I submitted a paper to two journals, and the first published it, but I agreed to publish in the other; what can I do? I submitted my research paper in journal X on 7th July, 2014. Journal sent me one thanks email immediately. After that I waited for one month for any response from editor but nothing came from editor side.

Than I submitted my paper in other journal Y. My paper was accepted in that Journal and sent for review from editor side.

At 30 August, 2014 I received one acceptance email from the editor or journal X that my paper has accepted and I was asked to submit publication fee of 90$. But I could not reply this email due to busy schedule and I was also not interested to publish my paper in journal X. After that I could not receive any email or revision or anything from this journal X.

I continued to work with journal Y, modify paper according to reviewer comments, sign copyright agreement and now paper is in publication phase.

Yesterday, by chance I open my Google scholar account and find paper that was published in journal X to whom I was not interested and who was demanding 90$. When I checked the online paper, I was astonished that the journal published my paper in its July issue and date of publication was 1st July, even I send this paper on 7th July and journal X notify me about acceptance and fee payment on 30th August.

How its happened that Journal X published my paper without my consent and published it in back dates. Now what I should do because the same paper is in final publication phase in journal Y to whom I have signed copyright agreement also. Please guide me tell me any forum to raise voice against that journal X. Because I send many emails to editor of journal X but receiving no reply from editor side. Any penalty or any other thing which I can do.

The fault here is yours.

You should never have the same paper be submitted in two different journals at the same time. This is an absolute rule that protects both you as an author and the journal as the publisher from duplication of effort, as well as avoiding situations like this.

If you had wanted to stop the publication in journal X, then you should have sent them a letter clearly retracting your submission. This would have ended the process at journal X, and allowed you to submit the paper to journal Y with a clear conscience.

Now, however, since the paper has been published by journal X, you are stuck. If journal Y publishes your paper, you will have the same article published in two different journals, which is also a violation of ethical standards, and could lead to both copies being retracted by the publisher. So, unfortunately, you are stuck paying the fees to the journal X, and the work you've done to improve the paper with journal Y is now "lost" to the literature.

As has also been pointed out, journal X appears to be quite sketchy, and I would avoid any future contact or involvement with them. But for now, consider this a lesson learned for the future.

I can't believe how everyone is blaming the OP.

Since you clearly did not sign an agreement with the journal X, I think you should talk to the lawyer and sue them. Laws may change from country to country regarding this, however it seems quite illegal to me that they demand $90 from you for something you did not agree for.

Does your university have a legal department to deal with such cases?

EDIT: I clearly understand that it's OP's fault to submit into 2 journals. However I clearly see 2 distinct issues here: 1. The OP unethically submitted to 2 journals. 2. Unethical Journal X supposedly published without the OP's agreement, as OP himself stated.


Professor expects me to attend a conference. I can't afford to go,even with 50% funding I am a first year Ph.D. student. During my master's (which was in a different university), a professor (call him M) and I worked on a paper on banking regulations. Apart from the single idea, all of the paper and results were done by me. We worked on it for a couple of months and tried to submit our work at many journals.  All of them rejected it.  Finally, it has been accepted recently at a conference. This conference is not major league but niche.

Prof. M wants me to attend, but I do not have funding. Initially, he expected me to spend from my own pocket for travel and registration (around USD 2,000). Being a graduate student and living in one of the expensive cities, I am living hand-to-mouth. So, I informed him politely that I am not keen to attend due to my inability to fund myself.  He asked me to apply to funding agencies, or else he is willing to fund 50% of my expenses.

The fact of the matter is that I cannot afford even 50% of the travel expenses.  Out of nowhere, this conference comes up and it further cripples my shoestring budget.

How should I proceed?  I am really hesitant to discuss my financial shortcomings with Prof. M, but if I don't, he'll assume that I can afford the travel.

I am really hesitant to discuss my financial shortcomings with Prof.
  M, or else he assumes that I can afford the travel.

I think you need to get past this. You do not have financial shortcomings, you just don't have money. Working on a PhD without family financial support, with existing student debt, and with limited school support is not easy. I respect you for doing it. Take pride in making the hard choices that involves.

With that attitude, explain to Prof. M that you cannot afford any travel expense, and will only be able to go to the conference if your expenses are fully covered. Check any funding sources he suggested, and ask advisors at your current university if they know of any sources.

From comments: Also check with the conference organizers. They may have scholarships or be able to discount the conference fee, and find free or inexpensive accommodations. You may need to work several angles to align the total cost with the available funding.

If you can't get the full funding you need, tell Prof. M. that you regret you cannot attend the conference. At the worst, you will have to withdraw the paper. However, there are alternatives the conference may permit.

Remote video presentation
If anyone from your current university is attending, ask them to present the paper
Prof M. may be able to get a current student or a collaborator who is attending the conference to present it.

Is he your employer? Then he will pay the expenses for something which is mandatory for this employment.
Is he not your employer? Then he can't "force" you.

I don't see the problem.


What are the boundaries between draft, manuscript, preprint, paper, and article? In the terminology for a peer-reviewed publication to be submitted to a reputable scientific journal, what are the differences and characteristic properties of the following?

draft
manuscript
preprint
paper
article

My own take on it would be that my text is a draft until I submit it to a journal, at which point it becomes a manuscript.  When the manuscript is accepted it becomes a preprint, and when it gets published it becomes a paper, which is synonymous to article.

Would that be an accurate summary?  Would anyone have corrections or additions?

paper = article: In the academic meaning of the words, papers and articles refer to the same thing: a published piece of writing. The term is used for journal papers or journal articles, which means they have been published by a journal, but also for less traditional publications, including self-publication (“Dr. Who just published a great paper on the intricacies of time travel on his webpage”) and e-print repositories such as arXiv (“check out the latest paper by Galileo on arXiv, that guy has mad ideas!”).

Some journals have different categories of “articles”, and differentiate between letters, communications, reports, reviews, and full papers (sometimes abbreviated as just “papers”). In usage I have seen, paper (or article) used as a generic term covers all of those: you would say, for example, that “letters and full papers are two types of articles”.
A preprint (more commonly used without the hyphen) refers to the distribution, in advance of formal publication, of something that will be published in print. The preprint may differ from the final publication.

Preprint status does not always indicate that the work has been formally accepted for publication. It just means the authors intend to publish it in a more formal venue (journal, book, etc.) but wanted to distribute by other means beforehand (preprints used to be distributed to colleagues as photocopies, but are now mostly circulated by email or repositories).
A manuscript is, in the New Oxford American Dictionary's words, “an author's text that has not yet been published”. Any piece of writing that you have not published in any way (but intend to) is a manuscript.
A draft is the same as a manuscript, except that it insists on the unfinished state of the manuscript.

Summarizing, I could say:

  Here's the draft I've been working on, please amend it with your corrections. Once we have done this final round of revision, I will upload the manuscript to the editor's website, and we can start circulating it as a preprint to colleagues whom you think may be interested. Once it is accepted and published, we'll just send them the published version of the paper for their records.

I would consider a preprint is the read-proof document that some Journals allow the author to distribute under some rules. So it is in post-acceptance but pre-publication stage. I don´t think the draft-manuscript-paper distinctions are relevant.


Is there a bias against mentioning your name on presentation slides? Is there some sort of unwritten rule in academia that you shouldn't mention your own name explicitly on presentation slides? I have seen this time and time again, if you cite work in the middle of the talk and it happens to be your own work, people abbreviate their names. For example, they only write their first name. 'Miller' is abbreviated to 'M.', but all other names are spelled out in full.

There is nothing wrong with mentioning your own name in full in citations on your own slides, and nobody would think anything of it if you did. However, there are a number of reasons why people do this.

Replacing your own name with initials is a subtle way of emphasizing that it is your work that is being cited. You can think of it as a “humblebrag”.
Since you are usually talking about your own work, you end up citing yourself a lot. Replacing your name with initials simply saves space, especially if you have a long name.

That depends.
I saw one prof get credit for someone elses work by putting his name on the slide and pointing to the other persons results!
Why do  you want your name on the slides?
Isnt the title page on the first one enough?


PhD application asking what other insitution I am applying to, how to answer? I understand that schools are trying to gauge the chances of an offer being accepted by a potential candidate. Similarly to what has been described for job applications and other questions that a lower ranked program might not offer admission to someone who applied to just top schools.

How much should a candidate divulge about the other schools he/she is applying to? If applying to a top school will it decrease your chances if you are stating you are applying to another top school?

I find this kind of questions a bit intrusive and that might even compromise to some degree my application. Perhaps some people that have been in admission commitees can shed some light on the dynamics related to applicants that applied to several schools.

Repeat after me:

“I'd rather not tell you.”

I never seen a question like Are you applying to other schools when applied to different universities.
I do not think you are required to expose such information. The committee should evaluate your application regardless of your status in other schools.


What to do when visa application requires disclosure of the titles of articles I have reviewed? I am applying for some kind of Visa. Part of the application is to prove my contributions to the research community and one of these contributions is the list of papers I reviewed. Not just the number of articles but the titles, emails from editors inviting me, screenshots from editorial management websites, etc. I feel uncomfortable doing so where these reviews were intended to be anonymous. Is it unethical to do so? Is it a bad thing to do? Should I refuse to do so and just include the number of articles I reviewed per journal/conference?

Update: I have consulted a lawyer and she said that "there should not be any privacy issues with that, at least to what I am aware of".

I believe that this sort of disclosure can be ethical, especially to a neutral third party, and when only discussing papers that have already been accepted and/or published elsewhere. (Papers still in the process somewhere else might be different.). Anonymity of referees isn't a deep ethical good in its own right - it has very clear and specific reasons, and this doesn't seem like a relevant violation.

Consider the reasons why referees are often given anonymity: 1) to allow referees to give honest feedback without fear of (real or imagined) retaliation, 2) to encourage authors to engage with the referee's arguments, not their personality or status, 3) to avoid the appearance/possibility of quid pro quo reviews, and 4) to ensure that broader perceptions of the article are not influenced by knowledge of its referees.

None of these problems would occur by giving the names of articles to a (I'm going to assume) completely uninterested immigration clerk. If you want to be very conscientious, google your contact to make sure they aren't doing immigration processing to make ends meet while an adjunct professor :)

It's just unethical, but, no one will be mad if you reveal those details, provided that the papers are already been published.


How to deal with students leaving the class for 10 min during the lecture? In the freshman classes I teach (the class is like 30-35 students), some students would step out the class for 10-15 minutes and come back. The class time is 1 hour and 15 min. This is always interrupting.

I have asked the class before that this is a poor classroom etiquette, you have 15 min between classes to do whatever you want, so if you leave the class during the lecture please do not come back. Yet, they still do it.

Anybody is facing similar situation? and how you deal with it?

Clarification: I made it clear in class that if you need to leave, please inform me in advance. Or if you have a medical condition that requires you to leave regularly, please let me know. My question is not about those cases

The existing answers seem to me extreme.  I don't think some sort of draconian blanket "leaving-the-room policy" is needed here.  I would suggest the following:

For students leaving occasionally: Ignore it. They are adults and sometimes things in their lives may take higher priority than your class (e.g. going to the bathroom, feeling unwell, family emergencies, etc).  If it's distracting to you, well, deal with it.  It's a classroom, not a funeral, and you are a professional.  Take a breath and get back to teaching.
If you see a particular student leaving often: Have a private word with them to see if things are okay.  They may have special circumstances that you don't know about (chronic illness is one distinct possibility).  Once you know their situation, you may be able to offer specific suggestions that will reduce the disruption and/or get them more engaged in the class.
If, after talking to them, you are convinced they are just walking out from spite, and they won't stop: Follow your institution's policy on disruptive students.  Your department chair should have further guidance.  It may ultimately be necessary to drop them from the class.

A short break in the middle of a 75-minute class is a reasonable idea, but I would keep it very short: perhaps 1-2 minutes, enough to stand up and stretch, not more.  It should not significantly reduce the amount of time students spend on task.  (Otherwise, as mentioned above, you may encounter problems with your institution's authorities that your class does not provide as much instructional time as promised by its number of credit hours.  Moreover, some students will see it as wasted time and resent it.)  Better yet, break up the lecture with some other sort of productive activity (small group discussions, problem solving, etc).

I don't think it's appropriate to publicly shame students for poor etiquette, or shut them out of class if they leave.  You will unfairly punish students who legitimately need to step out for a few minutes, and anyone who is doing it from spite or boredom will just be further alienated.

The statement

  if you leave the class during the lecture please do not come back

is ambiguous. If they leave class are they allowed to come back or not? The best solution in my opinion is not to create rules like this since it effectively backs you into a corner. Some things, like being respectful of classmates, need firm rules and require you to enforce them. Things like bathroom breaks probably do not, but if your ability to teach really depends on students not interrupting class, then you need to do something about it. the best thing would be to change your teaching style such that interruptions are not hugely distracting. If you cannot change your teaching style and students coming and going is hurting the rest of the students, then you need to do something about it.

I suggest at the start of the next class you clarify your original statement with:

  If you choose to leave class during the lecture you will not be allowed to return.

Then the first time someone gets up to leave, interrupt the lecture and remind them they will not be allowed to return. The reason I suggest two warnings is this is a change in behaviour. If they leave and attempt to come back, stop your lecture and tell them to leave. Do not resume your lecture until they leave. Hopefully it will not come to it, but if necessary call the campus police to have them escorted from the classroom. One sacrificial student will probably be enough to regain control. The key is if you see students coming and going as a critical issue for you teaching you need to take control of the situation. Hopefully, you can modify your teaching to handle students coming and going.


How should I communicate that I do not hold the views expressed in a paper I wrote I am writing a paper for a class that requires me to write from a perspective I disagree with.  To an external observer it may not be clear that I am not allowed to disagree with the premise of the prompt.

I disagree with it to such a degree that I would like to add something at the beginning or end of the paper that expresses my dissent in case my work or record is made public for some reason.  It would be professionally and personally embarrassing to have the work become public.

Is there a way to do this professionally?  Is there a way to do this without offending my professor?

I would precede my paper by a strong explanatory note disassociating myself from the views expressed in the paper, in boldface and surrounded by a big black frame. For extra clarity and safety, I would then quote verbatim the assignment that the project is fulfilling, before starting the actual paper. E.g.:

  Confessions of a cannibal
  Final project for Philosophy 101
  [your name]

  Explanatory note: the views in the essay below are written in the context of a final project assignment for the course Philosophy 101. They are fictional and do not represent the author's actual views on cannibalism or on any other subject.

  Project assignment: "Write a 4000-word essay written from the point of view of a cannibal living in New York City in the year 1987. Discuss the narrator's views and opinions on cannibalism and other topics of interest."

  [body of the essay]

I should note that you say "To an external observer it may not be clear that I am not allowed to disagree with the premise of the prompt." It's not clear to me if you mean that you are not allowed to include an explanatory note of this type, or even to quote the assignment text. If that's what you meant, I'd have to say that forbidding you from including such explanatory text would in my opinion be tantamount to requiring you to actually pretend to be a cannibal (or other such person with unsavory views), which would be a highly unethical requirement. In the face of such a restriction, I would frankly refuse to hand in such an assignment, and take the matter up with the instructor and/or higher university authorities.

Find something better to worry about.

First of all it is very unlikely that someone is going to try and smear you by either publishing this paper or keeping it for a number of years and then publishing. I don't know why you are specifically worried about this, but it's hard to think of many situations where someone would have a significant motivation to do this.

Secondly, even if someone does try and do this, it's unlikely to work. Information simply sticks around longer than it used to at the times of Barack Obama's birth certificate and Ben Carson's joke exam. If it's possible to find your paper, it's probably going to be relatively easy to find the nature of the assignment, details of the course, the contact details of other people who remember the situation, etc.

Thirdly, disclaimers and so on just will not protect you against a certain type of attack. If someone is really holding up your paper in the future as an example of your true but secret beliefs, they will easily be able to claim that the disclaimer is fake, that it was not present in the original, that its presence was itself a deception, and so on. These claims might be laughable - but so was the original one. This won't stop some people from believing them.

You might be someone with a very active imagination, who spends their whole time reimagining how their current actions will look when they are a presidential candidate in the future. Maybe you are simply indulging in a form of role-playing where you cut down cherry trees with your little hatchet, and then refuse to lie about it, and so on. I suspect however, that you simply object to having to write a paper from an opposing point of view, so you have invented this supposed practical objection as a form of protest.

In either case your energy might be better spent trying to develop your compassion and emotional maturity.


How to report plagiarism in a publication A friend showed me a paper that literally copied two pages of another paper, without any reference. This clearly is a fraud. He tried to inform the authors of the original paper. Is there any other way to deal with this situation?

Contact the editor of the journal in which the fraudulent paper was published, present your claims, and be prepared to submit evidence.  If there's no response, contact the editor of the original journal - they may be able to use legal means to force the retraction of the fraudulent paper.

I think the editor should not be the first contacting person. Because it will be a rude act. Even there is a possibility that you misunderstood the whole thing, and authors should ask for an opinion and explanation.  Therefore, first of all, I will advise you to notify the authors and ask an explanation by sending an email. If he/she do not response your email or decline your claim, then send another email to the boss of the author (or the organizational head), if authors have an affiliation. If nothing happens, then contact the editor of the journal. In the email, you need to specify (page number, figure, methodology or idea) that can be considered as plagiarism.


How to evaluate undergrad CS programs when eventually aiming for PhD? My daughter has a strong interest in theoretical computer science, and she has just been  admitted to several different universities as a freshman.  She is just a bright student, not a genius, with a bit of research experience in cryptography and randomness stuff, and a semifinalist in a couple of national competitions.   She intends to continue graduate study in theoretical CS, or a closely related subfield, after finishing her undergraduate degree.

Given her strong interest in eventual graduate study, what criteria should we take into account in choosing where to enroll as an undergraduate?  How can we tell which undergrad programs best prepare their students for graduate school?

Although I'm sure you already realize this, you shouldn't let a laser focus on your daughter's professional development control her choice of which school to attend.  (Influence, sure, but not control.  And yes: HER choice.)  Given your daughter's background and experience, she will likely be very successful no matter where she enrolls.  I've seen very successful theoretical computer scientists come from a huge variety of undergraduate programs, not all of which were associated with strong graduate CS programs.  It is at least as important for her to find a place where she feels (and not just is) supported and challenged, both by her faculty and her peers.  Otherwise, no matter how strong the department is on average, it won't be a good fit for her personally.

There is absolutely no substitute for a personal visit to each campus, if you can manage it.  Let her drop into the comptuer science department, get a feel for the community vibe, sit in on a class, talk to a professor or two if she can, hang out in the dorms.  Meanwhile, you go somewhere else.  Go'way.  Shoo.

But if you really want hard data, I recommend that you—or better yet, your daughter—directly contact the computer science departments at the schools where she's been admitted, describe her experience and her goals (which should make them very eager to attract her), and then ask questions like the following:

How many students graduated from your program in the last five years?
How many / what fraction of those students are currently enrolled in strong computer science PhD programs?
How many / what fraction of your current undergraduates are involved in research with your faculty?
How many of your faculty do research in theoretical computer science?
[The Hail Mary:] Would you mind asking one of them to contact me?  I'd like to ask some more questions.

Beware the answer "I don't know", or qualitative waffle like like "quite a lot" that really mean "I don't know".  Ask for numbers.  Ask for examples.  Channel your inner Cuba Gooding Jr: Show me the data!

Your first contact will almost certainly be answered by someone on the administrative staff, who may not have the data you want at hand.  Be prepared make an appointment to speak over the phone (or Skype or whatever) with the director of undergraduate programs or another faculty member.  If you do speak over the phone, try to keep your conversation short and to the point; these people are very very busy.

Don't bother asking admissions officers these questions; Chances are very high that they just don't know.  You really need to contact the departments directly.

Another good place to look is the list of current and past winners and runners-up for the Computing Research Association's Outstanding Undergraduate award, which specifically recognizes undergraduate research.  A significant fraction of winners did their undergraduate research in theoretical computer science.  Also, a significant fraction of winners were not enrolled in departments with a top-10 graduate program.

But as Anonymous Mathematician notes in a comment, you shouldn't take the CRA list too seriously; some departments are more interested in awards like this and push hard for their students to be selected.  The fact that some prominent departments have few or no students on this list may reflect a disinterest in this particular award, not in undergraduate research in general.

[I'm a theoretical computer scientist at a top-10 CS department; I serve on my department's graduate admissions committee.]

here are some standard rankings/surveys that might be helpful. for very elite schools, they are all highly rigorous, and maybe unique nonacademic features  particularly appealing to your daughter (eg "culture/atmosphere", which is difficult to objectively characterize) might shift the balance.

the last 2 links are based on Shanghai Jiao Tong University's graduate school of education which recently ranked the world's best universities in computer science, based according to their academic or research performance in each subject field. it ranks 9 of the top 10 in the US. good luck!

Worlds best universities in computer science, USNews
best grad schools / computer science, USNews
Computer Science Colleges' Best Programs, As Ranked By 'Academic Ranking Of World Universities
The Best Universities: Computer Science


Submission changed to a different status, but with the same explanation as the previous status (this line is added later ) : The length of the paper is only 3 pages.
Soon After Submission

Article Status:  Reviewing
Your paper is being reviewed by the journal’s editors and you will be contacted as soon as we have news.

After a month changed to

Article Status:  Under Review
Your paper is being reviewed by the journal’s editors and you will be contacted as soon as we have news.

Initial answer: (This answer assumes a regular type of full-length paper submission in the standard journal workflow.) This is probably an error in their explanation of the current status. The explanation is not in line with the typical journal workflow, especially the highlighted part:

  Article Status: Under Review

  Your paper is being reviewed by the journal’s editors and you will be contacted as soon as we have news.

In the typical journal workflow, the review is performed by the invited reviewers, rather than by the journal's editors.

You may contact the journal to task for clarification, but it probably won't matter in the end, as the process doesn't depend on this (incorrect) explanation.

Updated answer: (This update takes into account that the submission only has three pages, and that the journal uses a decision-making step based on consensus between the editorial board members.)  In this case, it's plausible that they're wont be additional reviewers involved. I speculate that the first status refers to the assigned editor handling the paper, and the second status refers to the editorial board making the decision. In this case, the status would not have any implication for the decision, other than removing the possibility of a desk-reject.

It means that your paper is being reviewed by the journal's editors, and you will be contacted as soon as they have news.

...

What kind of answer were you expecting?


How to identify A/A* Journal The academic promotions procedure at my Australian university includes specifically publications in A/A* journals. What defines A/A* and where can I find out which journals are in this category?

You can look at CORE if you're in computer science, like a commenter mentioned: conferences, journals.

There's also the ERA outlet ranking lists (unofficial website): conferences, journals, but it is old.

Though you're best asking your institution as to where they are getting the rankings from.

A and A* labels on journals are obsolete.  The current custom is to refer to impact factor.  Consult your head of school.


It seems every postdoc position needs representative papers. What should I do if I don't have any publications? I have spent 4.5 years on my PhD, writing my thesis, with just one average publication. I am 30yo with no work experience and don't want to go to industry. I have been looking at several postdoctoral positions and it seems every postdoc position needs representative papers showing proof for the work. Will I be able to get a postdoc and pursue academia?

Your question is very much field dependent. In some fields it is acceptable to go without a single publication for your PhD (I believe this is true for some subfields in economics, literature and math). However, you are expected to produce according to your community's standards: for example, in the economics/maths examples above you are expected to have at least one or two working papers/papers under submission containing solid results that were discussed in some workshops. In the literature domain, I understand that there's a lot of focus on teaching, written essays and book reviews etc. (I get this knowledge secondhand, I'm far from a humanities faculty). In my field (CS/AI/ML) you wouldn't be allowed to graduate with one average publication, and would most likely not have been allowed to go 4+ years into your thesis, unless there were very unusual circumstances (you mention industry, so I'm assuming you are at the very least in a STEM discipline).

So, the question you should be asking yourself is: am I comparable to my peers in terms of my PhD accomplishments?

If you have a lot of amazing work that just needs a bit more time, you can either

Ask your advisor to graduate in another year to let these results come to fruition under the umbrella of your thesis OR
Put them up on ArXiv (or the equivalent) and list them there. This is not ideal, but at least it shows that you weren't idle.

From the perspective of a postdoc host, I would most likely pass on an application that's clearly lacking in publications, even if it is backed up by glowing references. I would be more inclined to accept one that is backed up by preprints, if they contained amazing results that are vouched for by people whose opinion I respect. Postdocs should be people who are able to support their own research thread without very close supervision (they should be more independent than grad students at the very least), so you should prove to me that this is indeed the case; this is a tall order without proof that you can actually publish peer-reviewed work in good venues on your own.

I'm sorry to offer an answer you most likely don't want to hear, and I wish you all the best!

It depends mostly for which positions you apply: some postdoc jobs attract a lot of applications (prestigious institution, high salary, cutting-edge research topic, etc.), and some really don't: it's not so uncommon to see certain postdoc positions not filled by lack of acceptable candidate. Because this level of job is very specialized everyone with a PhD gets a chance, assuming you are not too picky about where you apply.


Am I obligated to work on a project unrelated to my thesis because PI asked me to? My principal investigator (PI) got a grant from a company and wants me to work on this. However, this is not related to my thesis at all and we might not be able to publish anything on this.

My question is: am I obligated to work on this just because I'm part of the lab?

This is in no way related to my thesis and I'm not interested in the work simply because I'm the one who is going to have to stay late working on it and not get anything in return.

I don't know the details of your situation, but you should keep in mind my personal rule #1 of academic research:

  Rule #1. You should always have a publication in mind for research you work on, unless there is some other very tangible benefit that makes it worth the time.

This rule is motivated by the fact that your vita showcases the publications you produce (and the grants you receive), but not the projects you work on. You want to make sure that you get due recognition for your efforts, which means turning them into publications. The more often you can employ rule #1, the better.

Are you certain that you cannot find a way to get a publication out of this project, perhaps by broadening it slightly?

The second thing to keep in mind is that, in a group research lab, it is very reasonable to do some work that is not related to your thesis. Of course, you must also work on your thesis, but it does not need to be the only thing you do. Having a more broad vita when you graduate is a real benefit if you are applying to postdocs and other positions.

Finally, are you getting paid out of the PIs grants? If so, that is perhaps a more tangible reason to work on the projects that fund those grants.

I've been out of academia for thirty years.  So I'm sure it's completely different.  But one thing I've learned in the office environment is to happily accept any opportunity to serve that's presented.  It builds my resume and my visibility.


Should I ask for co-authorship as an undergrad student? I was assigned a research topic for one of my psych classes this term. I designed the study, collected and analyzed data and then wrote a paper. After I presented my paper to my professor, she was very excited and said this paper was publishable. She would definitely run follow-up studies on this topic. I then offered to join her team to run this study and she agreed.

Now I am not sure if I am only participating as a volunteer research assistant or as a co-researcher for this project, considering the research topic is not my original idea. I just designed the study, ran it and received significant results.

Should I ask for clarification on my role at the upcoming meeting with my prof ? If so, how should I approach? I don't want to appear too aggressive.

If you have conducted the pilot study and are also part of the follow-up team expanding it into a full publishable study, then you should definitely be invited to help write and be an author of the paper.

This should also be an easy and uncontroversial decision for your professor.  It's also fine and in fact good to get that clarification explicitly now.  You can just ask something like:

  I'm excited about helping turn this project into a paper.  Am I right in thinking this means I will be an author of the paper as well?

This is not a hard question, so if your professor says anything other than "yes," (possibly with appropriate caveats about you actually sticking with the project) then you should be concerned.

If you can prove that you were a major contributor to the paper as it seems from the fact that you "designed the study, collected and analyzed data and then wrote a paper." then you should definately be one of the authors on the paper as a major contributor.

The role of the main author differs by university/country, but if you already have written the paper and it just needs edits from more experienced academia writers, then you should be in my opinion the main author.


My Phd advisor does not appreciate anything I do, and provides no help I have completed five years in my Ph.D. (computer science) in a reputed research institute in India. The area of my research is not Machine Learning or Data Science, nothing to do with data. I have one publication in a reputed conference, and another paper which I have written and I had submitted but it got rejected and now I am working on it some more.
My friends and family will describe me as an extremely cheerful and jovial personality. But I am not happy. It is majorly because of my current situation in my Ph.D. and my advisor. They are an extremely manipulative person I have ever met in my life. There have been only a few occasions when they were happy about the progress that I am making. The thing which bothers me the most is that they never give any suggestions from his side. I don't know whether it is because they want me to think of my research independently or because they hate me. I think the latter. They have told me many times in the past that I should only meet with them when I have something constructive so that the precious time of my advisor is wasted to the minimum. I go to the meeting with an idea (of the third and last project), and they are not satisfied. I go with another idea and they ask me critical questions (which I am thankful for because I consider them as feedback) and if there is a flaw in my idea or approach, they give me a lecture on my competency (being in 5th year, I should have thought about the answer before coming in). So, next time I go with a solid approach that I took 2 weeks or so to formulate (after thinking and reading papers and doing research). At this stage, they tell me that they can not see any progress and that we have been discussing this design and problem in the air for very long. Is it not the technique? To formulate a problem, think about how you want to solve it and then discuss it? Am I mistaken somewhere? Is it all about churning about results and fast?
Today there was a meeting and I went in with a solid plan to discuss (I was confident that this meeting will be fruitful and I will not be suffering any reprimand). I spoke it and we discussed the idea (that was the agenda of our meeting). But after a while, they got into the scope of this project and the difficulty of it and that I should target something else (no suggestions about what). They went back to the earlier project and started discussing what my plans were regarding that project. Why is it taking so much time (they want results, and fast). Today I felt like crying in the meeting, I was humiliated and ridiculed and compared with a RA who has joined after B.Tech. (not claiming any superiority points here). I was asked how many papers I read in the past few days, how many hours do I put in my research each day. I said I have been preparing for a talk, for a doctoral symposium and they say it should not have taken more than a day. I know this is not a normal routine for most Ph.D. students. I am eaten up by this feeling that my advisor never appreciates me and that I will never be in their good books. Many will suggest that I should communicate with him but I have zero hopes with such a meeting because as I said, they are an extremely manipulative person and they will not conclude the talk in any one way.
I am open to any criticism and I am ready to work on myself. Because I know I have not been the star student that they expect. I work 5-6 hours each day. But if it is not the way it is supposed to be, I do not want to be in this hell-hole, there will be many other prospects. I do not regret spending five years and then leaving without a degree.

I feel you follow the wrong advisor. It seems normal for some people who are in academic. It is pretty unpleasant.


Is it an insult to my US university to not walk in graduation? I will be graduating with a degree in Software Engineering. I have a 4.0 GPA at this institution (not counting the 3.85 GPA I transferred in with). The institution is awarding me Outstanding Scholar for my degree program/campus/year.

I am seriously considering not walking in graduation. Being on stage in front of people is not my definition of celebration, and I am not a fan of tradition unless there is a logical reason behind it. (I'm an INTJ personality type.)

For the outstanding scholar award, they will be giving me a certificate and honor cords at an awards banquet that is before graduation. Does that imply they expect me to walk? Is it an insult to not do so when they are giving me an award?

Actual diplomas will be mailed sometime after the ceremony in the summer. The ceremony doesn't cost anything to be a part of (other than the cost of getting a degree :). There are about 20 people graduating this year in my major. I have a sister graduating the same day in a city 8 hours away (and only an hour from home), so most parents/relatives will be at the other graduation anyway. As an alternative to the ceremony, I am thinking of writing thank you cards to the teachers and mentors who were influential in helping me get to this point.

If attending a graduation ceremony is not your cup of tea, you don't need to go.  Better to stay away than to go and be uncomfortable!

It would be considerate to let your department know that you won't be attending.  Some universities make more of a thing of graduation than others, so depending on the vibes at your school, you might want to have some travel plans that conflict with graduation day.

By the way, congrats!

Take a big breath, ignore the crowd and just go up there and accept the award.  Once you start the walk to the stage you can ignore everything else.

Like you, going to the ceremony was something I never wanted to do, but accepting an Academic Medal for Excellence is something that will only happen once in my lifetime. As a bonus I'll have the photos forever.

Likewise, accepting the Dux award was at another ceremony, but I'm glad I went.

I am sure that thank you letters are always welcome, irrespective of whether or not you attended the ceremony.

So, IMHO, it's not an insult to the university if you don't go, it would just a shame for you to miss out on that special moment and associated photo opportunity.


Impact of W's on grad school admissions in CS theory (TCS) I'm an undergrad at the University of Maryland College Park who just finished a computer science bachelors a few days ago. Unfortunately, I didn't realize how much I liked theory (algorithms, combinatorics, graph theory) and math until this past semester. As a result, I plan to work for a few years while self-studying upper-division math and getting the necessary TCS research experience (I plan to reach out to professors at the local university once I'm ready).

My question is whether or not my undergrad academic performance is salvageable from the perspective of grad school admissions. Although I ended up with a 3.895 cumulative GPA with relatively good grades in TCS-related classes (e.g. A- in discrete math, A in algorithms, A in number theory, A in cryptography, B+ in advanced data structures), I have 4 W's (withdrawn designations) on my transcript across different semesters. Moreover, these W's are all in math classes (euclidean & non-euclidean geometry, numerical analysis, combinatorics & graph theory, machine learning). However, with the exception of the geometry class, I dropped all of them since I didn't meet the official prerequisites. I had originally requested prerequisite overrides to register for the courses, but left due to not being able to catch up.

Also, due to COVID-19 I opted for the pass/fail grading system this past semester. Therefore, even though I took theory of computation and combinatorics & graph theory and scored an A, A- respectively, these classes show up as P's on my transcript. Thus, I'm wondering (a) if a master's will help my case and (b) if one is necessary. If at all possible, I'd prefer to apply directly to PhD programs after getting some research experience.

Additionally, would having a publication by the time of application change any of those answers? I know theory programs in machine learning and computer vision basically require publications these days in order to be considered, but I'm not sure if the same holds for subfields like combinatorial optimization and graph algorithms.

First, I strongly suggest that you talk directly with the theory profs in your own CS department.  First, they are the people who actually taught you and are best placed to understand the circumstances of your withdrawals.  Second, they are the people who make graduate admissions decisions for your department, in your target subfield.  (Third, they are the people most likely to provide you with recommendation letters, so making contacting with them early can only help you.)

Opinions on W's differ, but as far as I can tell, most people treat them as no-ops.  Students drop classes for all sorts of reasons.  Some faculty might wonder why you waited until after the drop deadline to withdraw from these classes, especially if the W's were spread over several semesters, but that would be a minor concern, especially if you retook the same classes later and did well.  But it really doesn't matter; the W's are already on your transcript.  You can't do anything about it, so you shouldn't worry about it.

COVID-19 hit everyone, everywhere.  Every graduate admissions committee still has to figure out how to make admissions decisions with a full semester of grades missing, or at least obscured by a myriad of different pass/fail and Credit/No-Credit options.  Different people and places are going to interpret this semester's (and the next several semesters') records differently, some with more sympathy and others with more strictness.  You can't do anything about it, so you shouldn't worry about it.

A master's degree is a somewhat risky option.  At least in the US, PhD applicants who have graduate experience are held to a higher standard than applicants who do not.  Students applying from masters programs are compared with each other, not with undergraduates, and considerably more of those masters-level applicants will have research publications.  To first approximation, publications are a de-facto requirement for masters-level PhD applicants.

Persistent rumors notwithstanding, publications are not a de-facto requirement for undergraduate PhD applicants, even in hot fields like machine learning, even in top departments.  Research experience is necessary to get into a top PhD program; research papers are not.  Yes, a significant fraction of new PhD students in ML have publications, but an equally significant fraction do not.

All that said, a strong research publication is definitely a advantage in PhD applications, especially if the recommendation letters make it clear both that the work is good and how the student made it happen, and the topic of the paper meshes well with the research interests of the faculty where you're applying.  Good research results can overcome all sorts of other weaknesses in your application.

On the gripping hand, nothing in your question suggests that you have any weaknesses in your PhD application.  Your GPA is high enough to draw the attention of human reviewers.  At that point, your research statement and recommendation letters matter far more than anything else.

Honestly, I don't think you would have any problem getting in to a good doctoral program now. One sanity check would be to talk to one of your professors at UMCP and ask them if they think you'd be acceptable into their program.

Rather than spend time away from academia to "learn what you missed" you can easily do that with courses at the start of a doctoral program in the US, which is typical in any case. You have a year or so after you start such a program (with only a BS) to form a specialization.

Given the current pandemic, I think people will be understanding about such things as dropping courses, especially if the material can be learned in graduate level classes. And if the P/F system was imposed on you, then they have no choice but to accept it. Letters of recommendation can be used to give a more accurate picture of your performance and capabilities.

In short, I think you are well placed to apply to doctoral programs and suggest that you do so, perhaps in parallel with industry work if that actually appeals to you. Better to have as many choices as possible right now.


Does cum laude mean the end of an academic career in Germany I have recieved the grades for my PhD, and the defense is yet to be done.
I have a magna cum laude for the course work, and a cum laude for my dissertation. Do I have an academic career in Germany if I end up with a cum laude for the PhD?
Is there any way I can salvage a magna cum laude? The defense remains.
Neither of my supervisors read any of my drafts. They said that I should submit, and then gave me cum laude, which is the second-to-lowest in Germany. (There is rite, cum laude, magna cum laude, summa cum laude.)

Well, yes, but also no.
Permanent academic positions that are not professorships are relatively rare in Germany. Since most researchers want to eventually have a permanent position, it is in the interest of all long-term researchers to eventually become "berufungsfähig" (suitable for becoming a tenured associate or full professor).
The vast majority of the universities are public in Germany, and hence the laws of the respective state regulate hiring in the universities. All(?) "Landeshochschulgesetze" (law on higher education) list mandatory requirements for candidates for professor positions.
For instance, the respective law of the state of North-Rhine Westfalia (that has the largest population) states as a requirement:

besondere Befähigung zu wissenschaftlicher Arbeit, die in der Regel durch die Qualität einer Promotion nachgewiesen wird;

In English, this means that the candidate must show a substantial/remarkable/special ability to research work, which is normally indicated by the quality of the PhD. Given that PhDs are thesis-only in Germany (while the defense may also include more general questions about the field of work), this means that the PhD thesis should be particularly good and have a corresponding grade. The state of Lower Saxony has in their law that the PhD should be above average, and given that there are four passing grades, "cum laude" is probably below average.
Now what does should mean concretely? It means that if a hiring committee wants to hire somebody with a bad PhD thesis, they risk the overall hiring process being delayed or even canceled. There may be objections, candidates not snatching the precious professorship may sue, or the respective ministry of education may intervene or simply refuse to send the offer letter to the successful candidate. There have surely been cases of pea counting as far as the formalities of candidates to be hired are concerned in the past, and this adds to the risk. Hiring committees and universities will probably take the risk if there is a very good and demonstratable reason for why the candidate is excellent despite a bad PhD thesis, depending on their legal interpretation of the should and how much they are willing to risk it. In any case, certainly, those candidates with a good PhD thesis have a substantial head-start, and it's quite hard to catch up for candidates with a grade lower than "Magna Cum Laude".
Having said this, there are also other permanent academic positions, such as in Fraunhofer or Max Planck institutes that may or may not have similar requirement. So a Cum Laude may not be a big deal if they want you for a different reason.

I don't know the specifics of Germany, but in general an academic career doesn't depend that much on the PhD, let alone on the level of honor given to the degree.
If you apply for postdoc positions at the international level, people are unlikely to even look at the level of honor because these differ a lot by country so they do not provide a standard objective indication. Traditionally the publication track record is considered more important, and of course how well your profile fits the specifics of the job.
If you get a postdoc position and do a good job during the postdoc, nobody will care about the PhD level of honor.


Why do Computer Science degrees contain a high proportion of mathematics? About 17 years ago I attended a top 10 UK university to study for a degree in Computer Science.

Mathematics had never been a particularly strong point for me. However I (just) had the required A-Level qualification to be accepted for the course without any issue.

After two terms I dropped out and switched to another top 10 UK University to study for an Information Technology degree. The reasons I dropped out from the former were simply because I found the Mathematical lectures unbelievably difficult. The university did not (in my opinion) provide good support to people who weren't strong in this area. However I also never understood why this level of mathematics was being taught in the first place.

I recently looked at some lecture notes provided on the former universities website for the current year. And sure enough, the level of complexity seems the same.

When I switched to doing an Information Technology degree part of my logic was that the outcome would be a more practical/useful set of skills to actually develop software, along with the logical thinking required (which in my view requires little mathematical knowledge). For me this has worked well as I've had a good career as a software developer since graduating. I've never found any of my work requires much maths, beyond that of a GCSE/A-level level of complexity.

Interestingly, looking on LinkedIn, a huge number of people at the former university went on to be software engineers or similar roles. The salaries at the organisations these people work seem commensurate to the role I am currently in.

Given this, I'm wondering what the end-goal and purpose of teaching that complex maths is on CS degrees? I understand some people will go into roles working with hardware, or even producing software where there are complex mathematical elements. But this seems to be in the minority - by a very big margin - in terms of what people actually end up doing. I have also spoken to people about careers they've gone into as opposed to just looking on LinkedIn etc.

It seems to me that CS courses are teaching skills which - whilst relevant - are not as relevant as they might once have been. If this is the case then why has nobody addressed it? It seems absurd.

My experience of this is based on two top 10 UK universities but having looked at some others (in the UK and USA) this seems to be a general case.

If people are going into roles which require that level of mathematical knowledge, what are those roles? Because I can't see a lot of evidence of this actually happening after people have graduated.

Oxford University’s overview of their CS degree says it all:

Computer Science is about understanding computer systems and networks at a deep level. Computers and the programs they run are among the most complex products ever created; designing and using them effectively presents immense challenges. Facing these challenges is the aim of Computer Science as a practical discipline, and this leads to some fundamental questions:

How can we capture in a precise way what we want a computer system to do?

Can we mathematically prove that a computer system does what we want it to?

How can computers help us to model and investigate complex systems like the Earth’s climate, financial systems or our own bodies?

What are the limits to computing? Will quantum computers extend those limits?

In other words, the language of computer science is math, not C++. If you were looking for vocational training in computers then CS Is probably an inappropriate choice.

Computer science involves efficient problem-solving process, which can be attained through applied mathematics courses. At least, that's what employers and recruiters look for. Most of the time, the algorithm frameworks are based on math logic. If you don't plan to use the CS degree as a designer, an engineer, or other application-approach, you don't need to employ as much math.


what is the best strategy to deal with a situation where a student asks all of homework problems on an online forum I teach a course, every week I assign homework. I put several hours to choose the right homework problems which cover the course material and permit them to be prepared for the exams.

I encourage students coming to my office hours and to ask all of their questions, I may also help them to solve the homework problems. During the class I normally give some hints about the homework's difficult problems (in any).

The homework load is (in my opinion) reasonable: 4-5 exercises, maybe 3-4 out of them are easy and maybe 1-2 is a little challenging. The homework has 10% point.

Today, to my surprise I saw a user who has asked all of my homework problems (including the easy ones) on math stackexchange. And all of them have been answered. Regarding the particularity of my homework problems and the time of posting the questions, I am sure that the user is one of my students, I am not sure which one.

To be precise I had not prohibited the students about posting the homework questions online as I was not expecting this situation.

My question is what is the best strategy to deal with this situation.

I am not sure what my opinion of this really is.

On one hand is asking on the internet really that different from asking a friend how to do a particular piece of homework, or even just looking up the method in a textbook.

Presumably you think that looking the answer up on the internet will not result in your students learning the material as well working out how to do it for themselves. The result of this is that the students will do worse in their final exams which are worth distinctly more than 10%.

You could give your students a gentle reminder of this at the start of the next lecture/course. Hopefully, they will listen to you and try and do the work on their own. If not, I wouldn't feel bad for them if they did poorly in their exams.

Some people may be concerned that not punishing this behavior is encouraging students to cheat and gain extra marks for their homework. I would say you are quite naive if you think students wouldn't ask each other how to do the homework anyway. It is very hard to police these sorts of things which is probably one of the reasons they have a relatively low weighting.

Personally, I would give homeworks zero weighting as this removes any incentive for students to try and improve their mark this way. The questions would probably still be asked but that is more because students don't like going to office hours.

While you probably could try punish the offending student under your institution's academic integrity rules, I think you will have difficulties identifying the culprit without significant effort and possibly underhand tactics from your part. Even if you could identify them I wouldn't for the reasons outlined above.

I had this happen in my biostatistics course a few years ago, with Yahoo Answers.

I told that class that every single person was going to get an F for the semester for academic misconduct unless the student(s) came forward and admitted their action.

Then I went to Yahoo Answers, made a bunch of fake accounts, and posted tantalizingly wrong answers to all of my own HW questions.  I have told all subsequent students not to google the HW answers because there are wrong solutions out there.


When did US undergraduate education become so expensive? As far as I know, in the majority of  countries in the world, especially in Europe, undergraduate education, even at the top universities, is almost always significantly less expensive than at prestigous US universities.

For example, for the 2018-2019 academic year, the standard cost of tuition and fees at MIT was $51,520. Add in room and board and other fees, and the price tag reaches $70,240 annually. The average cost after aid was around $ 22,549.

At Cornell, the cost after aid was $30,498 and at NYU $37,362.

This is representative of most of the Ivy League schools as well as many liberal arts schools which are less well known internationally.

The average tuition cost at my school in France is a mere 2000 euros per year whilst other French schools have tuition ranging from 300 euros per year to 15,000 in one extreme case. In several European countries, tuition is either free or students are payed to study.

The student debt crisis in the US is a recent phenomenon, but how recent? I suspect that that students at Ivy League schools in the 1930's weren't paying anything close to their present counterparts, adjusting for inflation.

So when exactly did top tier American schools start raising  tuition and board fees to the astronomical levels we see now?

I will leave out the question if whether this is sustainable or what the consequences will be, as this is speculative and opinion-based.

This article in USA Today from 2017 shows the graph below, which is average tuition and fees adjusted for inflation from '71-'72 to '16-'17.

To answer the question in the title: it looks like it started rising above inflation in around 1983.

As others have mentioned, there are numerous reasons.  Here's a couple more:

Universities have been competing with each other.  Room and Board have gone up because the amenities have improved.  Part of the improving is matching the improving in non-academic life, part of it is acting as a benefit to make one university more appealing than another. Another way to compete is for the faculty; faculty is (on average) paid better than they used to be. (Policy Report)

Another sort of competition is in showing how exclusive they are; part of that is by having a large sticker price, but then actually charging less on average.  (Forbes article.)

Lastly (for me and my answer, anyway), financial support for public universities and colleges has been decreasing.  They have to make up the revenue differences somewhere; cuts to programs can only go so deep. (Washington Post article.)


Professor using student paper as an example of what not to do in class? So a professor used a grad student's paper (anonymously) as an example of what not to do or what she doesn't want to see in the papers. The student was blindsided as the student wasn't notified that his paper would be used as an example, the student hasn't received a grade yet, and was not giving any corrections.
What would be a good way to handle this situation?

This sort of behavior by a professor is poor pedagogical technique and, in many cultures, poor etiquette.  It is not misconduct and it is not rule breaking.  If you are a student and a professor acts this way, you can criticise the behavior in any anonymous teaching evaluations.  Otherwise, ignore it and move on.
Receiving criticism, including bad quality criticism, is part of academic life.

A better way to do this sort of thing is to not single out any one student.
This happened, very effectively, to me in my first week as a grad student.  Monday we dozen students chose technical terms out of a hat, and trooped over to the reference library (this was pre-Web).  Wednesday we submitted one-page essays explaining those terms.  Friday the professor surprised us with a pageful of howlers excerpted anonymously from all of our submissions.  He didn't need to say anything: the gasps of private recognition all around the table showed that we saw that we didn't yet know how to write.


Is it feasible/acceptable for me to convey my concerns to staff regarding performance of classmates on coursework reports? I am currently doing Physics undergrad at a first tier university. Due to my previous experience in Mathematics and slightly advanced age (five years my classmates' senior) I look at my classmates from a different perspective, and am honestly slightly disturbed.

Despite having received a class in LaTeX (with the express purpose of encouraging its usage) most students continue to use Word for reports (with sometimes shambolic results), most students neglect bibliographies, and I've witnessed students using only Wikipedia as a source, even when I pointed out that some of the information was inaccurate and referred them to a paper with correct information.

I've talked to one of the librarians, and he virtually pleaded for me to bring up such issues with the staff. Stating that he'd like to give a course on how to use the library, access online papers, write a report etc. to first years. Most students I've talked to were unaware they had free access to most scientific publications, and almost none seemed to have ever read a scientific paper.

I'm not quite sure what to do. On the one hand I feel it's not really my place, and I have other stuff to do, it's not my fault if other students are sub-par, and they are unlikely to go very far anyway.
However, in second year (approx half of students fail out after first year in physics), my partner in Experimental Physics performed so poorly I ended up doing almost everything myself in order to ensure my continued good grades.

I got special commendations from two of the three PhD students overseeing my three projects (the third didn't have the time to actually grade my report yet), though I personally feel my reports were simply on par.

Is it feasible, or even acceptable, for me to communicate concerns with staff, or to relay the request of the librarian with my own concerns added?

An undergraduate student is absolutely in no position to make any institutional changes in regards to the problems you've observed. In many cases, even the full professors have little ability to change the situation, due to departmental or administrative requirements for certain passing rates or median scores out of a class, etc. Possibly the faculty have seen this, and/or counseled concerned students about it, hundreds of times already.

You should take some amount of confidence that this is evidence you're ready for your next big step (which seems well-timed, in that your Master's starts next year). You know how to properly research, cite, support, and use LaTeX to write a paper; and you will doubtlessly be using those skills in your next position.

Frankly, the librarian was very much out of place to put the burden of responsibility for this on an undergraduate student. I call "foul" on that.

To extend ff524's response, there is in many universities a Student Representative system, where students elect a few of their peers near the start of the academic year to pass on their concerns and questions to faculty and board members who control the running of their course. Becoming (or at least interacting with) relevant student rep's is in theory a good way to have your opinion heard. As an older student with more experience of university life, you would be an excellent candidate for such a role.

A vital point is that you mustn't let yourself be discouraged from positive action: too many universities suffer from their senior staff retaining and endorsing outdated or inefficient practices out of indifference, despite change being in the students' best interest. It may well be that the staff can't do much, but it could equally be that they consider other issues more relevant for discussion, and that which is being improved at any given time can be greatly affected by student demand.

In this example, the librarian you spoke with has probably requested funds and and a small amount of curriculum time for their idea, but whichever board they applied to has seen it as an unnecessary hassle or decided that there is not enough demand. Getting your opinion heard through, for example, student representatives could be helpful to many who don't even realize what they're missing.


Editor rejected manuscript claiming it is similar to a not-yet-published manuscript (that I haven't seen). How to proceed? A few months ago, I submitted a manuscript. After the reviews were completed I received a rejection decision from the Associate Editor (AE). The rejection was based on the basis of a single rejection recommendation by one of the four reviewers. The journal has very high standards so this is not uncommon. However, the reason for the rejection appears really awkward to me. The reviewer wrote in his/her report that another paper with a similar idea was submitted (not published) in another journal. He/she wrote that the submission date of the other paper was earlier than mine so the originality of my idea is questionable. The AE agreed with this report and adopted this argument in the rejection letter.

I want to emphasize that my results were independently developed and I have no knowledge whatsoever of the other manuscript which according to the reports that were attached has not been published yet. The whole situation seems rather awkward and I am not sure how to react. Of course the reviewer's identity is not known to me, but I find it hard to believe that he/she is not an author or somehow related to the author of the other paper.

Furthermore, I feel really offended by these comments  as it appears to me that I am implicitly being accused of plagiarism. I am considering writing a letter to the Editor in Chief. I do not want to change the decision, but I would like to make clear that my results were independently obtained. Also, what are your thoughts on how should I proceed with my manuscript?

I don't think there is any point in writing to the EiC, if you don't want to actually appeal the decision.  I would simply send a note to the AE who handled the paper:

  Thank you for handling my paper.  I accept your decision.  I would simply like to state that the results in my paper were obtained independently, and I had no previous knowledge of the unpublished manuscript mentioned by Reviewer #4.  I will look forward to reading and citing this paper when it becomes publicly available.

Then submit your paper somewhere else, quickly (though after making any revisions suggested by these reviewers).  I would be inclined to include a comment to the new journal's editor, saying that you have heard there is a paper under review somewhere with similar results, but you have been unable to obtain a copy of the paper or any further information about it.  You could also emphasize that you have obtained your results independently of any other reseacher / group.

I agree with the previous answers stating that you aren't being accused of plagiarism. Rather, if the journal is so selective, they may not want to touch something that is going to appear somewhere already. Do consider the possibility that the reviewer may have shared details of this other paper with the editor- reviews typically contain a section that goes only to the editor. This may explain why the reviewer's decision was accepted.

Also, I know you have a strong feeling about bias (I would too), but there is a chance that this reviewer simply reviewed the other paper. If this is the case, raising questions about the integrity of review (even indirectly) could lead to unfavourable perceptions.

I would strongly suggest publishing in the next highest rated journal at the earliest- you clearly have a good set of results, don't hold them back. Once both papers are out, let the community decide which one is better. It is not unheard of that a paper in a slightly lower rated journal gets more reads/citations that one in a higher rated journal. If indeed the reviewer is an author of the other paper, it means you and they are going neck-to-neck, and you might find the situation reversed soon!


Synonym for the job title of assistant professor I often go to meetings and professional events outside academia.

I am meeting new people all the time, and most of them are not acquainted with academic ranks and job titles. It happens often that when they realize that my job title is 'assistant professor' they slightly dismiss me and suddenly give an impression that they see me inferior.

Some even ask me who my professor is. So I don't think I am misinterpreting the situations.
Outside academia 'assistant' has often a connotation of a lower and dependent ranking, which may explain it.

I am not obsessed with titles, and I am happy with my job and position, but I have a feeling that in these situations it may close doors as I am getting dismissed before I can show anything.

As I am getting convinced that this happens only because of the job title, I started to think who can I introduce myself with another generic job title that sounds better and does more justice (that I am more senior than I appear: a project leader, supervising people, and do not assist someone).

Is there a synonym that I can use instead? The requirement is that a title isn't fake. I don't want to claim a title that does not belong to me. I just want to find a better way to introduce myself to those who are outside academia.
I was thinking about using titles such as senior scientist, research director, lecturer, but these are actual job titles. Principal investigator, while truthful, may not be understood.

Maybe I should also state that I am male, so it is not about gender. I can imagine that if I were female it would be even worse.

I think you should just introduce yourself as

  I work as a professor at the University of X.

omitting the assistant rank that can cause misunderstandings.

The following conversation line feels also very safe:

  – Where do you work?

  – I do research and teach at the University of X.

which might be a better fit since it explains your job in a short sentence. However, nothing wrong with the first line that does not require a question to feel natural.

The actual rank (assistant/associate/full) might matter in a formal (mostly, written and official) context and rarely means a lot outside of the academic system. And that seems to be exactly the situation you happen to encounter issues.

Related questions:

How an assistant professor is called in North America?
Can I call an assistant professor Professor?

Cultural and linguistic differences can play a role, so it might not be as appropriate in certain countries; though, I doubt that would matter at all in a circle that is not familiar with academic ranks at all. Moreover, it is likely that there is no confusion because the rank in the other language is very different.

You might also dig in the direction of "Head of XXX lab" (in case it applies) or "research group supervisor", but I don't think there is a good reason. An assistant professor is a professor and no elaboration is needed in a laid-back unofficial atmosphere.

My suggestion based on what I would do: Just present yourself with your name and surname. Then, if other people ask about your job, you can explain that you are an Assistant Professor. If people consider your preparation only considering your Title, then you are sure that these people are not good at their work, so it's not good to have a collaboration with them for future projects.
There are Professors that are less prepared than students and researchers.


Are universities always disorganized? I've been a faculty member at two universities.  Both have been very "disorganized," generally speaking. By "disorganized," I mean things like: Faculty are not formally hired until after the semester begins (due to administrative failure to sign contracts on time); courses are scheduled in rooms that are far too small for the number of students enrolled; facilities are poorly maintained (e.g., it's not uncommon for windows to break or heat to stop working in a room and not be fixed for months); HR departments don't answer email or even phone calls; pay checks are sometimes late or inaccurate, etc.

Is this a common experience at most universities, or just the ones where I've taught? Both of the places where I have been are well-known institutions -- not elite schools, but ones that are prestigious enough, and which you wouldn't expect to be poorly run.

For that matter, does this type of stuff happen in non-academic jobs, too? I have only ever worked in academia, so I don't have a lot of perspective on just how much disorganization is normal for a workplace bureaucracy. I kind of suspect academia might be a special case because it's run in large part by administrators (department heads, deans) who typically have no actual management training. But I suppose managers in the corporate world might have little idea what they are doing, too.

These are both private universities in the United States, by the way.

I worked at three different Universities in Germany and I can not confirm such a level of disorganization. Of course we are having problems because we are public entities, which means e.g. that we can not freely decide where to invest or to shift money from cost center A (e.g. personal) to cost center B (buildings), or hire as many people as we like, or pay the wages we thing are appropriate, but those problems are minor issues compared to the ones described.

It is correct that many management positions are held by amateurs (like me ;-) ), but this is manly the academic part (research, dean, ...), but our "true" administration is in the hands of professionals lead by the head of administration (in Germany "Kanzler") who usually has a management background and expertise.

Sure, universities are disorganized, but so are many companies. They are human organizations. The alternative is probably worse, however. Some places (both universities and companies) are rigidly hierarchical with many rules. You do what you are told to do. "My way or the highway." People, don't, in general, like to work in such places.

Good companies permit quite a lot of chaos since ideas grow out of that chaos. If you are in one of those hierarchical places it isn't a great idea to be innovative. The same is true in universities.

In most universities, much of the administration is made up of older faculty members who thought they could do a better job than they saw being done. Sometimes they are right, but not always. I was a long time into my career before I wound up at a place where I thought the administration was, at all levels, doing a good job. Unfortunately that didn't last very long as some of the good people left and were replaces with inferior models.

Another reason that universities have some chaos is that everyone there is pretty smart. Mostly, pretty smart people have ideas. Mostly they want to see those ideas implemented. Often, however, they think they are pretty smart in areas beyond their training. It can be a chaotic sort of place. It is, in a way, like a herd of horses on the move. They "organize" themselves mostly by bumping one another. Kicking is minimized, but not unheard of.

The chaos of ideas is a good thing, actually. But, no, disorganization isn't inevitable.

However there are two additional concerns, one for public and one for private universities.

Some US publicly funded universities are severely constrained by the politics of the day and the refusal of legislators to deal with rising expenses by increasing revenue (taxes), and so default to cutting services. But that is a different, external, sort of chaos over which a public university has little control.

Private universités also have, sometimes severe, financial constraints as most have little access to public monies  and depend overly on revenue obtained from student tuition. This can lead to very constrained budgets. Some take the shortfall from faculty salaries, but there is a stronger tendency to cut corners on physical plant and some services.

Education is an expensive proposition, not a profit center. Its product is a bit ephemeral.


The difference in writing style between a book chapter and article in a journal My discipline is educational technology and I have been invited to submit a book chapter about integrating technology in my region. I published many articles in top refereed journals, but not sure whether the focus, style of writing and structure of articles are appropriate for book chapters.
Anyone can highlight the main differences?

You would want your chapter to fit into the whole project, whereas a journal article can usually stand alone.

Your chapter should not duplicate material in other chapters, although you may refer to material in another chapter.

You will want your chapter to be generally accessible.  For the specialized journal article, that doesn't matter so much.

The editor (could be more than one) may want to be rather more involved in choosing the content, organization, presentation, etc.,for a book project than for an isolated article.

To get a feel for the style desired, you could ask the editor(s) for one or more examples of the desired style.

Also, importantly that book chapter does not have citation within the text, however, this is crucial in the review paper. In general, the audience of the book are interested but relatively new in the field, where the review paper audience are more specialised usually with previous knowledge and experience, so the writing style should take care of this.


Need help — Principal investigator with abusive behavior I am doing a postdoc with a principal investigator (PI) at an American university. Research is going great, with three publications in one year.
But the PI has serious issues. I would say he is a psychopath. I would have probably laughed in the past if someone would have used this description, but now it seems the best description and apparently he has the reputation to be this kind of person and a long list of postdocs who have suddenly left.
He lies endlessly, changes agreements we had (even behind my back, telling other scientists involved I would have agreed to things I did not agree to). If he does not get what he wants, even if it is unreasonable, he starts yelling. He has also been throwing around things in the office.
He also does not work scientifically, I don't know what he does. I have my own money, and he does not want me to leave because of that, but also does not treat me in any way well.
He also threatens me: If I leave, he will ruin my career. I have already an offer from another PI but am super scared that my current PI intervenes and I would lose my visa over that. Apparently he has intervened in the past when postdocs had offers such that offers were cancelled. How should I proceed? I am scared and can't focus, hate myself for that but can't handle the situation mentally. Feel like trapped. I love science and don't want to leave academia.

In my view you have three options: sit out, leave and stand up.
I share some thoughts about standing up. Your institution must have a behavioral integrity policy. You can talk to an ombudsperson or thrust person. You can do this anonymously. You are not the first and this is important information. Document the cases. Try to find and speak to your predecessors. What have they done in their situations and why? What was their outcome? What advise do you get from your ombudsperson or thrust person?
It takes a lot of courage to walk this route which in the end may lead to a formal complaint against this PI. There is no guarantee for success. Apparently this PI has been protected for a long time already on the expense of people with temporary contracts and lesser power. But it depends on history. You are not the first.
I cannot give you a single advice. If you can emotionally detach yourself, you can sit out your contract. But I understand you bring your own money. I fear he will not let you go easily anyhow. You are valuable to this PI bringing in research results and publications. You are feeding your PI.
If you can’t emotionally detach yourself, you should leave or stand up.
When leaving, do not be afraid that this PI may harm your reputation in science. Science is a huge place and your PI will have a reputation too. Trust me, PI’s loosing postdocs, PhD’s and students, not delivering results (publications and grants) are not taken that seriously. Especially when you can show your results.

Get an immigration lawyer.  We can't give you legal advice.
Leave.  This PI is abusive.


Do German professors in a Master’s program respond to students who email them interested in their research work? I’m currently receiving my bachelor’s degree in Sociology from am American university and have no clue how the process for applying to Master’s programs in Germany works. I’m not sure if it’s okay to email professors directly about their research as it would be here. I guess my questions are:

Are they generally okay with responding to international students who want to work with them on their research (I do intend to clearly state that if it’s some kind of process- like an application- I would gladly apply)?
Is it appropriate to request a meeting with them (or with the department manager) to get a tour of the department/meet some of the professors and/or students?
How would I address this professor in an email? Her webpage says “Prof. Dr.” so should I use that title? I saw somewhere that Herr might be appropriate? In America, we just say “Dr.” or “Professor” that’s why I’m asking.

In America, there’s this unspoken rule that asking for meetings/ reaching out via email will help your chances when applying. At least, the professor will remember your name/face, especially if your research interests coincide with theirs. Also. This program is in English, so there’s no worry about proficiency in German (yet).

Generally, there is nothing wrong with sending e-mails to professors which demonstrate some interest in their research, also in Germany (where I work). It could help you get in contact with research groups you are interested in. However, it could also happen that you will get no response.

One reason is that most students starting with a Master´s program will not make contact to the professors, you just enroll and that´s it. During the typically two years of the studies, you will get to know the professors and other people involved in teaching and research. Then, as soon as you have to do some research related thing (some small project or your Master´s thesis), you make contact asking professors or other approriate staff if they would support you with this. Again, trying to make contact earlier probably will not harm, but do not expect too much of it.

Tours with individual students who are early in their Master´s program are unusual in my experience. But if you show some genuine interest, it might happen. Again: There is no harm in asking! There might also be some organized tours in the beginning of your studies.

As far as the title is concerned, I would always go for the formal version which is "Prof. Dr." (unisex) in your case. Many people will not even notice if you write "Herr" (for men) or "Frau" (for women) or only "Prof." (unisex), but enough professors will, so it is better to be on the safe side. I recommend to drop the formal part only after some personal contact which justifies it, e.g. if the professor offers you to address them with their first name.

It would however be strange to use "Herr" or "Frau" in an e-mail which is otherwise written in English. Use them only when you write in German.

I looked for a PhD in Germany several years ago and I was told it was quite normal to email professors directly. Your success rate may vary but I did receive a good number of responses within a reasonable timeframe, even though I did not end up with any offers. It may help your chances if you express genuine interest in with their work and outline what you would like to work on.

I wouldn't advise requesting a meeting out of the blue, it's better to exchange some emails to see if you are a good fit for each other. Replying to long emails with many requests is also quite exhausting so you're better off breaking it down to several exchanges.

Germans do like their titles but a simple 'Dear Prof. X' should suffice, particularly since you're an international student and the conventions in English are different.


Do any NIH post-doc grants besides the K99/R00 have time limits from graduation? I didn't immediately find the 4-year death-clock on the K99/R00 grant. I just want to know, is that the only major NIH activity code that restricts eligibility based on time since graduation?

I realize that individual institutes vary a lot in their policies, but I'm trying to get at least a rough idea of which activity codes to filter out before I go through in more detail through the RFAs that remain.

The rules seems to be institute and FOA dependent. There are definitely other FOAs that have timelimits. The one I am most familiar with is the NIDCD Early Career Research (ECR) Award (R21) which has a 7 year time limit from graduation. The NIDCD K22 only allows 2 years of research experience (which is not quite a graduation based time limit).

The NIH also gives preference to Early Stage Investigators for some grants which has a 10 year time limit. That page lists a number of early stage grants which may have time limits. You could also look at the NIH Research and Career Development pages for individual FOAs. Finally, the individual institutes that are relevant to your field probably have the most detailed information.

There is one additional example I am aware of, which is institute-dependent: the standard NRSA F32 award is often issued for "3 years minus any time that the fellow has already spent in the sponsor's laboratory at the time of the award."  (At least at NIGMS: https://www.nigms.nih.gov/training/indivpostdoc/Pages/PostdocFellowshipDescription.aspx)


What tone to use in the personal statement? The guide in Berkeley states:

  The personal statement should give concrete evidence of your promise as a member of the academic community, giving the committee an image of you as a person.

So what tone should I use here? If as a person is as yourself, then is it better to use informal voice, like writing in a blog? Or should I keep the formal voice as most statements require you to be professional?

I guess that the guide encourages applicants to not hide behind a neutral tone. You should "be yourself" and write in the way you normally talk to people in the workplace.

You may consider reading your personal statement (or asking someone to read it), and then try to assess the tone and imagine how you could describe a person who wrote it. Can you say something about the author which is not already explicitly mentioned in the text? If you can not see a specific tone and can not guess anything beyond what is already written, then the personal statement is probably too neutral.

For a personal statement, I would recommend speaking in the first-person and using a tone that is sufficiently informal to make it sound like you are talking to someone, rather than talking in the third-person about the skills of an applicant.  Don't go overboard with the informality ---don't swear or use slang--- but make sure that the reader feels they are hearing your normal voice (which just so happens to be brilliant and articulate).  The substance of your statement will be more important than the style, though the latter is part of showing that you can communicate clearly and in language that is suitable for presentations and academic work.


What is the status/reputation of the University of South Africa (UNISA)? I would like to follow PhD studies in my field of Computer Science. The problem is that I have to work in my native country. I have read that this university, UNISA, is known because of their online Master and Doctoral studies.

The question that I have is because I see different comments from people from United States or Europe that wanted to enter into this online degrees. Does anybody have experiences or know if that university is worldwide recognized? Or would it be only a waste of money and time? In case of the latter, which institution of quality offers online PhD degrees in CS?

Consider that this question is not focused locally, because as I mentioned in the aforementioned paragraph; there are people from all over the world that want to take those UNISA degrees.

I offer the following evidence from credible and official sources against doing a PhD in Computer Science at UNISA:

Low graduation rates:  17 doctoral students graduated from the College of Science, Engineering, and Techonology (which includes the PhD in Computer Science degree) in 2010, 2011, and 2012 combined. Compare this to the 99 doctoral student enrollments five years earlier in 2005, 2006, and 2007 (combined). Graduation rates are expected to be somewhat low for distance learning students, but rates this low are a bad sign. (PDF source)
Inadequate supervisory capacity: The school admits that "many [research] areas in the School of Computing have reached supervisory capacity" and says that "long waiting lists started forming due to lack of supervisors," which is another worrying sign.  (Same source)
Very, very low research output: Research output is arguably the most important indicator of a reputable PhD program. On this page, 6 professors in the School of Computing (which offers the PhD in Computer Science degree) are listed as having openings for PhD students. I looked up the Google Scholar and/or DBLP profiles of these 6 (for those that had them) and consulted personal pages of the rest to get a sense of their research productivity.

Averages across two years (2012 and 2013), the number of publications per person per year was 0.58 on average (range of 0-1.5)
Of the 7 publications I found for these professors in 2012 and 2013, 3 were in conferences or journals with the name "Africa" in the title (i.e., not international venues). So the average publication rate per person per year in non-local venues was 0.33.

UNISA is internationally recognized. The small numbers of students passing, shows by itself that it is not a piece of cake.
I did my Bsc Computer Science and believe me I had to work hard to pass and graduate.
Once you are there, the work load, assignments, deadlines etc, makes you forget that you are at a distance learning institution. It felt the same as when I was at a residential school.
I am currently doing my Msc Electronic Eng in the UK. It was the same UNISA credentials that took me there.
So no worries, please go with UNISA and you shall not regret.

Inacio Lote GIMO