the past, and for some people seems vastly more viable than "grad school"...)

Although I suppose one should always be wary that possibly one's own cumulative disenchantment interferes with perceptions of others' opinions, I do have a rough idea of our local "stats" about academic versus non-academic positions for PhD'd people: once upon a time, everybody went into academe, but nowadays perhaps as many as 1/3 of each year's PhD's do not.

Even disregarding the mandatory retirement issue, it's simply not a time of expansion for higher ed... but/and the element of Ponzi-scheme of academe has no mechanism built in to reduce PhD production without finding someone else (adjunct faculty!?!) to exploit... or else (in the case of math) teaching loads would skyrocket, etc.


Actually, inline comments will ruin the flow of the translation more than footnotes, I think. Especially if you have long comments that will run over page boundaries.

Footnoting will make it clearer what is the translation and what are the comments. It is also easier to ignore the comments if the reader chooses.

But if they are inline, perhaps using a distinctive font for the comments might help a bit.