Is single parenting compatible with success in academia? Good day.

I'm currently a PhD student in computer science. I was married and have a daughter with my former wife. There is a probability that our daughter
will live with me. Could you please tell me is it possible to be successful in academia and to raise a child alone? By "to be successful in academia" I mean eventually to receive a professor position. Could you please share your experience?

Additional details: my university has a kindergarten and I live in Germany. My concerns are more about is it enough to have 9 working hours per day for writing the PhD thesis.

Summary: The older your child is, the easier it is. But by no means it will be easy. Personally, I don't even think it is possible. I present my own observations to support my claim.

I am an early career researcher myself, having just graduated with a PhD in a STEM field. I also got married a year before my dissertation defense and became a parent literally a month before I was to defend and graduate.

First, of course, anything is possible. While I may not personally know of any such success stories, I am sure others here do and I am sure you can google and find a few success stories.

But I will describe what I think is the average case instead of the extreme case, resulting from my own experiences and what I saw around me; friends, colleagues, lab partners, advisors, coauthors, other professors, people I met and got to know in meetings and conferences, people with whom I have interacted during my career...a sample size of 30-ish people.

Grad school is hard. Grad school in a STEM field is really really hard. It is very consuming. It consumes your time, eats into your social life, takes up your mental energy, your physical energy, and your emotional energy. It always has an adverse effect on your mental and physical health unless you are very disciplined and exercise, eat, and sleep regularly.

Likewise, being a parent is hard. Being a good parent is really really hard. Kids demand so much energy and they need so much love and attention. Raising a child is more demanding than going through grad school. If there are two of you, sure it helps. But both parents have to put in a lot in raising a child. Being a single parent is even harder because in a way, you are filling in for both parents.

Now on to hard data! Master's is easier so we will only consider doctoral students and above. These are all in STEM fields. I only know of two cases where they had children before starting doctoral studies. One had three kids, another had one kid. One had already made quite a lot of money on wall street and wanted to come back to school to get a PhD so he didn't worry too much about TAing or financial aid. The other was a typical student. They both did finish successfully but it took them about a year longer than was average in their respective fields. And I want to emphasize that they were both with their partners who were both full-time stay-at-home parents.

Next, I only know of myself and one another student, who had children while in grad school. We both had children very late in our studies, when most of our work was done, a paper or two was published, a paper or two was submitted, the thesis was being written or half done. Every single other person that I know of who wanted to have children, were waiting to graduate or even later to have kids.

I have never known nor heard of (a friend of a friend of a friend) a single case, a single parent who has wanted to start a PhD, or has started a PhD, was/in in a PhD, or has successfully finished a PhD.

In all honestly, I don't think that in your case, you can put up hard boundaries between your personal life and your professional life. How can you separate raising a child as a single parent and work on your computer science PhD? It doesn't matter what hours you decide, nine hours a day or 4 days a week. You will come home and think about your dissertation problem. You will think of your thesis. You will think of the comp sci question you are trying to answer. You will think about big and small inevitable conflicts with your advisor, your lab colleagues, your coauthors, your thesis committee, and whether you'll get a TAship next semester or not. Similarly, how can you stop thinking of your child when at work? What happens when the child is fussy or upset and doesn't want to stay with the babysitter or go to daycare? What if the child gets sick or there is another emergency? You'll run out of your lab without even thinking and there goes your rest of the nine-hour-planned-day out the window.

Furthermore, let's say a miracle happens and you get your nine-hours-a-day workdays. From a 24 hour day, taking out the time for sleep, how much time will you have for yourself? When will you decompress? When will you destress? When will you have time for your physical exercise and mental wanderings and distractions such as your hobbies? How often will you be able to just sit in front of the TV and eat cereal the whole day? When will you relax with your own alone me-time? Without hobbies, exercise, relaxation time, grad school will absolutely kill you. Every single person I know who tried this either dropped out or was an absolute wreck by the time they graduated. And these people were not even parents, much less single parents.

In conclusion, the statistics are against you. Sure, your child's age is a factor which makes it easier the older your child is...but it will still be very hard. You are taking two things which are notoriously difficult and intrude upon every aspect of life, and you want to try them both simultaneously, and hope you can keep them separate and succeed in both. I really wish you the best. Good luck!

Certainly, the responsibility of being a custodial or sole parent might take away some hours of your research and writing time.  On the flip side, raising a child is extremely rewarding and can actually improve one's discipline and focus.  Caring for a child can have a civilizing influence!

I will now back up a step and try to imagine what might be going on.  Perhaps your daughter's mother is not able to care for her at this time, and your daughter is in need of a different living situation, and perhaps you feel a responsibility to step up and create a home for your daughter, as an alternative to... I'm not sure what, perhaps going to another relative such as a grandparent, or going into foster care.  Maybe you are wondering how much of a personal sacrifice would be involved if you were to step forward, in other words, maybe you are wondering whether you would have to choose between taking responsibility for your daughter vs. finishing your PhD.

The only part of this I would be able to answer is that last part.  In general, people do not find it necessary to abandon their PhD studies because of childrearing commitments.

As to whether it would be the right choice for you, and for your daughter, I can't say.

Tip: Parenting is always easier when one has a good support network, regardless of how many adults the child lives with.  (I do not mean to suggest that you can't do it without a good support network.)  If you are seriously considering taking this step, it could be helpful to start building up your support network now.  Ways to do that include:

talking to your relatives and close friends about the project: as you talk this over with them, they may suggest ways they would like to help
lining up a primary care provider (doctor or pediatrician), and finding out practical things like, do the doctor and nurse have a special phone hour?
getting recommendations of private babysitters in case you need extra hours beyond the kindergarten hours
find out which parks and play areas give you a good vibe
looking for a weekend playgroup where you can interact with other families; you can start to attend already, and start to form relationships with the other parents

Note, my experience with such playgroups is that even if most of the parents who attend are women, men are always welcome.  (I say that having attended playgroups in Denmark, Germany, France and the United States.)

A book you might enjoy reading: Commando Dad: How to be an Elite Dad or Carer, From Birth to Three Years.  You can safely ignore the quasi-military theme, and you can skip the early chapters about baby care.  But the general attitude of this book could be helpful for your self-confidence -- which is really the key to parenting.

Please note that there are many ways of being a responsible parent.  Being the sole custodial parent is not the only way.  I lived in Mexico for a number of years, and saw a huge variety of ways.  For example:

An acquaintance, a mother, sent her child to live with her parents in the countryside for his first five years; and then she brought him to live with her in the city, where she managed a small store.  Her son played in the store outside school hours.  She felt that the store wouldn't have been the right place for him when he was a baby, toddler and pre-schooler.
Another acquaintance, a young man, was in high school when his child was born.  During his college years, he traveled to his parents' place whenever he had more than three days off school, to spend time with his daughter.

In short, even if you decide that your daughter's primary residence should be somewhere other than with you... I hope you can still find a way to maintain, or build, a relationship with your daughter, even if she is living primarily with someone else -- even a foster parent.

Personal note: I met my father three times before he died, which happened when I was in my early teens.  I am very glad I had those three opportunities.


Can an editor make substantial edits and publish them without the author's permission? Can an editor make substantial edits to an author's book or paper and publish them without the author's permission?

No.

Editorial review is an iterative process in which an editor, reviews and the author(s) have open (although usually blind) exchanges about the details of a manuscript. The process relies wholly on a full exchange of information between all parties.

A helpful and detailed account of a standard editorial process may be found at the National Institutes for Health website.

If you have to ask the question, then it is not your original work.  As you said, you are "editing".   Editors are not the original writers.

When you change the structure of the sentence, you are paraphrasing the original passage and therefore, the original author gets credit for that!

In lieu of direct permission, a citation is an absolute must before you publish.


Is there a master list of journals? I'm looking for a repository of journal data.
More specifically, a listing of every known journal name and various attributes such as ISSN, rankings, peer review, etc. I know Cabell's offers this information, but expressly forbids mass-downloading.
Is there a better source for Journal data?

The short answer is no. There is no comprehensive list of academic journals, and I doubt there ever will be. The major reason for it is there is no real need as publishing culture varies a lot by field and geography. Plus, in the recent explosion of scholarly publishing, there is probably a new journal every week or so.

However there are curated databases of journals. For example, Thomson Reuters has a service called Web of Science that provides libraries with a large list of journals (about 12'000 according to Wikipedia) and publication metrics, such as citation count, rank by discipline and impact factor. I used this service a few times to check the ranking of journals before submitting papers.

Libraries often let affiliates download the full report as a spreadsheet that you can manipulate the way you want. Contact your local library, most institutions subscribe to this database.

Also, this list might be useful to you.

You might find the Australian ERA list useful. It has been used by the Australian government to evaluate university research performance.

I'm not sure what is the most stable link. But this search seems to get a few copies of it.

It appears to have around 22 thousand journals. It contains ISSN and discipline category information.

See the list here:
http://www.arc.gov.au/era-2015-submitted-journal-list


Is it ethical to for a commercial organisation to get student interns to download journal articles using student's university access? I'm currently interning for a small R&D company. The boss is notoriously tight fisted and prone to cutting corners to save any amount of money he can. In the past, he has attempted to use my student status to get free or discounted software for company use to avoid paying licensing fees. (To clarify, software purchased using my status as a student but not to be used by me but by other individuals in the company) He recently found out I get institutionally provided access to various journals and has started requesting I provide him with pdf or printed copies of papers so he can avoid paying for them. Is this ethical? Legal?

It is unlikely that your use of this journal subscription would fall within the terms-of-usage agreed by the university with the journal providers, and agreed by you (as a student) with the university.  You should enquire further into the particular terms of access for these resources, but I would imagine that they would be restricted to use for educational and research purposes within the scope of your position as a student at the university.

Either of these practices could potentially get you into trouble, though the use of software beyond the terms of the licence is probably more fraught with danger.  Downloading journal articles for work purposes is not that uncommon in fields employing academics and students, though it is probably not legal.  While some forbearance might be given for small infractions, certainly it is unethical to agree to access a resource from the university for the purposes of your education, and then to use that resource systematically to advantage a commercial business that is unwilling to pay for the service.

Based on the title of this question, of course not. It's violating terms of service not just unethical.


Who should I get LOR from : manager of big prestigious company where I worked 5 years back, or unknown small company where I worked recently? I am applying for MS in CS. 6+ years of work experience.

I worked for a huge, globally well known company for less than a year straight out school. This was 5 years back.

I also worked for a very small unknown company for about 3 years.

I can get letters from both, and the content of both will be about the same I think.

Which one should I use for applications? I already have 1 from my professor with whom I did research, and another from my last company where I worked. I just need to submit a 3rd one.

The badge, of whatever worth, for having worked in a "globally well-known" company is already in your cv.

And, it is just "few months work straight out of school", begging the question "coffee anyone?" (only half-jokingly).

But chances are, in the "very small unknown company", your role was much more critical, compared. And it was for three whole years.

If I was the reader, it would be this second letter that would be more believable in my eyes if it mentioned anything about efficiency, professionalism, and dependability.

If only one manager has a graduate degree, use that one. If one went to a higher ranked university, use that one. If neither one has a graduate degree, or both have equally ranked degrees, use the one with the higher ranked undergraduate degree.

If you don't know and feel uncomfortable asking for this information, you could use the more senior or more experienced manager.


On the definition of research I'm writing a proposal to acquire funding for a competition to be hosted at my university.  The competitors are restricted to graduate students who are engaged in research under the auspicies of a faculty advisor from my university.  In the process of making my proposal more clear and precise, I find myself struggling with the problem of defining what exactly is (and more importantly, what isn't) research.

At first, I equated research with publishable in a peer reviewed journal, but I soon realized that the terms publishable and peer reviewed would have to be defined... And even if I do that, then I would have to define the words that I used to define those words, et cetera ad nauseam.

I want to approach it the same way I would approach mathematical set theory:  it's either research or it's not, and there should be no room for ambiguity.  But I suspect that any attempt to define research this way will certainly either circumscribe or inscribe the set of all things we call research.

I don't think this is necessarily the best way to approach defining what is research, especially for my purposes.  Is there another way I can approach clarifying what constitutes research as opposed to other publishable works in the context of academia?

For purposes like this, I would define research as loosely, broadly, and generically as possible. If your definition is too strict, then you exclude valid efforts, and you will likely be bound by the language in your proposal.

For example, if you define research to be "scientific investigation," then you exclude the humanities. If you define research as "investigative work leading to a peer-reviewed publication or conference presentation," then you may inadvertently exclude unpublishable and unpublished results.

If the requirements of the agency do not specify the need for a definition of research, then do not supply one. If you are writing to an agency that regularly supports research proposals, then there is no need to define research - they know what it is. If you are writing to an atypical funding source, like a business, local government, or charity, then they would probably rather you be inclusive (and thus generic) unless you have specific instructions otherwise. Leave the job of deciding whether an entry is qualified research to the judges of the composition.

If you feel that you absolutely need a definition, then "investigative work" is probably generic enough. Your institution's Office of the Provost may also have an "official" definition of research for your institution.

How about trying to define research would it help to spcify "Scientific Research". Since research is a search for new knowledge it is thus a wide term. Since Science is defined as "the body of reliable knowledge itself, of the type that can be logically and rationally explained" (shamelessly stolen from the wiki page for Science) the word scientific would exclude everything not included in the definition. Or, is there any academic research that does not qualify as science?


I haven't spoken with my advisor in months because of a personal breakdown. How do I reestablish contact? I'm a second year computer science PhD student. I switched research areas during my third semester and did an independent study with Professor X. He basically gave me a bunch of papers and textbooks to read so I could get up to speed on the field and told me to ask questions as they come up. Things did not turn out too well because (1) everything moved online (COVID) and (2) I had a breakdown, ultimately resulting in me barely communicated with Professor X. I'm in a small reading group he leads, so he knows I still exist, but we have not actually exchanged speech in months.
To briefly explain the breakdown: I grew up with alcoholic and abusive parents and had everything under control for years, but my emotions just exploded out of nowhere. I've been seeing a therapist, and I am faring much better now.
I did read the papers and most of the textbooks, but it took much longer than it should have because of my breakdown. I also came up with a few research questions I'm interested in pursuing, but I don't know how to proceed after ghosting Professor X for months. I want to hear what he thinks of them, and if he thinks they're good, ask if he has any advice. However, I imagine he does not have a favorable opinion of me right now. I'm not sure if a professor would want to work with a student after something like that, and quite frankly, I feel horrible. I emailed him to see if we could meet, saying that I fell off track last semester and want to make better progress. I haven't received a response yet, and I do not know if this was the right way to proceed.
What can I do to help this situation? How should I explain my lack of communication without providing personal details? Will I have to find a different professor to work with? If anyone can offer any advice/insight, I would greatly appreciate it.
Note: Professor X is not technically my advisor at this stage, but I use that term in the title for brevity.

It should be enough to explain your absence with "I've been ill for several months, but am better now". You don't really need to go in to details. If asked, just reply that it is very "personal".
The professor may need some assurance that you will be effective going forward, but really has no need to know details.
And, of course, you should say you've been somewhat (at least) productive in the interim.
And keep contact with the professional counselor through any necessary transition.

First of all you are paying for your tuition, so ask about and use whatever support channels are open to you.
Speaking from experience of abuse, my biggest challenge was the need for acceptance and a lack of self esteem.

You will need soft skills to succeed as a programmer, so treat thesis a learning opportunity.
In 2 to 3 years having gained your degree, this motor bump in the road will seem like that, not like the mountain it feels like now.

I am looking back form a perspective of almost 40 years, I have been programming for 20 of that.
If you give yourself the freedom to heal things will get better, focus your goals and how you want a better life for your children.
I was able to give my son many of the things I did not have.
He came out of univ. with a Masters in Physics and a Masters in intelligent Systems engineering.
You can do it, just be gentle on yourself and don't worry too much, within reason, what others think.


An appropiate graph visualization? I want to include a plot in my thesis to highlight regional differences in bicycle collision outcomes. Now there are several plot visualizations I could use, and I am not sure which one could be the most appropriate. Having a "scale free" y axis better highlights the differences between each region, but it may also confuse the reader.

I am aware that there might not be an optimal solution to this, but I would appreciate to hear your thoughts.(If you have a completely other suggestion for an appropriate plot than the ones below, I would also be happy to hear those).

These are the plots I have made:

Plot 1

Plot 2

Plot 3

Plot 4

It might be good to consider a broken y-axis. See this example. In your case, you only apply it to bicycle-only and bicycle-car.


My work was published before me. What should I do? Some time ago I switched departments within the same institution. Before leaving I had an idea of a paper and started to work on it. I shared my thoughts on it with my then-coworkers and they praised it. So now, after I settled things in a new department, I continued to work on that paper and completed it. Before submitting anywhere, I decided to look for a new papers relevant to my work.

To my surprise, I have found a paper with my idea (implemented in a somewhat narrower sense) by several of my previous coworkers, with whom I have discussed it. Without my name on the paper of course. The paper was published a few month after I left, so they probably started to work on it immediately after I left.

Most (if not all) conversations were done verbally, so I don't have any proof that I am the original author, and I also don't know any authority that I can go to and explain the issue.

What bothers me is if I publish the paper now (even in a broadened version of it) it would look suspicious to an external observer, as if we (together with ex-coworkers) are trying to overuse and multiply a single result or even worse that I'm plagiarizing over their work. As we are in the same institution and had previously coauthored some works, nobody will believe similar papers are a coincidence or a an independent inventions. (And they would be right. It's not.) I think that in the worst case it can destroy my reputation and career, or maybe it's a non-issue and I'm worrying too much.

I can see several possible extensions and further research paths to the paper. But if I'll try to develop these ideas and publish an advanced version of the paper, there is no guarantee that they aren't doing the same. They could even had already submitted them somewhere. And if I submit my version, the reviewers may reject it because of its similarity to theirs. This again can be devastating to me.

What options I have, as I see it:

Pretend I don't know about their work, and publish mine as fully original, without citing them. Even if it's still a more general view on the subject and I know I'm the original author, it doesn't seem ethical to me. And we're still in the same institution, what make things worse.
Do more research, make more advanced paper and cite them accordingly. But they may even have submitted an advanced version somewhere. I can't be sure if I'm overlapping with them or not.
Change the field of study completely to not overlap with them in the future. Seems to be an overreaction.
Change the institution and then publish. Will it help? I'd still be their co-author-in-the-past. Seems not to be a solution at all.
Mention them in the acknowledgements. Thank them for praising my work, and cite them through a footnote. After all, what acknowledgements are for if not to thank your colleagues? But I doubt any editor will let it pass.

TL;DR Several of my ex-coworkers rushed to publish my ideas as their own while I was working on these ideas. I worry that my future publications on the theme would overlap with theirs and be considered a plagiarism.

So what should I do? Am I right that my wrong actions could possibly damage my reputation and career?

UPD. Thank you for your answers, I see that I have to cite the paper by the old department researchers (still not sure how: through a regular citation or a footnote in the acknowledgements), but I'm not really convinced and just want to be sure that I would not get into any (more) trouble if I'll continue to do research on the topic (especially in the case when editor/reviewers will get similar papers from different people with the same affiliation). Maybe someone has had such an experience as a reviewer?

Option 2 is the right one.  Do more research that builds on the ideas, advance the field more, and publish that, citing the first paper appropriately.  Maybe they're also doing further work and advancing the field and will publish that too.  If so, great!  That's how science works.  People publish papers and then they and/or others continue building on it.

While the authors of the first paper could have included you in the acknowledgements, the fact that you had talked about ideas with them isn't necessarily enough to warrant authorship and you certainly can't make the statement that "I am the original author." Unless you're accusing them of plagarism, one of the main points of free exchange of ideas within academia is so that somebody can build on those ideas and develop them out into a publication.

Imagine going to a conference and discussing ideas with people (incl. those from other institutions) and then somebody takes one of those ideas back and does all the work that's needed to develop it into a formal research contribution.  They publish it, great.  Then you read the paper in a venue for your field and build on the work, citing it and extending it further.  That's basically how it's supposed to work.

  nobody will believe similar papers are a coincidence or a an independent inventions. (And they would be right. It's not.) I think that in the worst case it can destroy my reputation and career. Or maybe it's a non-issue and I'm worrying too much.

Yes, I think you're worrying too much.  It's fine that you had some conversations with colleagues exchanging ideas, and then cited a paper they published, in your own new extensions of the work.  It is even possible for you to have extensions that are similar to extensions they may be now independently developing.  If your colleagues did a good job of making the path forward from the last paper clear (to an expert in your field), it wouldn't even be that surprising if one or more others were doing a similar extension elsewhere.  Credit your colleagues' publication and move the work on.

If you're concerned about duplicating efforts in expanding the work, you could consider whether or not you want to formally collaborate with your former colleagues on doing that expansion.  Maybe they just figured you weren't interested or didn't have time when you left, but would appreciate having you on the team for further work (if they're still working on it); it seems they like the ideas you have to offer.
It's also possible they don't even know that you feel offended, especially if they're under the impression that these ideas were generally percolating in the department for a while before they actually did the work for that paper.  They may have discussed the ideas with other people in advance, who are in a similar position to yours, some of whom may still be in the department, and some of whom may just feel happy that somebody actually did that work.  It'll be your decision about whether you perceive enough of a breach of trust to prevent future collaboration or not.

I have experienced a similar situation, however with the important difference, that I could proove others plagiarizing me by various written drafts that dated back to before others came out with the idea.
Nevertheless I could proove the idea to be mine, it was not the same as if there were no other publications on this subject.

But maybe you could do the following:
Neither pretend to not know of their work nor mention them in the aknowledgements but continue self-confident and try to find some nuances where you can broaden it without doing a lot more research.

This would raise your work above the work of the others and gives the clear impression that you do know more on that subject.


How important is seeing the face of the instructor? So, I am yet to make up my mind on which is a superior mode of teaching in flipped classroom videos:

Khan academy type model where you see slides or a digital drawing board and only listen to the instructor.
Or a video in which you see the instructor communicating with you. Maybe in one third of the video and the rest of the screen real estate is focused on graphics, video etc.

Let us assume that you have a superb communicator in both cases.

Which model is superior? Have there been any studies in this field?

I cannot cite studies, but extensive anecdotal observation (maybe 5,000 undergrad students, 500 grad students) suggests that about 1/4 of students do not need, or do not care, about the person who is the instructor. But a vast majority, perhaps 3/4, do care. There is a sense of needing/wanting reassurance from a person, and caring about the insights of a person. The lack of this need/want comes in (at least) two very opposite forms: obviously the oblivious/incompetent failure to see what's going on, but also the relatively-very-competent student who scarcely needs or wants reassurance and has better ways to spend their time. The middle ground seems not to exist.

So, operationally, for almost all purposes, the person who is the teacher matters, whether or not they are a truly wonderful teacher (as long as they're not completely inert as a human being).

(The "funny case" is the few students, both at undergrad and graduate levels, who for some reason expect/demand the teacher to be an automaton, reciting a text, not looking at students, not caring about students, not contributing, not critiquing, not improving. Yet they come to class rather than read the book? Maybe in anticipation of "books on tape", to have the classic text read to them out loud, in a room with other people?)

(The aspect of trusting in the expertise of the instructor seems, sadly, less relevant than the mandated understanding of their "authority". Tsk.)

Audio stimulates one sense, video stimulates two. One sense may suffice for some material, but not for others. Equally, one sense may be necessary, e.g., some material thrives as a podcast, but wouldn't as a video. For highly technical content, I'd need video to provide information rich visuals to support the audio, others could perhaps digest the material with just the audio. (Albeit, I suspect the video's audio wouldn't suffice for many and audio-only delivery would require audio to be prepared for that purpose.)

Note: A comment suggests the OP is not comparing video lectures to audio-only lectures. Yet, the title (How important is seeing the face of the instructor?), bounty (...additional effort and bandwidth needed for showing the instructor...), and question body (only listen[ing] to the instructor vs. a video) suggest differently. Nonetheless, the comment is plausible. Perhaps the OP can clarify.


How to motivate students you supervise to produce high-quality research when other graduate students in the program don't? I have a good friend who is in his first year as an assistant professor right now, having earned his PhD last year.

He is frustrated because in his new department, standards for graduate student research seem to be lower than what he was used to in his PhD department. Some PhD students in his new department graduate without ever publishing anything (which is not usual in our field). The theses that students in his new department produce would be considered at the level of a good bachelor's thesis in his old department. The graduate students all work fewer hours and are less productive during their working time than what he is used to.

I suspect this is a common problem, since many people who land tenure-track academic jobs end up in a department that's ranked lower than the one where they earned their PhD.

Assuming the graduate students he supervises are actually capable of more, how can he motivate his students to work harder and produce better work when other students in the program don't? Is it realistic to even try?

This is, as you say, a common problem. It certainly is realistic to try to get more out of your students than the other faculty. However, depending on how substantial the gap is between the norm and your expectations, getting into a better school may turn out to be the only realistic and sustainable way of aligning goals and reality. If the statement that the PhD theses in the new school are like bachelor theses in the old school is not just hyperbole, this may certainly turn out to be the case for your friend.

  how can he motivate his students to work harder and produce better work when other students in the program don't?

Step 1 is certainly to figure out why they should work harder than their peers (who still graduate!) in the first place. It's likely that your friend never really gave this much thought, because in his old school, working your ass off was simply what PhD students do. Here it isn't, so he needs to find a motivator that works for them. The two solutions offered by Brian (tell them that they won't find an academic job if they don't publish, and show them what cool things they could be doing) are good, but they will work only if they actually have aspirations to stay in academia, or respectively have substantial internal drive to do good research. Both may have been a given in the old school, but not necessarily so in the new one. Other potential motivators may include:

Getting to see nice conference venues (don't laugh - this works much better than you think as a motivator)
Serving as a stepping stone for a cool industry internship, e.g., at Microsoft.
Finding a problem that they personally really want to solve, i.e., real curiosity-driven research.
Bonuses! Most likely difficult to implement in  many universities, but depending on his financial capabilities, there should be some goodies that he can offer in exchange for going beyond the work of peers. It does not need to be a super-formal, but knowing that the students that work hard and get published are also the ones that get new laptops first is certainly a motivator for some students.

The most important step is really to start giving it a thought why they should be working hard in the first place, rather than lamenting why they don't.

Step 2, and strongly connected to Step 1, is then to find the right students. This was again something he has maybe not given too much thought, as in his old school most students were good to excellent. In his new school, there are almost certainly also people for which some of the above motivators will work and compel them  to produce good research, but he will need to identify and actively recruit them to his cause. The most important part of this is to make clear that things in his lab are different than in the rest of the department. Students are not graduating without papers. Students are expected to work on their research X hours a week, for whatever a realistic X is, and so on. If this is the message that your friend is communicating plausibly, most of the students will stay far away from working with him, but that is ok - he does not want those students anyway. However, even at a weaker school, there are likely going to be students who are dissatisfied with the status quo and who are actually going to be appealed by your friend's less lenient approach to PhD school, especially once he builds up a track record of students actually going beyond the norm in the school.

Step 3 is going to be the most difficult, but maybe the most important, step. He then needs to meet his students half-way. Despite all of the above, he is still not going to be working at a top-tier research university. That means he will need to re-evaluate his expectations on his students and the papers they produce. This may include both, quality and quantity of results. He needs to realise that it actually is much harder for his students to produce good work in this environment than what it was for him. He likely had a stimulating and high-competition environment to work in. They just have him, and maybe one or two other more ambitious students. All the other students (who plan to graduate without papers) are frankly more of a distraction than support for them. All the other faculty are simply of not much help. At the end, he may be ok with his students not, or not immediately, submitting to the very best venues. Instead, he needs to ease them into it (without teaching them bad practices). In computer science, a good way may be to initially submit to workshops at the top conferences. This is allows students to go to the top conferences and see what the work is like that is published there, but getting a paper accepted at those workshops is achievable for most students given a little supervision. Really, the core in  this step is to get away from the mindset that is common at top schools that only the very best publication venues are good enough.

What is also important in this step is the right kind of expectation management. Telling stories about your friend's old lab may be a good way to reframe the expectations his students have on how a PhD works, but he needs to pick his time and place. For instance, when his first student gets a paper in the major conference of the field, this is a big deal and should be celebrated as such. This is certainly not the right time to let everyone know that in his old lab they had papers in this conference every year for the last decade.

Finally, Step 4 is to make alliances within the faculty. It is  likely that there are other (younger?) faculty in the department that are also not happy with how the department currently operates. They won't be able to turn the department as a whole around, but it will certainly be easier to improve their own labs if they share their experiences. From a motivational point of view, it is also a good idea to try to socially align the labs of the higher-aspiration professors more tightly - if your students are friends primarily with the students of the other faculty who expect their students to actually work, it will be much easier for your students to keep up motivation. Ways to achieve this include joint  social events or retreats, joint talk series, and of course, if possible, joint research and publications.

I am a PhD student and thereby not qualified to answer the question in the intended spirit of the OP. Still I feel an urge to express my opinions in a general context since I find no logical explanation that negate the following. Assuming that the student is interested in the subject, I would advise an enthusiastic student that there are 3 major ways that you would loose your motivation.

1. Anxieties of the Past.

Thinking about something negative happened in the past and worrying that it will happen again. E.g. I had failed to understand General relativity even though I tried 3 times. I am going to fail again.

2. Anxieties of the Future.

Thinking of what to say in my Nobel prize speech in the middle of a Gaussian curve fit.

3. Anxieties of the Present.

Thinking of the numerous parameters to be given for the fitting function, leaving the data untouched from morning to afternoon. After noon, its lunch and I need some rest.

I would advise my student to block these while doing your work, think of what need to be done now, never lose your energy thinking of the results that are yet to come in the future and concentrate all your efforts for the single piece of work that you are doing and thus results will be excellent.


Meaning of undergraduate, graduate or post-graduate in US Trying to figure out the difference between these. I've lost completely as different source/answers interpret it differently. Does anyone have clear understanding about what does undergraduate/graduate/post-graduate student mean in USA?

I've seen this nice timeline in other question however answers are still controversial.

As well, trying to figure out who the hell am I - I have a Bachelor in Computer Science, Master in Computer Science and another Master in Business Information Systems. Is that graduate or post-graduate? Also, I'm not a student anymore.

Part of the confusion may be that these adjectives are used in (at least) two different contexts: to describe degrees and to describe students.

An undergraduate degree generally means a bachelor's degree (B.S., B.A., etc): a degree requiring about four years of university-level study beyond high school.
A graduate degree or post-graduate degree is any higher degree that has a bachelor's degree as a prerequisite, such as a masters or doctoral degree (M.S., M.A., M.F.A., M.B.A,. Ph.D., etc.)  Depending on context, this term may also include professional degrees (J.D. for law, M.D. for medicine, D.D.S. for dentistry, D.V.M. for veterinary medicine, etc).
An undergraduate student (or simply an undergraduate, or colloquially, an undergrad) is a student who does not yet have an undergraduate degree, but is studying to earn one.
A graduate student or post-graduate student (or colloquially, a grad student) is a student who already has an undergraduate degree and is studying to earn a graduate degree.

So in general, the adjectives graduate and post-graduate are synonyms.  This may seem contradictory (since you might expect post-graduate to refer to something after graduate) but that is how it's used.  I understand this as coming from the fact that a post-graduate degree is something that you work toward following your graduation (i.e. the moment when you earn your undergraduate degree).

My impression is that people within academia generally prefer the term graduate to post-graduate in both contexts; the word post-graduate is used more often by non-academics, to whom the word graduate is more likely to seem ambigiuous.

So you could say you have an undergraduate degree and two graduate degrees.  You could also describe your degrees as post-graduate degrees for further clarification, which would normally be needed only when speaking to someone not intimately familiar with academia.

A graduate is seen as someone who has successfully met the requisites for qualification on an undergraduate course and has been awarded their certificate of graduation.


How much of my ongoing unpublished research should I disclose to others? As part of my PhD, I have already published a paper and am working to expand it further. Recently, a PhD student (who I didn't know) from another university contacted me regarding my paper. He showed interest in the paper and the direction that I'm working on, wanted me to explain it further and, if possible, share the framework that I developed and used for experiment so that he could use it for his own research.

Although I like to help him as it will be nice if we can come up with some collaboration, I'm afraid that it might turn into an competition instead if he decides to pursue the same direction as mine alone. Since I'm still working on it without any concrete result, it is possible for him to solve it first and publish papers. I'm not saying that he might steal my ideas/tools since he can put my name in an acknowledgement.

So, my question is to what extent I should share or disclose my current research which is in progress.

Great question! I found myself in similar situations as a student and likewise as a mentor for other students when talking with people working on similar topics.

A favourite quote of mine is from George Bernard Shaw:

  “If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”

I believe this is an ideal philosophy for research in a sense that ideally, everyone should gain from the free exchange of ideas.

However, as you gain experience, you realize that it can be just an ideal.

My first experience concerning the cost of openly sharing results was when I was a PhD student. Early on, I had the basics of what seemed like an important result for the community and had some initial results. My supervisor urged me to try and publish but the paper was borderline rejected from the conference with comments like "nice idea but still too early". I thus published it as a poster in the informal proceedings. In the meanwhile, my supervisor and I had been in conversation about how to progress further, get more results and mature the work. He presented the poster, spoke with various people and told me that he had had lots of interesting conversations: lengthy conversations with two senior researchers in particular.

I continued working on the problem. My supervisor and I had some difference of opinion on the direction the work should go in (theoretical vs. applied CS basically). We got bogged down in some theoretical questions where I felt the impact could be on simplifying the problem and working on the applied side. I missed the next deadline for the conference in our area but lo and behold, two papers were published that pretty much had developed the applied side of the idea. I read the two papers and realized that both had, in parallel, at the same venue, developed the ideas I had been working on ... with one or two interesting side observations. Both works were from groups of the two senior researchers my supervisor had talked to. One cited my informal/preliminary results as an inspiration, the other didn't cite it at all.

Four years later, the first paper now has 175 citations in Google Scholar, the second paper has 100, my paper has 41. I published a later paper on the topic that's doing a little better, but for sure, the early birds had taken the worm.

In part I'm happy that the idea was developed and they did add new ideas, and I've worked on various things since, but I honestly still regret not having formally marked the idea further before my supervisor exposed it. I also regret not being more urgent in getting the full work published.

This is not to suggest that you should stay tight-lipped at conferences or turn down all collaborations, but if you're worried about someone entering into competition with you, you might want to listen to that concern. I don't think it's at all unreasonable to not share every idea you have when you attend a conference. There are plenty of anecdotes of tight-lipped researchers: for example, nobody knew what Andrew Wiles was working on for several years while he was working towards a proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.

If you think the person is someone you can trust and someone who could help in a collaboration, listen to your gut. Test the water and see how knowledgeable they are or how they could contribute. Be careful if you have co-authors, not to talk about their ideas. If you want to collaborate, perhaps publish a technical report or a pre-print to mark your ideas first.

If in doubt, you don't have to tell them about your ideas straight away. Maybe stay quiet for the conference and email them later if you think you want to work together or to tell them about your ideas.

Did he offer you something interesting about his research? Just wait until you have finished and published. Then you can send him a copy.


Would an international student A in the US helping another international student B in Europe cheating be punished by US university? I have a quick question about a hypothetical situation:
An international student A in the US helped another international student B in the Europe finish the entire several homework assignments and an entire final exam. And now, the A has every evidence and chat files, and he wants to report the non-compliance of code of integrity to the European university of student B.
Would student A be punished since he helped student B finish the homework and exam? In this case, student A did not violate any discipline of his university in the US and the laws of the United States. Would student A still be punished by his university or by the law of US?

You seem to assume that the academic honesty rules at a university will always stipulate that dishonesty only counts as being against the rules if it occurs at that university.  That is a dangerous supposition to make.  Many universities have academic misconduct policies that refer broadly to collusion, cheating, and other forms of misconduct, without stipulation that the misconduct must occur in relation to an assessment at that university.  In such cases, there would be a genuine argument over the proper scope of the policy, and whether it may apply to instances of misconduct in relation to assessments at another university.
Just to give you an example of this, here is the present Academic Misconduct Rule at my University.  Section 6 of the policy provides that "It is academic misconduct if a student: (a) in relation to an assessment: (i) cheats; ... (iii) improperly colludes with another person; or (iv) acts, or assists another person to act, dishonestly or unfairly in or in connection with an examination...".  While the policy certainly only applies to students enrolled at my University, you can see that it does not specify that the assessment in question must be an assessment at the University.  Likewise, Section 2 of the policy, which sets its scope, provides that "This instrument applies to all students of the University."  Again, observe that it does not specify that the instrument applies only with respect to acts undertaking in relation to assessments and other matters at the University.
If student A were a student at my University (subject to the linked rules), I think there is a reasonable chance that his actions here would be considered to be a breach of this policy.  The student would of course have an opportunity to argue over whether the policy applies to an assessment at another university, and they would probably argue that this should be implied, irrespective of the specified scope.  Perhaps they would convince the academic misconduct committee of this (such that their conduct is considered out-of-scope) or perhaps they would not.  I would think that most academic staff would be concerned about this behaviour, and would be reluctant to consider it out-of-scope.

Given that student A won't personally gain anything from doing this (only hurting student B), I think it is wise for A to wait at least till he graduates (and better, gets a job). If B were to report A then A's university wouldn't do anything since A already graduated.
The reason for this is that it would be too much hassle for A's univeristy to try to take his degree away, and this would probabily be seen as too much punishment in any case (A obtained his degree fairly, after all). If A's university really decided to revoke his degree, then he could probably fight it in court successfully with a decent lawyer (again, due to it being such an extreme disciplinary action for such a minor offence). This would also give A's uni bad publicity.
Also, even if A's degree were to be revoked, he still has access to his decree certificate and transcript, and this would be enough proof for most employers (most companies don't have the time to call every new hire's uni to confirm their degree is authentic). Plus, if A is already working, his employer won't be constantly checking whether his degree gets revoked. Even if they did check, they wouldn't fire A if he is performing well in his job.
It would be more risky for A if he pursues further study instead of work as then A's new university could take some action against him (assuming B finds out what A's new uni is or B tells A's old uni and A's old uni then pass this on to A's new uni).
In conclusion, the risk to A after graduating is negligible, and even if he did it while still attending university himself, it would be very unlikely for his uny to take any MAJOR action against him. It would be up to A to decide whether he wants to run the risk of having to do a small penalty like taking an academic integrity course or just getting reprimanded.


What does "awaiting EIC decision" mean when it occurs immediately after "awaiting reviewer selection"? I submitted a paper to a top journal last week. At first, the status showed "awaiting AE recommendation". A few days ago, it was changed to "awaiting reviewer selection". So I thought it passed the associate editor's evaluation and now they were looking for reviewers. Even yesterday the status was still "awaiting reviewer selection", but today it was changed to "awaiting EIC decision". What does this mean? Does this mean that the AE changed his/her mind and recommended to desk reject my paper and put forth his/her recommendation to the editor?

Sometimes tracking systems do not work very well and a change of status could mean nothing. Since I am a pessimist person I would give the same interpretation as you, but it is impossible to know. The wait is frightening but in this case is all what we have. Good luck!

Usually, the handling editor (or whatever name they have in the journal’s system) handles a paper in one go, which typically includes:

They decide whether the paper is actually a good fit for the journal or they want to desk-reject the paper.
They decide whether anything needs to be done before sending the paper to peer review.
They select the peer reviewers.

Now, an editorial management has to somehow summarise that you are waiting for this step. A good compromise between precision and conciseness would arguably awaiting potential reviewer selection or awaiting editorial assessment, but there are also journals who call this just awaiting reviewer selection.

Thus the interpretation that suggests itself would be that the handling editor did find out something that has to be decided upon first. If you hadn’t already passed a step called awaiting AE recommendation, the handling editor recommending desk rejection would indeed be my best guess. Apart from that it could be something trivial like you botching a figure or the list of citations.


How should I deal with becoming discouraged as a graduate student? I am a third year (starting fourth year in the fall) PhD student in mathematics. I've passed all qualifying exams and am currently doing research. As far as I can tell, I am not doing poorly. I have the good fortune of having a great advisor, being in a very supportive department, and having friends and family who genuinely care about my success.

The fact is research is hard. It appears to consist primarily of staring at a problem for days and days and days without getting anywhere. Sometimes, rarely, I do figure something out and that feels wonderful, but the overwhelming majority of my time appears to be spent banging my head against a mostly figurative wall. I am not complaining about the material being hard, and I am not averse to putting in hard work, but I get frequently discouraged when I realize the vast volumes of mathematics that I yet know nothing about (and probably never will). It's very hard to quantify progress - in particular, there are too few tangible returns after too many hours worked. I find myself thinking along the lines of "Oh, if only someone actually smart were thinking about this problem they would have solved it in moments" and so on.

I've talked about this to some number of people; here is some advice I have received:

Take a day off. Putting in hours upon hours of trying things doesn't magically lead to a solution, particularly if the brain is tired and just wants to sleep.
Have a hobby. Since math research doesn't exactly provide instant gratification, a hobby might provide some instead.
Talk to other graduate students. Realize that many graduate students go through this.

I'm interested to know how other folks have dealt with being discouraged as a graduate student. Does it get better with time and experience? Is this a sign that research is not for me and that I should seriously consider a life outside academia?

The fact is research is hard. It appears to consist primarily of staring at a problem for days and days and days without getting anywhere. Sometimes, rarely, I do figure something out and that feels wonderful, but the overwhelming majority of my time appears to be spent banging my head against a mostly figurative wall.

Yes.  This.  And it wouldn't be so damn tempting if those bricks didn't wiggle just a little bit every time I slammed my forehead into them.  Sometimes I think my eyes must be playing tricks on me, what with the repeated cranial trauma and all.  But then I remember how good it felt the last time my head actually went through the wall, and so I keep plugging away.

I've found it extremely useful to have two or three walls to bang my head against at any given time.  Surprisingly, sometimes banging my head against one wall actually makes one of the other walls weaker.  But most walls prove considerably stronger than my head; so it's helpful to have options, so I don't feel so bad about walking away with some scalp intact.

If you're very lucky, one good smack on the bricks will actually bring the ceiling crashing around your ears.  That takes a long time to clean up, but sometimes the debris will knock down other walls for you.  And then you have a whole new set of even bigger walls to bang your head against!

  I find myself thinking along the lines of "Oh, if only someone actually smart were thinking about this problem they would have solved it in moments" and so on.

Do not listen to the Impostor Syndrome.  Everyone "actually smart" is hearing exactly the same voice in their head saying "Oh, if only someone who actually knew how to hit walls with their forehead hit this wall, it would come down like a stack of cards." when in fact the wall really is made of brick.

  Does it get better with time and experience?

Yes.  Eventually, you'll move from hoping that you'll be able to knock down a wall with your head someday, to being surprised at how often the walls you hit with your head actually fall, to finally believing that you really can knock down walls with your head sometimes.  (For me, the second transition happened some time after tenure.)

But your head will still hurt.

Obviously research is difficult but the gratification, though not instant, is worth the effort in the end. Problem solving requires you to bang your head on the proverbial wall. You have to experience failure because working through an obstacle builds resilience. Resiliency stems from your beliefs & attitudes about yourself and your experiences.

  Does it get better with time and experience?

Yes, it does. You learn how to cope with not finding the answer. You will also stretch your brain to find other ways of arriving to the answer. As you progress in your career & continue to build your knowledge base you will have more information to pull from when you get "stuck."

  Is this a sign that research is not for me and that I should seriously consider a life outside academia?

I would advise exploring other options not because "research is not for you" but because it is necessary to see what life is like in the industry. Then after having experienced both you can make an educated decision. Furthermore, nothing is set in stone. You could start in academia and then move to industry or the reverse.


How important is outreach for applying to tenure track professor position? I often see outreach listed in the CVs of professors, which makes me believe that doing outreach is beneficial to advancing a professors career. What I'm wondering though is if this is only import for going from assistant professor to associate professor or if outreach can also be beneficial to securing a tenure-track professor position. I find this is especially important to know since most universities limit the page numbers of a CV submitted during the application process, so I'm not sure if an outreach section is beneficial or detrimental (since it would mean removing another part of the CV).
What is the overall thought across different fields (I'm in Physics but curious if the same thoughts are held in Chemistry, Mathematics, Computer Science, etc.) on the importance of outreach when applying for tenure-track professor position?

Pertinent to academia, I think of outreach as activities that bring academic subject matter and/or expertise to a community audience, often an audience that is under-served.  Activities might include lectures or presentations to community audiences presented in laymen’s terms about subjects that are esoteric but interesting; interacting with elementary students to make a topic (like programming) more understandable or to engage them in the scientific process; mentoring high school students doing a science fair project.  There are others.
The degree to which describing involvement in outreach might help an application for a tenure-track position may depend on factors specific to the institution and its values; the teaching responsibilities of the assistant professor position; and the degree of prior involvement in outreach.  For example, a university that has a stated commitment to the community in which it resides might place high value on prior involvement in outreach because outreach aligns with the values of the institution.  If the specific department has an outreach program (e.g., it holds regular coding camps or has a formal affiliation with an elementary school) prior involvement in outreach might strengthen the application because it demonstrates experience relevant to the department.  Outreach that has involved interactions with students at any level may be more important when the Assistant Professor position will involve teaching undergraduates because it provides some evidence of prior experience in teaching/interacting (hopefully) positively with young people.  But the outreach should be clearly and unambiguously meaningful.  “I spent 1 week as a counselor at a math camp” probably doesn’t help and may hurt.
Finally, in a space-constrained CV, description of outreach should not displace documentation of specific requirements of the position (e.g., education, research experience, involvement in professional societies, publications/presentations.)
The goal of the CV should be to “market” yourself for the position.  If you’ve documented what needs to be documented and documenting outreach might help your application, include it.

Your application should present the clearest possible brief picture of who you are and why you are a fit for the job you seek.
Some schools will value a professor's interest in connecting to a larger community than their professional specialty, both for new hires and for promotion. I suspect few would think it negative.
Your question suggests that outreach is a part of how you see yourself professionally, so you should look for jobs where that is welcome, even expected.
A line or two in your cv and perhaps a paragraph in your cover letter won't use up a lot of real estate.


Why does a UK university need to know my sexual orientation and religion? I want to apply to a postdoc position at a UK based University.

They want me to fill a "Equal Opportunities Data" form with questions about my marital status, sexual orientation, religion and race. Why do they need that? Will there be any consequences from not specifying these?

Will the employing professor have access to the data?

The employing professor will not have access to this data.
You can omit anything in this form.
The data from this form goes to HR and is aggregated there so they can prove to auditing bodies that the staff distribution is not skewed (i.e. that they are not discriminating on basis of whatever)

So they can prove that they aren't discriminating against non-majority race/sex/orientation individuals. The unfortunate bit is that this means they must prioritize anything in the non-majority r/s/o category (usually something rather specific, depending on the prevailing politics), which has the unfortunate effect of de-prioritizing folks who happen to fall into the category considered "the majority" (which is often a perceived majority and not an actual one, if a majority even exists).

Your professors or whoever else don't have access to individual information of this sort, it is used as an aggregate for central planning authorities. Isn't politics lovely?


Referee wants me to add a plot – because the paper has none Referee comments for my paper have just arrived:  while one makes some circumstantial and useful observations, the other asks me to add a plot:

  The paper still does not contain a single plot. I encourage the author to present some of their results in graphical form, which will greatly enhance the impact of this paper.

My paper regards some study of the flux of gravitational waves emitted in binary systems and is full of mathematical formulas.

While there may be a way to add a very cool and colorful plot to my paper, I don’t think it is necessary; it would be complicated to read and so I should add more text to explain how to read it.

I don’t want to add a plot. How should I respond to the referee?

While there may be a way to add a very cool and colorful plot to my paper, I don't think it is necessary, it would be complicated to read and so I should add more text to explain how to read it.

It doesn't seem to me that you have really considered the reviewer's request seriously. You seem to think they should just be able to follow the formulas without any visual, thus putting the onus on the readers to do the work of understanding your paper. The onus should be, instead, on you to explain your ideas in the clearest way possible -- and this will greatly improve the impact of your work, as the reviewer says.

I find it hard to believe that there isn't anything visual you can add that would be helpful, no charts, figures, or pictoral examples. When I read technical papers, I have found that visuals that go through an example in detail are almost always invaluable for understanding, regardless of the type of research (very applied or very theoretical, etc.) Are you sure that there is nothing you can add?

  The paper still does not contain a single plot. I encourage the author to present some of their results in graphical form, which will greatly enhance the impact of this paper.

You seem to have taken some offense that this was not a useful suggestion, but I find it very unlikely that this suggestion is not useful.

The Referee suggests adding a plot simply because the paper does not contain a single plot.  The Referee did not suggest that some specific information in the paper could be better presented using a plot. This is not useful feedback for a technical paper. You can respond by saying that you did consider adding a few plots, detailing exactly where in the paper, but that you ended up deciding against doing that, and then explaining why on balance the plot would make the paper worse.

What matters is that you can explain that the content of the paper is what it is for good reasons. So, plots are not included, not because you are too lazy to bother making plots that would likely make the paper a lot better, but rather because it would actually make the paper worse.

Technical papers don't need to look attractive, you don't need to catch the attention of readers using nice-looking figures and plots. It's unfortunate that there is now a trend where people do include figures for the wrong reasons in technical papers. Editors of journals don't act against this because figures add to the publication charges, particularly color figures.

Your audience are researchers who want to read your paper for the technical information contained in it. It's then best that the information is presented in a form that's most appropriate for them. If a plot were useful, then you would likely already have included a plot in your paper. If a potential reader would not have read your paper just because it doesn't contain a plot then obviously that reader is not doing serious research for which he/she needs to read your paper.

The logic of including plots to catch the attention of readers is therefore only appropriate when you're writing for a wider audience of people who are not directly involved in your research topic, for example in a review paper.


Computer Science vs Computer Graphics Masters I am an undergraduate student who wants to do research in computer graphics field. I would like to know how a computer science masters degree and a computer graphics and Game Technology (goes with similar names at different universities) would affect my future Ph.D. applications and career, upon graduating from the masters program.

At this point I should also mention that some of the "Computer Graphics and ..." master programs are 1 year long. (No thesis I assume?)

Thank you

I'd look at this a little like a wager on where you want to go in the future.

If you'd like to do a PhD in the future, then focus on the fundamentals will pay off. I can't think of a single PhD that wouldn't benefit from stronger research and math skills. Especially if you want to go on to a PhD, ensure that you're getting the background in research --- typically this will mean a focus on thesis based programs.

If you're unsure of where you want to go afterwards, be aware, that a good master's program in Computer Science, is unlikely to close any doors for you, whereas a focus on Computer Graphics may mean that it's more difficult to make the transition into a different field later should you decide it's not for you.

You've not said anything about where it is studied.  A handful of "ivy league" comp sci labs are the parking place where old ARPANET pioneers end up, and those might pass on useful undocumented procedures to their best students.  It is not by chance that the collection of protocols and permission changing routines used in an annual "The Facebook" were all in one place at one time.

At an upgraded sixth form college who've decided to rebrand their media studies and colouring-in creche staff as "computer graphics", you won't find out nearly as much as at a specialist massively-parrallel programming satellite of ATI reasearch division located at MIT.  Look up "Jeff Garzic".

What I'm saying is; look at industry links.  ex-Bell labs:MIT.  google:stanford, facebook:harvard and so on, and avoid anywhere which has no useful spinoff to swap interesting comp sci information with.  Define your interests and strengths, and choose from that where to apply to.


Accused of cheating due to the time accounted by Blackboard Since the exams this year for college is online, there is a timer. Usually, when I start an exam I click a random answer choice or what I think is right at that moment. Once I finish most of it, I go back to look it over.
I got accused of cheating since I answered the questions in 15 mins, and the system recorded that automatically once clicked, instead of recording the time of completing the whole set of questions.
When reviewing my answers after the 15 minutes, I realized I guessed correctly and there was no need to pick another answer. But I got accused since I finished so fast and so accurately.
We were allowed to use cheat sheets with equations and info, allowing me to finish so fast, so I do not understand why I am being accused. And some of the questions were similar to the homework which helped even more. So how do I prove that I did not cheat. It took me an hour and 9 mins to take the exam.
The only information that they kept repeating over and over again was the timing. I clearly stated that I did not look up anything and I had other tests to take the same day. i went over the review powerpoint which had very similar questions to the test once I started taking it. They flagged my test when they were looking for people that posted it on chegg.
There was no other allegation made besides the timing and I have all the proof that I did not cheat. The person telling me the allegation did not give me the chance to clearly defend my self.
Please help me prove that I am not cheating.

Unfortunately you can't prove a negative. You have been "caught" by a system that is insufficiently accurate to properly evaluate your actions (and those of many others).
All you can really do is insist (and keep insisting) to your professor that you didn't cheat and explain how you actually acted. If you don't get satisfaction then escalate the issue to higher authorities.
And keep insisting. People have an obligation to be fair.
A recent article in the Washington Post explores how badly online testing systems are performing. While the article focuses on fully automated systems, the problem is much wider, even when human "proctors" are used in conjunction with webcams. In my view the real problem is in trying to apply solutions from a different era into the current pandemic/online situation. Those solutions no longer work and the workarounds are badly failing. They make assumptions that are not valid given the range of normal human actions.
Any cheating detection system, automated or not, needs to have the property that it produces zero false positives. The meeting is part of that system and should assure that you aren't accused wrongfully. But it isn't well understood that a system permitting no false positives will almost invariably produce some false negatives. But the consequences of error in a cheating detection system are so asymmetrical that such a rule is required.

Artificial Intelligence is certainly artificial but it is definitely not intelligent.

Note that I hesitated to edit this after so many votes had been cast, not wanting to invalidate decisions made already by users. The advice remains the same. Insist that you didn't cheat and stick with it.

Exactly how are you accused of cheating?

I got accused of cheating since I answered the questions in 15 mins

As others have already noted, finishing a exam quickly is not cheating.  It could be a visible symptom of cheating, but it could caused by something else.  You provides one possible explanation:

I answered the questions in 15 mins, and the system recorded that automatically once clicked, instead of recording the time of completing the whole set of questions.  When reviewing my answers after the 15 minutes, I realized I guessed correctly and there was no need to pick another answer.

But you also provide one other small detail that has been overlooked by other answers:

They flagged my test when they were looking for people that posted it on chegg.

And later in a comment to buffy's top rated answer, you reiterate:

I got flagged at the same time as they were looking for those who posted the entire test online on chegg.

This seems to be a major point in the accusation, so I'll focus my answer on it.
An alternate explanation the university may believe for why you finished the exam quickly is that you were copying the answers from the chegg post; which would be rightfully considered cheating.
Others have noted that you can't prove a negative, but in this instance that may not be the case.  Quoting from Chegg's Honor Code:

Copying solutions or requesting unexplained final answers promotes completion without comprehension, which is something we don't support at Chegg.
Furthermore, you should be aware that in the event your institution contacts Chegg as part of an investigation into academic integrity, Chegg is authorized under our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy to cooperate fully in that investigation and we commonly do. This can include providing information to your institution about your user profile, account, site usage activity, and interactions with Chegg Tutors.

If the university really suspects you of using the answers posted on Chegg to finish the exam quickly, the burden of proof rests with them.  If the univeristy is not currently working with Chegg to determine if anyone viewed the answers, it might be beneficial to suggest that course of action instead of continuing to speculate.  Being cooperative in the process can only help determine the truth and clear your name more quickly.


Upset by male classmates openly comparing female students according to physical appearance I'm a female student studying computer science (CS). Some of the male CS students have given me a physical ranking compared to other female CS students, and it has me really upset, but I don’t know what to do about it.

One of the students in particular enjoys telling me when he finds another girl in the vicinity more attractive than me. For example, a girl friend of mine told me I looked pretty today; and the one male student then jumped in and said I wasn’t as beautiful as the actress on the TV show we were watching. Another time, an attractive girl walked in to the computer lab, and he said: “And you thought you were the hottest girl in the lab!”

He’s not the only one. When we are in other settings (not male-heavy, CS classes), I often hear that I now have “competition” since there are other pretty girls.

I’m not sure what to do. I am friends with some of these men (or so I thought) and have committed to working on software projects with them that I can’t back out of. In addition, the school is very small so I can’t avoid them.

What do I say? How do I explain that I’m very upset by this, and not because I’m jealous of the other women? The men I’ve told have said not to worry because they think I'm pretty – they don’t seem to get it. I’m not sure I’m explaining it right.

Please help. I am starting to cry during class.

You don't say where you're going to school but if it's here in the US, I would report the problem to the university and demand they do whatever is necessary to fix it.  Title IX requires them to provide an inclusive environment free of sexual harassment.  If you are unsatisfied by their response, I would report the school to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.  You'll find additional helpful advice here at equalrights.org.

Added:  Several comments express concern that reporting the harassment might result in retaliation.  But it's worth noting that retaliation for filing a harassment complaint is also against the law and cause for a new complaint.  The school has to do whatever it takes to fix this, even if means expelling the perpetrators.  It is not sufficient for them to claim they did the best they could.

Still more:  Having conducted some other disciplinary actions, even if not any that were exactly like the one described here, I would expect the result of complaining to the university is that the Title IX conduct officer will call the students to a meeting that might go something like this:  You start by asking the students if they know why they're there.  After the usual squirmy they-can't-think-of-anything denials, you describe their offensive behavior and ask if the reason they can't remember any of this is because they think it's such completely ordinary behavior.  You point out that in a workplace, it would get them fired and might subject the company to a lawsuit and an expensive settlement.  You explain that university has an obligation under Title IX to maintain an inclusive environment free of sexual harassment.

You then ask, "Do you think you should be allowed to stay at the university?"  Typically, the students' lives flash before their eyes as they realize the seriousness of the stakes and they decide they will never do this again.  There are lots of ways to make this even more, ahem, memorable, e.g., by asking if they have a backup career in mind if this computer science thing doesn't work out or by making them wait a few extra days to hear the disposition of their case (especially if you expect to let them off lightly).  It may seem a little like pulling the wings off flies, but trust me, the problem behavior will end, hopefully for the entire rest of their lives, in which case they will have learned something far more valuable than yet another algorithm.

Many years ago, in 1st year university, some wits on my residence floor decided to print up 100 Why Not? buttons in black on gold (Engineering Faculty colours), with the subheading Barefoot & Pregnant, at a price of $1.00.

Initially outraged, a floor in Women's residence decided to get even instead of angry. Having an economics major on the floor, they astutely noted that with a market established, value increased as supply diminished. So they promptly retaliated by printing up a measly 75 pastel blue on pink (Nursing School colours) buttons Why Not? - Henpecked and Impotent; at a price of $2.00.

Needless to say, the second batch of buttons sold out even faster than the first.

Revenge obtained, with good hearty laughs all around.

So, while you certainly have the right to resort to "the nuclear option" and engage university officials. may I politely suggest that perhaps there is a better first resort. You see, the ability to engage in friendly banter is an essential social skill in the workplace, and this is typically a verbal skill that women are actually better at than men.

Meet privately with your female colleagues, and rate all the men on a scale of 1 to 10. Then the next time anyone rates any of you, rate them back with a comment such as:

"Why thank you; my friends and I figure you for a ___."

You always retain the right to escalate to greater authority; but you might find that fighting fire with fire instead of gasoline builds a truly solid rapport with your male colleagues.


Difference between a letter/short article and a full length article? After 3 weeks from submission, I recieved the below email from the editor in chief of an applied math journal, asking whether I would consider changing my manuscript from full length article to a letter/short article, giving primary reason that the article length is short, so it would suit a short article/letter, and mentioning that the journal publishes short articles of high quality along with full length articles in all regular issues. I was asked to give my decison. I had a look at the letters/short articles of that journal from previous issues and found that they are no different, except in length. So I am not understanding the difference.

I am not able to interpret, whether I have been strongly adviced by editor, and that I better go with it. The editor already had that article with him for 3 weeks, so he might have had a look at it and might be giving strong advice. I also don't fully understand the difference between both modes of publishing.  Do these two have different academic values?

Email:

Dear Mr. XXXX,

I am writing to ask if you would consider to change your submission, XXXX, to a Letter from a Full Length Article. The reason for my request is based on the short length of you manuscript. XXXX Journal publishes short papers of high quality. Please let me know of your decision. The official review process will not proceed until we hear from you. Thank you.

Kind regards,

XXXX

Editor-in-Chief

In my experience, there is no real difference between "full" articles and "short" articles except for length.

Many journals, especially more recent online-only ones, do not bother with this distinction at all.  An article is simply as short or as long as the article turns out to be. Even with journals that do make the distinction, it often has little impact of the de facto length of the material once supplementary material is included---all that is affected is the fraction of the published "iceberg" that is "above water" in the main text. The peer review process is generally the same, and the perceived value the same, just simply some are shorter than others.

In terms of visibility and citations, short articles are typically just as visible (as you have noticed). I have never seen a citation attempt to distinguish between short and full articles, and most citation formats have no way that one could do so. For those who are affected by publication statistics (e.g., impact factor), that's not affected either: these are calculated by journal, not by article category within a journal.

In short: some things are just shorter than others, and that has little effect on their significance.  The editor thinks your article will work better in "short" than "long" format, so take their offer or risk rejection pointlessly.

A letter is to a particular party/individual/group if you will.

A short article could be a continuation of a news report/release/update.

A long article would be a presentation, body, and closing from beginning to end.


Ownership of a PhD Student's Research I am a PhD student in theoretical computer science. It is my understanding that if I work on a paper without my PhD advisor (which is common in my research area) and without any lab resources then that work is my own, and I can submit the paper where I choose. In particular, my advisor cannot force me to add them as a co-author if they have not contributed to the paper either intellectually or in the form of resources. Is this the most widely held view among scientists? What if the PhD student is an RA for 20 hours a week?

If your advisor hasn’t contributed anything to the paper intellectually then they can’t ethically put their name on a paper they didn’t contribute to. That has nothing to do with funding or RAships.

That said, what I described above is the ideal. Students are often under pressure to do what advisors say. Authorship is best discussed directly and if you have any issues you should speak with your advisor and establish standards in your group.

Theoretically

Unless you have signed some sort of agreement that states that any research you produce is the property of your advisor or university, papers you have written as an individual would be your own work to do what you please with it.

In Practice

It might not be too hard for your advisor/university to establish a contribution of resources that would warrant authorship/acknowledgements. Especially in super computing. (Unless you have your own super computer).

Keep in mind that the large majority of university professors do not advise students because they love mentoring students absent of any publications. Your advisor is your advisor because he/she wants to put his/her name on research produced by you. I know of no professor who advises students solely because they love teaching students. They want credit for your work, whether they contributed significantly to it or not.

With these thoughts on authorship in mind, it is feasible to believe that your advisor may not be super happy to allow you to independently publish research you produced. They will have significant leverage on your degree progress and funding. Act accordingly.


Would going to Teacher's College be useful, if my ultimate goal is to become a university math professor? I am close to entering the fifth year of a five-year Concurrent Education program. What the program involves is four years spent working on a bachelor’s degree, while “on the side” taking education courses and doing placements contributing to a bachelor of education and teaching certificate. The final year of the program is regular Teacher’s College, which is a combination of education/curriculum courses and, in total, about 14 weeks of placement.

I’ve thought about dropping the education part of the program a few times since it started, but stuck with it because it left teaching open as an option, while only requiring one education course and a 3-week placement each year (which is good experience anyway). About 2 years ago, I started considering going to grad school for math, but by the end of last summer, still wasn’t 100% sure, so I didn’t write the GREs. This year I took a graduate-level algebra course, and about halfway through, realized that grad school for math is definitely something I want to pursue.

As the deadlines for applying to grad schools had passed / were soon approaching, my plan then became to finish the program and get my teaching degree, and apply for math graduate programs this December/January for entrance in Fall 2017. Spending the next year in Teacher’s College, I’ve been thinking, might actually be a good thing, as a way to set me apart on applications for grad school and for jobs in the future, as well as a way to develop good teaching and other related skills. On top of that, it would leave teaching as a back-up just in case.

I would sincerely appreciate hearing the opinions of those who are in or who have been through graduate school in math. Do you think it will it be worth it, in terms of a future as a mathematician (ideally as a math professor), to finish the teaching program? I fear that the final year of this program will be painful for me, as it will require a lot of placements, which I already mostly dread. Alternatively, if I didn’t do Teacher’s College, I could spend the next year taking more graduate courses at my university, learn more math independently, focus on the GREs and honing my applications, and try to see if any professors at my university are willing to supervise me in some research experience before entering grad school for math.

In case it’s relevant, I come from a smallish university in Canada, which is probably not very well-known in the US, and I am graduating top of my class in math.

I’m sorry if this question is not general enough.

Spending the next year in Teacher’s College, I’ve been thinking, might actually be a good thing, as a way to set me apart on applications for grad school and for jobs in the future, as well as a way to develop good teaching and other related skills.

If you want to get into a research Ph.D. program in pure or applied math, this will do extremely little to set you apart.  Taking more graduate courses and doing well on the GRE (especially the math subject GRE) would certainly do more than education or curriculum courses.

The most basic reason for this is that Ph.D. programs are essentially only worried about your ability to complete research in that discipline.  Any life experience or preparation that isn't relevant to that is likely to be ignored.  I suspect education courses are particularly likely to not be helpful, since (at the risk of way over-generalizing), many mathematicians have a pretty low opinion of the way classes in education are taught.  I suspect, for example, actual experience teaching in a school would be more helpful.

Nobody in the university system gives a crap about your teaching ability (with rare exceptions from small liberal arts colleges which pay nothing). They care about how much money you can pull in and prestige- that means how many papers and grant proposals you can write, how well they are received by the community. Teaching isn't even secondary's as a concern in most places- tertiary perhaps at best.

Do you want to teach university math because you love teaching math or because you think it will let you live a life of puffing a pipe with tenure and doodling on paper? Because if you think either thing, you're in the wrong business.

Being a university professor is hellacious work involving very long hours and non-stop skull sweat as you desperately try to push yet another article out or get yet another grant. It is thankless because people don't know the work involved, and it is increasingly rare as ever more positions are replaced with much cheaper Adjuncts.

Go into the job because you are passionate about devoting yourself to math and have both the desire and ability to stand on your own. Go into it because you're fine with cramped offices, bad air conditioning, stained carpets, and students whining/arguing to get better grades CONSTANTLY even though they don't deserve them.

So, yea, don't bother with the teacher college. Unless you want to teach primary or secondary schools, in which case you need the license.

I'm sure there are those who will disagree with me, so I would finally suggest that you talk to some of your math professors, especially the younger ones more recently hired, about what went into getting their job and keeping it. Even if they ended up in what you describe as a tiny school, they will still describe the system pretty similarly I would bet. But ask nonetheless.

Be wary of older professors- many of them may simply have no idea what the field is like, having had tenure for 50 years. I had one math professor who was offered a position when he was still an undergrad about to graduate and stayed since the 1970s. Great guy, great professor, lousy source of information for this sort of thing.


How to dress for visit to math phd program for accepted students? How should I dress for my visits to math programs as an accepted student?  As if I were showing up to a job interview?  Shirt and tie?  Suit?

The visit seems nicely planned by the program - jam-packed with meetings and events with faculty and students.

(I'd guess that this visit would also be a great time to talk to faculty to see who could be a great match for me as an advisor.)

Math professors tend to be pretty casual dressers compared to those in other disciplines. Wearing khaki pants and a collared shirt (polo or button down) would put one towards the dressier end of the spectrum at most places, and jeans and a t-shirt / hoody are usually unlikely to cause one to stand out.

I think that if you were to wear a suit and tie to these events you’d stand out. Not in a negative way mind you, it’s just that all of the faculty members you’ll be interacting with will be dressed much more casually. If you wear jeans or khakis with a collared shirt and sweater then you’ll look like you put in some effort and are taking this seriously, but aren’t dressed up so formally that you stand out.

I would call the university and ask if they have any particular preference. However, let’s assume that they do not, I highly suggest that you wear the type of clothing that makes you feel the most confident. Mind you, you need to balance that notion with the fact that you are going to be at a university. But the underlying idea is that if you believe that you look good, you’ll feel good, and that will shine through in an interview.