How does the admissions process work for Ph.D. programs in the US, particularly for weak or borderline students? When applying to a PhD program in the US, how does the admissions process work? If an applicant is weak in a particular area, is it possible to offset that by being strong in a different area?

Note that this question originated from this meta answer. Please feel free to edit the question to improve it.

Please feel free to edit the answer to improve it.
Generally, PhD programs in the US have many more applicants than they can accept. The number of positions is limited by finances (a department can only afford a limited number of RAs and TAs), space and resources (students often need offices and access to equipment), and the ability to supervise the students (there is a limit to the number of PhD students a faculty member can effectively supervise). The admissions committee must decide which of the qualified applicants are most likely to be successful researchers while taking departmental politics into consideration. These politics include things like the start-up package for Professor X including a funded PhD student and a particular resource being already at capacity.
The admissions committee bases its decision on a number of pieces of information including GPA, GRE scores, statement of purpose, references,  interviews, and, for international students, TOEFL scores. There is no formula (e.g., 6×GPA + 1×GRE + 2×references + publications) by which applicants are ranked, but some universities and/or departments set minimum requirements (e.g., GPA over 3.0 or a TOEFL over 85). The admissions committee looks at the entire application to make an informed judgment. This means that being strong in one area can, and does, offset being weak in another area.
GPA and major/background
When admissions committees consider the GPA, they are considering a number of factors including the grades: the strength of the school and major, the types of classes, and trends. An applicant who did poorly in first-year general electives will be looked at very differently from a student who did poorly in advanced specialized classes. The major is not nearly as important as the relevant classes. For example, an engineering department might look more favourably on a math major who took and did well on, engineering and applied-math electives than an engineering major who took humanities electives. As with everything in the admissions process, the admissions committee is trying to judge the potential for research success.
Compensating for a low GPA and major/background mismatch
A low GPA can be offset by a strong research record highlighted in the SOP and letters of reference. The SOP and letters of reference can also be used to make the admissions committee aware of any extenuating circumstances that may have lead to the low GPA. Similarly, the SOP and letters of reference can be used to address how your major and background prepare you for research in the field that you are applying to. Strong GRE scores can also help offset a low GPA, and a strong GRE subject test can compensate for mismatches between majors. The best way to offset a low GPA or a mismatch in the area of specialization is to consider enrolling in a terminal master’s degree and getting a good GPA in difficult classes.
I would like to add that an excellent way of improving a low GPA is by taking a senior thesis course, which is almost always available. Not only is this a proven way of building close ties with one or more faculty members (who will supervise you in your thesis) and getting those strong, personalized recommendations, but it could lead to a publication, or at the very least, a technical report published by the department. My senior thesis experience was life-changing: I ended up doing a Ph.D. because it made me realize that I was a better fit for doing research than I might have originally thought. In terms of grades, getting a good grade on the senior thesis course is usually not difficult (especially since you’re not evaluated on an exam performance), assuming you put in the effort.
It is also important to think honestly about why certain grades are low, and what you would do differently in graduate school. Learning from failure is a crucial skill (see, e.g., Dweck’s research on growth mindset, as well as  her widely-read book). In fact, almost all academics have been rejected by some of the programs, fellowships, grants, and journals that they have applied for or submitted to, and many have even failed classes. Finding constructive ways to deal with negative feedback, rejection, and failure is crucial in academia.
Examine why you struggled or what went wrong and how you can address a problem like that in the future. How have you developed the knowledge and skills that would have helped you then? Depending on the kinds of problems you faced and the extent of their impact on your record, they may not be appropriate to mention in your SOP and through your recommenders’ letters, but the steps you take to address them might tell their own story. (E.g., perhaps you failed a class but then did research with a professor of the same subject; perhaps you had a rocky college record because you were immature or bad at planning, but you have now worked for five years in a responsible position at a lab.)
GRE
There are a number of limitations to the GRE in terms of predicting research success, but it is the only standardized metric admissions committees have access to. The weight given to the different sections of the GRE and the subject tests can vary substantially among departments.
Compensating for low GRE scores
A low GRE score can be offset by a strong research record highlighted in the SOP and letters of reference. The SOP and letters of reference can also be used to make the admissions committee aware of any extenuating circumstances that may have led to the low GRE scores. A strong GPA can also help offset low GRE scores.
A particularly effective way to offset a low GRE is to retake the GRE. In many regions of the world, the GRE General Test is offered year-round via computerized administration at a testing center, and your scores are given to you immediately upon completion.  Upon receiving a lower-than-expected GRE score, you can, and should, immediately register for another GRE exam and begin preparing. Because of the short turn-around time, any preparation you did for the previous GRE should allow you to prepare much more quickly this time.
You are technically permitted to take the GRE General Test once every three weeks, or five times a year. However, repeat testings are detrimental to your schedule, morale, and finances, so it might be best to keep taking the test only until you receive a satisfactory score that you feel will represent your target school's applicant criteria, not until you receive the best score you believe is possible for you.
Once you have received the score you are satisfied with, the ETS offers a service to allow you to selectively determine which scores you provide to schools you are applying to, called ScoreSelect. This way, you can present your best cumulative score to the applications committee without being concerned about an older test, or one where extenuating circumstances made you perform worse than expected.

After test day, you can send additional score reports for a fee, and select from these options for each report you'd like to send:

Most Recent option — Send your scores from your most recent test administration

All option — Send your scores from all test administrations in the last five years

Any option — Send your scores from one OR as many test administrations as you like from the last five years

You will select by specific test dates, so your scores are all from the same testing session.

This applies to both general and subject GREs:

The ScoreSelect option is available for both the GRE® revised General Test and GRE® Subject Tests, and can be used by anyone with reportable scores from the last five years.

Again, I want to add that, in my experience, the GRE (particularly the General GRE) is a ‘filter’, nothing more. In many cases, even low GREs will be considered and not automatically discarded. Most top admissions panels do not accept one candidate over another simply based on GRE. I know for a fact that some colleges don’t even require candidates to submit GREs. When I was applying to CS Ph.D. programs a few years ago, for example, I noticed that MIT did not require GRE scores to be submitted.
In some fields, the Subject GRE is given significantly more weight than the General GRE, and so a low Subject Test score can be more harmful to a borderline application.  Since the Subject Test is usually offered twice in the fall (September and October), it can be to your advantage to register for both sittings.  This way, you can mitigate a poor showing on the September sitting by a stronger showing on the October sitting;  and if the September sitting yields a satisfactory score, you can simply cancel your registration for the October sitting.  This tactic can also be used for the General GRE in those regions of the world where computerized testing is not available.
Statement of Purpose (SOP)
Make sure you understand the conventions and expectations around statements of purpose in your field.  In some fields, something fairly generic will suffice, and in others, it could be the decisive component of your application. Talk to professors in the field you trust about whether your approach to the statement of purpose is an appropriate one.
This is also the ‘fairest’ part of your application. If you’re passionate about the research you want to do, it will show up in your SOP unless you’re a poor writer (in which case, you might want to reconsider the Ph.D. until you’re a decent one; good writing/communication is essential for successful researchers). There are several proven techniques of getting a strong SOP. I'll detail some below, but be careful about your field, as these suggestions are definitely not appropriate in all cases. One approach you might take before you even start writing your SOP is to:

Select your research area and actively check out the profiles of relevant professors, post-docs, and grad students (in that order) at the schools you are thinking of applying to. Check out their publications, and try to read (or at least skim) one representative publication before you start forming an opinion. The goals of this step are three-fold:

It will give you a good idea of how productive a research group is, and whether a professor is even accepting (or currently has) students. This is closely tied to the funding situation of that professor.
It will make you more informed about whether you really want to join that research group. What looks interesting at the high-level is not necessarily as exciting once you get into the nuts and bolts of the research.
If you discover a really good fit (which is the best outcome of this exercise; trust me), you can use that in a big way in your application. In CS, for example, students often post their code or demos. Download those and tinker with them. Apply them to new datasets. Have fun with what’s available. I’m sure similar things can be done in other research areas.

Try to make contact with the faculty member of your choice. At the same time, also try to establish connections with the grad students. My adviser once showed me a list of potential Ph.D. candidates he was screening and asked me if by chance I’d heard of any of them. As it turned out, I did know one, through early contact. Needless to say, she got the position. The rest of her application didn’t even really matter at that point. Note that the reason you should do this step after Step 1 is to enable you to write an ‘intelligent’ note to the person you’re contacting. It’s a good idea to not mention that you’re applying at all in your early emails. Instead, try to start a conversation around the actual research. Show that you’re interested and that you know what you’re talking about. (The ‘know what you're talking about’ part is pretty important though!) Become a familiar name in that group.

Make sure to attend lots of talks by visiting faculty in your undergrad university. You don’t know where that will lead you. If someone’s talk influences you to pursue an area of research, that’s an excellent thing to reference in your SOP.

How does all this relate to the SOP? The SOP is your chance to show your committee that you did this and more. You can drop faculty names you’ve successfully contacted, and even reference papers. You can personalize each application. Most SOPs don’t cite even a single paper. Citing a paper though will move your application up another notch in the eyes of an academic committee, but only if you do it intelligently and appropriately.
Having reviewed certain applications, I would also like to mention one major flaw that shows up in the majority of the SOPs that get rejected. The SOP is not the document where you should get too personal. Don’t waste too many words discussing your childhood, or random thoughts you've had, or your theory of life. It's fine to state interests and hobbies and unrelated accomplishments, but make every word as objective (and verifiable) as you can. This is generally true, but especially so for STEM programs. Academics are impressed by crisp, concise writing.
The SOP is also your chance to explain negative experiences, such as poor grades, letters, or lack of research experience. This is a tricky balance. It is important to candidly and directly address your weaknesses: it looks very out of touch if you write an aggressive SOP but never mention your awful grades. At the same time, the SOP is not the place to do a lengthy post-mortem on your failures. You should tell a very simple, clear narrative: "I had personal and medical problems during my junior year, but my performance during the  other three years was very strong." If you want to give a concise reason ("my father died"), you may, but don't overdo it.
Compensating for a poor SOP
Compensating for a poor SOP is very difficult. A high GPA and perfect GRE scores will do little to help an applicant who has difficulties writing about research. In some fields, past research experience is expected, while in other fields the ability to write about research intelligently may suffice in convincing the admissions committee to admit you, even if you don’t have experience doing research. Strong letters of reference can, to some extent, address a weak statement of purpose. However, there is generally a strong correlation between the strength of letters of reference and past research experience. If you have no official research experience, try and get letters of recommendation from professors where you completed a class research project that got a good grade. Even if you didn’t do supervised research with the professor, the professor may be able to comment on your research skills and successes. Definitely contact the professor and remind them of your class project, and the grade you received. Summarize it, and attach the project to the professor so they can refer to it.
References
You’ll want at least one very strong reference for a top-ten program and in many cases two strong letters (three is actually quite a stretch). See my note above for how you can secure at least one very strong letter by doing a senior thesis. Try also to aim for at least one research internship during your undergrad. This could lead to a second strong letter from a researcher in your area. Letters from industry don’t usually have the same appeal for academics.
Compensating for bad reference letters
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Interview
Most STEM positions (physics, math) do not require an interview.
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Compensating for a bad interview
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TOEFL
Improve your English and retake TOEFL; generally, schools have minimum TOEFL scores, and taking a student whose English isn’t good enough can be a huge headache.  Some schools in the US will do phone/Skype interviews with prospective international students to get a sense of their English.
Meeting the minimum requirements
Every university/department handles the stated minimum requirements differently. Sometimes a hard threshold is used such that if an application fails to meet all the minimum requirements, it will not be considered at all. Other times, the threshold is soft, and applications that do not meet all (or some) of the minimum requirements will still be considered. If you do not meet the minimum, only the department you are applying to can tell you if you are eligible to apply.
Transferring graduate schools
If you have a poor undergraduate record, getting a master's degree might make sense. Good performance during a master's might make up for poor performance during undergraduate. On the other hand, master's degrees rarely provide funding and often require the student to pay tuition. Further, some doctoral programs prefer or require that students join right out of undergraduate. So, you will need to determine whether pursuing a master's makes sense given your goals. The other option is to take another year of undergraduate to retake coursework/exams and pursue research opportunities.
If you do decide to pursue a master's degree, some tips are to: pursue a research-based masters (not coursework-based), find an advisor who will be able to write you a strong letter of recommendation, and carefully address your experience during your own statement of purpose.
If you have a poor record during graduate school, it can be very difficult to transfer graduate schools. As reported here are, you must report your experience at the other graduate school; concealing your attendance could end your career. Beyond that, most of the advice above applies; however, it is even more important to craft a clear narrative that explains what went wrong and why things will be better at the new institution.

Short answer: Admissions is similar but not quite the same at each graduate institution and thus you should follow the guidelines as outlined by each school and department you are applying to. Dates and requirements may vary, but not by much. Yes, you are correct - the general practice in U.S. schools is that if a certain aspect of your application is weak, the strong components have the capacity to "offset" the weak areas. However, this is highly contingent upon whether the graduate school requires a minimum GPA and/or GRE score, as well as what parts of the application matter most to the program you are applying for.

Elaborating on the short answer:
Most U.S. undergraduate and graduate programs take on at least somewhat of a holistic approach, i.e. a focus on the overall prospective candidate, whereby one's application is considered for its overall content. For example, if your statement of purpose is very strong, it could offset a less-than-stellar GRE score. Within the U.S., it is often the case that your admissions application (as well as conditions for timely progress in your program after being admitted) have two different sets of requirements that must be followed: that of the graduate school and that of your prospective department. Therefore, when applying to schools, it is important to read up on both the graduate school and the department. The general graduate admissions application requirements might differ from your department's requirements in minute ways. For example, your application might not ask for a writing sample, but the department website states an expectation for a writing sample to be sent to the graduate coordinator's email.

Keeping in mind that each school (and program within the school) might consider applications differently because it is typically based on admission/approval from both the graduate school and the department you are applying for, many institutions not only state the application components but moreover will tell you the extent to which certain factors are weighted. Some graduate schools emphasize that they would prefer students with a GRE score of x or higher, typically with an asterisk that states that the GRE is one factor of many and students are still encouraged to apply even if they do not meet the desired score. This information is generally listed in the admissions FAQ section of the graduate school and/or department website(s). If the information is not provided, you can contact the department's graduate coordinator and/or prospective adviser on the matter.

Within the social sciences, the statement of purpose and letters of recommendation are arguably the most important components. If the program is writing intensive, it is likely that the verbal reasoning and analytical writing portions of the GRE might matter significantly more than the quantitative reasoning section. (I have also been told that some programs do not require GRE scores, but it seems this is mostly the case for Master's programs rather than Ph.D.'s.)

Again, the extent to which each component of your application matters will vary greatly amongst schools and programs, but the general rule to follow is that if your undergraduate grades/transcripts are not very good, you should excel in the other parts of your application and communicate relevant strengths to your recommenders so that they know to highlight these more positive aspects within their letters of recommendation.

On another note, thankfully many Ph.D. applications in the U.S. now reserve a section for you to explain any "blemish" on your record; this could be anything from explaining a bad grade to elaborating on a particular skill that the application did not allow you to do. Think carefully about how you would like to word the weaker parts of your application, but this section is indeed reviewed and considered. If your application does not have a place to state this, I have found that emailing the graduate coordinator works just the same, for they might be able to add a note to your file for you (just make sure to ask nicely!). Lastly, communication with prospective advisers (if applicable) is key; not only can they (potentially) vouch for your strength as a prospective candidate in ways that an application cannot, but getting to know you ahead of time could also assist them if they are from an institution whereby advisers can nominate their incoming students for awards, funding, etc.


How is disclosure of previously undiagnosed long term health condition likely to be viewed when evaluating academic track record? Considering situations where an individual academic track record is to be evaluated - whether by grant panel, job interview panel, promotion panel etc.
If the individual were to make a statement along the lines of

Prior to [date] I was suffering from an undiagnosed long
term health condition which did not result in absence from work, but limited my
output. This was both diagnosed and treated from [date] after which
my productivity increased substantially, as can be demonstrated by
XYZ.

Is this likely to be viewed favorably in evaluating the applicant's potential to deliver on the future grant/job/etc? Or is there a risk it could be viewed with suspicion given the applicant was still employed between those dates and the employer unaware of the situation?
Suppose it were a mental health disorder, would it be better to say so, or keep with the more generic description above?
Would the answer differ depending on which of the situations (job application, grant application) we're talking about?

I would suggest that you don't raise the issue, for a couple of reasons.
First is that you don't know how it will be read. Some people might see it as an invalid excuse, rather than a valid one. Others might wonder whether it will affect your work in future. It is impossible to say. Saying such things won't, in particular, give you an advantage.
Second, it is natural for a person's productivity to increase over time and natural for an application reader to weigh the more recent work more heavily then the older work. That effect can occur even for someone with no health issues. I doubt that the change after the date of diagnosis would be noted by a typical reader unless you point it out.
This is really opinion, of course. If you are healthy now, focus on how you will continue productivity going into the future.

I don't know what country this is but, in general, I strongly advise against this. Academia might seem like a collaborative space of kindred spirits (and it can be!) but the situations you're describing aren't necessarily good situations. For how great academia can be, it is also a cut-throat hierarchy with a hazing structure similar to a fraternity or a sports team. There are times where you can disclose personal information like this and it could be well received. The evaluative settings you describe are not those times. Try not to give them hazing material.


My peers are publishing high impact papers and getting awards or offers while I am struggling to write a decent paper. What should I do differently? I am a 3rd year PhD student in Canada. My research area is different than my labmates. However, they are publishing high impact papers at high rate  (2 per year), while I am struggling to get my second paper out. My first paper was in a low impact journal.
It is not only about the impact factor, their work is also more rigorous than what I am doing. Granted that my field of research is different (they work in modeling nanomaterials, while I work in simulation of a coating process), but I get super intimidated by their research output. My research area is not exactly aligned to my advisor's research expertise.
My seniors have gone on to become assistant professors in universities, in industry or are in prestigious research labs for their postdoc. They receive awards and accolades from the university and government, while I am struggling.
What should I do differently? I am working 80+ hours every week, but it seems I am not capable enough. My advisor seems satisfied with my work, but he is a hands-off kind of person, so I don't know if he even cares about my research output. Am I wasting my time with doing this PhD?

If you're working 80+ hours a week, it's possible that that's getting in the way of you taking time to get enough sleep, and/or to maintain a healthy diet, and/or to get a decent amount of exercise, and that in turn is adversely affecting your cognitive function and impeding your ability to produce your best work.  It might be worth trying taking your foot off the pedal a bit.

Between PhDs and faculty positions there are often one or more postdoctoral positions, so if you decide to continue in research, you might think about what kind of postdoc you are looking for based on your experience (eg work in a hot field or in a group that publishes a lot).


Using home address when submitting an article with no affiliation? If you're submitting information for an article, and you have no institution affiliation, what should you use? I was asked for an address and all I have is an home address. That seems a bit weird to use, however.

I did a quick search to see what other independent researchers do for Nature journals, which include an author address.Specifically, I searched Google for

  site:nature.com "author details" "independent researcher"

I found that authors who are independent researchers sometimes list just their city for their address, or

  Independent researcher, City, Country

See for example here and here. Some do appear to give their home address, e.g. here and here.

Based on some previous answers, it seems that you may pay a price for not having a university affiliation. But what are you going to do? Invent an address? Maybe you could create a consulting company (which should be registered if you ever plan to derive any income from it). That line of "ClearBlue Solutions" thrown into your home address may just do the trick.


My co-authors want to remove my name from manuscript because I am "not in science anymore," how to correct this? Two years back, was working as an research associate then have to leave the lab due to some family issues. My work was significant enough to be included in the manuscript and I was told that my experimental results will be a part of the manuscript and I will be coauthor in the paper.

Time has passed, the paper was rejected, revised and submitted. Now, the paper is again in communication, and I am being told, that as I am not in science anymore, my name is being dropped from the paper. I am trying to contact them but they are not responding. I am very much in science, but have taken a break. What should I do, if my name is removed from the paper?

Authorship wars are common and they suck. I suggest you discuss your plans to reach out to the journal editor with the primary PI, maybe they can change their mind. I don't know what being in science or not has anything to do with your contribution being ignored but I would understand an argument that suggests a ton of work has been done since you left to bring the paper to publication.

You should write up your own paper on the subject where you cite the paper in question but also mention in a footnote that they failed to properly acknowledge the source of some of their results. If the results are of sufficient interest, the paper will likely be accepted for publication. A paper with your results authored by you is what ultimately matters.


Can a university provide information about a student's activities? In the United States, if anyone, be it a relative, a colleague, potential employer, or colleague, requests to the pertinent department, in the university I study/ied in, certain information about myself, will they be able to have it?

Is all this information, such as grades, year, internships I applied to, if I live(d) in a fraternity or dorms, etc., under the same regulation; or does each of them have its own set of restrictions regarding disclosure?

Finally, does that still apply to international students and/or people who have already graduated and thus are no longer in the institution? There is indeed the Buckley Amendment (FERPA), but it only covers educational records.

In the US context, under the Federal Education Record Privacy Act (FERPA), students (whether they're international students or US residents/citizens) have a right to privacy.  This right begins when a student enrolls and continues even after a student graduates or otherwise leaves an institution.  In higher education, the student themselves has the right to privacy.  In K-12 education, the parents of a student have control over the privacy.

Under FERPA, information about a student consists of "Directory Information" as well as a broad variety of educational records that have stricter privacy controls.

The exact details of what constitutes directory information vary from campus to campus, but it can include name, address, phone number, email address, dates of attendance, degrees granted, etc.  Students have the right to restrict access to this information, but they must request that that this information is kept confidential.  In response to any request for directory information about a student who has requested confidentiality, an institution will simply not respond.  This can cause problems with potential employers confirming that you graduated with a particular degree and other situations where you might actually want to be acknowledged as a student.

Your other academic records are kept under much tighter control—under FERPA they won't be released without your explicit written permission.

So, depending on whether or not you have requested that your directory information be kept confidential, your institution might respond to a request by providing your directory information, or it might refuse to answer the request.  If the directory information is confidential, anyone who inquires about you should get an answer like "I can neither confirm nor deny that John Q. Doe is or was a student at Big State U."

There are certain exceptions to FERPA privacy rights, including situations where the student could be claimed as a dependent on the parent's income tax return, situations where university officials have a legitimate need to access the information, etc.

As far as I know yes - they are able to verify and check certain details of your educational career such as grades, year of matriculation and graduation etc. However, I am not so sure information about internship, dorm details are readily available as it may fall under data overreach.

Since you mentioned 'Buckley Amendment' - could you also clarify if you're asking in the specific country context?


Publishing a paper that's already been cited I do theoretical CS. A few years ago, I did some research and wrote a paper on my results, posting it on arXiv. I thought about getting it published, but between applying to programs after graduation and starting my new job, it fell by the wayside. Recently, I found a new paper is coming out that cites mine, disproves a conjecture, and extends a result.

Does the existence of the new paper hurt or help my chances of eventually getting the paper published? More likely, I would aim to present it at a conference because I've been told that that's much easier in theoretical computer science, especially for unknown authors or niche topics. Does the new paper hurt or help me chances of presenting the paper at a conference? It would feel weird presenting research that's no longer the state-of-the-art. Should the paper be modified to acknowledge the existence of the citing paper?

I think it should do more good than harm. The fact that you have been cited and your results extended means that your paper was relevant, which is a good thing. You definitely need to modify the paper though, not only to acknowledge the citing paper, but because you shouldn't publish a conjecture that is now known to be false.

Disclaimer: although I think the citation should help, this may be quite dependent on the particular reviewer(s) you get. The popularization of arXiv has been relatively recent in the CS field, and at least in many subcommunities the issues that come with it are still subject to debate and the "codes of conduct" are a bit blurry.

I've been told that that's much easier in theoretical computer science, especially for unknown authors or niche topics

This is not entirely true. Conferences are very well regarded in TCS, sometimes even more than journals. In general it is harder to publish in a respected conference than a journal of roughly the same level. Of course it depends on the level. There are some quite non-selective conferences but so there are journals. The question is: do you want to publish in these venues? Depends on your motivation but I would strongly advice NO.

  Does the existence of the new paper hurt or help my chances of eventually getting the paper published?

If your result is obsolete because of the presence of the new paper that refutes your conjectures and expands your analysis, then I do not see how your paper could be published in any venue.

  Should the paper be modified to acknowledge the existence of the citing paper?

Definitely YES. Otherwise, you enter in a very unethically gray area to put it mildly.

  It would feel weird presenting research that's no longer the state-of-the-art.

From your description, your paper is far from state of the art since it is clearly Obsolete. I do not see how your community would benefit from your paper and I also do not see how you would benefit by submitting it anywhere (unless your only goal is any publication.)


What does 'to mark' mean in the UK? It is just to evaluate what is right and wrong in a script (i.e., an exam or problem sheet completed by a student), and making notes and comments on that?

To mark is to evaluate student work based on the rubric established for that work which, itself, will be a combination of University policy, subject policy, and what has been presented in the course administrative documents.

If you are unsure of what is expected of you with marking, it would be wise to discuss this with your head of subjects or course coordinator as you will need to conform to your university's policy on marking and could face issues if your marking deviates from that.

Marking is grading but comments are not compulsory as it depends on the policy if the papers will be seen by anyone else after.

I do an excel based exam and there are points for parts (calculations )but no comments necessary.

"correcting" is also a word used...


Is it acceptable to include footnotes in mathematical proofs? When writing a technical article that includes mathematical proofs: Is it acceptable to have footnotes within the body of a formal proof (to elaborate/clarify non-essential points) or is the use of footnotes in proofs considered bad practice?

Like almost anything else in writing, style should follow function. In other words, if you think that a footnote makes it easier for your reader to follow a text (for example, because it explains an aside that is too long for a parenthetical remark), then it is appropriate to use one. There is no general guideline whether footnotes are acceptable or not. It all depends on what you want to say and how you want to say it -- choose whatever means you think are appropriate to tell the story of the proof.

Footnotes within proofs are fine and to be recommended.

I've read tons of (multipage) proofs (in signal-processing, or machine learning) where the author's train of thought was impossible to follow and obscured by unnecessary steps and diversions. Twenty pages of matrix algebra and higher-order derivatives in order to establish some underwhelming pseudo-result which follows directly from well-known basic theorems familiar to people in the field; or else can be sketched out in one or two paragraph of paraphrase, to articulate the necessary motivation before wading into verbose proofs.

A proof [in most academic domains] should be aggressively made as compact as it can be, without removing anything essential. Shunt all non-essentials, sidebars and footnotes into footnotes or remarks.

One frequent paradigm (common in signal processing): assume an independent normal distribution on multiple variables (where this is known to be a ridiculously invalid assumption), waste 8+ pages deriving a non-result based on that assumption, before instantly discarding and invalidating that result and introducing a new (but much weaker) derivation with the proper assumptions that should have been used in the first place, but render the subsequent result very basic and uninformative. Finally fall back on showing a few graphs or experimental results to discuss how the process behaves in reality .


Do PhD students sometimes abandon their original research idea? If so, how do they cope with it? This might be a silly question to ask, but I initially had a great research ideas in mind during the early part of my PhD program but due to the unexpected circumstances I now think that I have to abandon them and start searching for new ideas from scratch (2 of my ideas were taken by other researchers in my field recently and I don't think I have capability to work on my other idea), which I find really depressing.
Does this normally happen for PhD students? If so, how do they cope with it? Do they just start all over again from the literature search and brainstorm for ideas?
Thank you,

Not only does this happen frequently to PhD students, it also happens occasionally to experienced researchers.  Many research projects are embarked upon in a somewhat speculative manner, where we do not really know what the answer to a question will look like until we get there.  Sometimes we get stuck and cannot get the answer to our research question, sometimes we get the answer but it is so trivial that we realise we were thinking about the scope of the problem incorrectly, and sometimes we get the answer and we then find out that others have already figured out and published the same answer before us (which is something that does not always show up in your initial literature review).
It is less common for experienced researchers to completely abandon projects, because we have pretty good a priori judgement of what will work, and we are also good at salvaging work if it does not turn out as planned.  Moreover, many academics tend to put unsuccessful projects "on hold" and come back and think about them periodically to see if they can be changed in some way to give fruitful research.  During my own PhD candidature and my subsequent research career as an academic, I have started and done work on several topics which I have subsequently "put on hold" or altered to such a degree that the initial topic was essentially abandoned.  I have had other topics where I did a whole lot of research, even wrote up a paper, and then subsequently found that I had merely rediscovered results that were already in the literature (under a name I was not familiar with).  I also have probably ten or twenty started ideas sitting around and stalled because I have encountered some roadblock that may or may not be fatal to the future of the project.  As you will see from some examples below, I have had some absolute doozies.
Mine have come about because I did initial literature reviews that were flawed, and I didn't realise that my research ideas were things that were already well-developed in the literature (under technical names I was not familiar with).  In terms of how you cope, well, you look at the silver lining --- often these aborted projects show that you are "on the right track" in terms of your ability to come up with interesting ideas, even though these do not pan out into publications.  If you are developing projects that are good enough for other researchers to "take them" then that means you are on the right track.  (In my case, other researchers were nefarious enough to steal my ideas and complete them decades before I was born!)  It is depressing when you think you have a great idea and then it turns out not to lead to anything, but you look on the bright side --- it is better than having no good ideas at all.

Some (kind of embarrassing) examples from my own research career
Rediscovering the theory of identifiability: When I was in the first year of my PhD in statistics I came across an interesting problem that I thought would be a wonderful PhD topic and I spent many months solving it and writing up an academic paper for a journal.  I was extremely happy with my paper and thought it would be a big deal, since it seemed to me that I had developed an important concept that would be a great addition to statistics.  A couple of weeks later I got a desk rejection from the journal, and the editor was kind enough to gently inform me that while my paper looked very interesting, and was well written, my ideas "look a lot like the theory of identifiability" (a term I had not heard of at that time).  Using this new term I did another quick literature search and discovered a huge literature; my own paper had essentially rediscovered an important mathematical/statistical concept that was already developed and published in about the 1950s-1960s.  I had managed to get through my undergraduate degree without hearing this term, and so it had not shown up in my initial literature search, and my supervisors also did not alert me to it when I showed them what I was working on.  So, I have the "distinction" of being one of the discoverers of the theory of identifiability (never published), which I discovered about fifty years after its original publication!  It was depressing at the time because I had done a lot of work on it, but now I look back and laugh about it.
Rediscovering the theory of constrained optimisation via penalty functions: This one came a bit after I had finished my PhD, when I was an early career academic.  I had done a bunch of work on constrained optimisation (Karesh-Kuhn-Tucker method, etc.) and I had thought of an idea of an alternative way of doing constrained optimisation that I thought was novel.  Again, I tried searching for it in the literature, but I used the wrong words so it didn't show up.  (I think I was calling the method "optimisation via augmentation" which is not its standard name.)  I spent my Christmas holidays working on a paper on my method, and was happy with how it developed.  When the paper was almost finished, by accident (when looking at another problem) I found a reference to a paper that led me to another paper that alerted me to the literature on optimisation via penalty functions.  I had a look at the papers I had found and boom --- another project destroyed.  From memory, this stuff was done in about the 1970s, so this time I was a mere forty years late to the party!  In this second case I did not submit my (almost finished) paper, so it sits on my computer as a fun little reminder of my Christmas rediscovering penalty function methods.

It is not exactly a rare occurrence but it is certainly a major mistake that could have, nay, should have been identified by your advisors. One of the primary roles of an advisor is to ensure that their students are building their doctoral research on a solid foundation. This is a crucial responsibility as the propagation of errors, which could have easily been rectified, resolved, or circumvented with early intervention, can easily undermine years of rigorous and fastidious research and analysis. l
Other than a waste of your time and their money, however, the only major consequence is demoralization. The severity of the issue and what it will take to redress the situation to get back on track is hugely dependent upon several factors. The discipline and specific area of research, the proportion of prior research that can be repurposed once you've formulated an alternative focus, how quickly you can rebuild your momentum, but mostly it will depend on your own creativity. I don't think your advisors have served you well up to this point but perhaps they could finally make themselves useful, ask them if you can do a cursory examination of any unpublished data generated by former pupils.
I was very creative and hard working in my PhD program and I used the same approach as I always do in life, which is the three-tier strategy. I had work that was bland and boring but would surely satisfy all the requirements for publication but would require dozens of pages of bullshit jargon to church it up enough for a thesis. I also had a very promising project that was novel, interesting, and had the potential to help a lot of people. The third project was what I played around with on the side, used my own money to fund it, and it was a "Hail Mary" pass; high risk but very high reward. I realize you've put all your eggs into one basket and your advisors forgot to mention that you can't do a thesis if someone else is already doing it. Perhaps it'll help shift your perspective on how to approach goals, have preformed contingency plans & exit strategies, and how you shouldn't trust the advice, work, data, or conclusions of anyone unless you've personally verified its veracity. If you walk away from this with that paradigm shift then I would suggest that you've learned more in your PhD than most. Good luck, go find some smart creative people in your field and do some brainstorming and you'll be back to the grindstone in no time at all.


Colleague asks for feedback on a paper of which I am a reviewer More than once, I have found myself with a curious ethical dilemma.  Due to the nature of the dilemma, however, I have waited quite some time to ask this question, in order to increase the anonymity of those involved.

Here is the dilemma: a colleague of mine sent me a copy of a paper currently under review, saying they thought it would be of interest and wanted to get my feedback, since it is a subject on which I am known to have expertise.  The only problem was that I was one of the reviewers for the journal (and indeed had already turned in my review before my colleague approached me).

There was no ethical conflict for me performing the review, and no impropriety on the part of my colleague for sharing the manuscript either: we have similar research interests but have never collaborated closely, and the circumstances of the sharing mean there is no reason to think this could be an attempt to influence a possible reviewer.  Still, I found it challenging to interact in such a way that it would not breach my anonymity as a reviewer.

What do you think is the best way to handle such a situation?

Have you considered writing a fresh answer to the colleague without caring that you wrote (or are writing) a review? What I mean is, just write the answer on your knowledge of the paper without caring that you are also writing a review. I think this is a natural approach and does not really have a downside.

You know the paper quite in depth, and you can provide valuable feedback. You will do so (or already have done so) in a formal way through the peer-review system, but now you have the opportunity for formulate the feedback in a more casual way (compare it with writing down results for a formal publication in a journal or at a conference and a discussion of the results on your personal blog - you describe the same things in a different way of communication). The only downside I see is, that the person will get some more clues that you may be a reviewer but I am not sure if this really is a downside at all.

Another downside may be that it costs you more time and that you don't want to allocate time to provide feedback twice. In this case, you can politely answer something like "Thanks for the paper - I try to find time to read it soon and come back to you in case I have any feedback." I guess most people understand that this can also mean that they won't hear anything more from you on that matter…

"Still, I found it challenging to interact in such a way that it would not breach my anonymity as a reviewer."

Either:

Breach your anonymity as a journal reviewer (if doing so would not help deanonymize the review of the remaining journal reviewers and the journal has no policy preventing you from doing so) and share your honest opinion with your colleague
Tell you colleague that as a journal reviewer that you cannot ethically share your opinion because by doing so you would weaken the anonymity between the remaining journal reviews and their reviewers.


Advisor writing bulk/entire student thesis I am forced to write this question as I believe it is unethical and needs to be addressed in my faculty. I suspect a faculty member in my university has the habit of writing his master's degree students' thesis (for free or for a fee). I believe he does that for a fee. A colleague has mentioned this before but that colleague isn't a board member so I can't really take his word officially. I noticed that for several thesis I examined for the examination board, his students have very solid thesis but would have you questioning their abilities during oral presentations. Some colleagues think it's stage fright but I believe it is more than that. This faculty member always requests that corrections for the thesis be mailed to him to "pass to his student". I think he's just doing the corrections and submitting final copy. This faculty member taught me in my undergraduate years in the same faculty and I heard some stories of his shady dealings with students then.
Question: How can something like this be investigated since there are no mechanism in place to limit what a supervisor contributes to his students' thesis? It is difficult to get the students to testify as this is what most of them would want by default.

Contact the University Thesis Office regarding policies regarding professors making edits. Maybe what he is doing is sanctioned; maybe there is a strict policy against it. The prof. won't tell you, and the college won't shake the boat. University administration offers the only chance of independent administration.

Just like any other situation where bribery is suspected, a sting operation can be used by law enforcement to get proof.

Find someone who could plausibly offer a bribe.
Give them immunity to punishment.
Have them offer a bribe.
If the bribe is accepted, you have proof.

You can also investigate financial records, but this is much harder.


Can intentionally omitting related work (citations) be considered as misconduct? I've seen a recent journal paper that presents a solution to a problem, and it in the introduction it has a statement that the problem has not been solved yet.
That wouldn’t be very strange if I didn’t publish a paper with a solution a few years ago, which is not cited.

I understand that no one can be aware of all papers published so there can be honest omissions, but these authors were aware of my paper because we talked about it at a conference held before the submission of their paper.

Another case which I have noticed is that some papers avoid mentioning other related papers which present similar methods but perform better than theirs.

Is this considered as misconduct, and is there something one can do about it?

Yes. If they were indeed aware of the fact that a paper exists which proves that the problem was solved, then they clearly commited a scientific misconduct, though less so, I should think, by not citing your paper, and more so by claiming that a problem had no solution which they knew was solved already.
Even if they considered your proof wrong, they should absolutely make it clear why they disagree with you.

However, as commenters have pointed out, there is always a good chance that people don't realise what a paper is about, don't remember that there is that paper, or they wanted to discuss your paper and just forgot about it, which of course doesn't speak for their academic diligence, but means that no misconduct was commited (unless your paper is so high-profile that by not including it, they are neglecting their duty to read the literature before writing a paper.)

Edit: Note that I have answered the general question in your title, not the more precise question in your text, which I don't know how to answer without additional evidence.

Another edit: The formal rules for scientific integrity of my own university, for example, do not explicitly mention omitting a citation, but do (obviously) contain "intentional or grossly negligent misrepresentations in an academically relevant context" (my translaton) as an act of misconduct. This is exactly my point: If they knew, or really should have known, it's academic misconduct. If they didn't know and your paper is so obscure that they didn't act grossly negligent in not finding it, it isn't.

Let's for a second assume that they knew and that it was intentionally
There are two ways to look at it:

you are not supposed to cite everything which you heard about a topic, but everything which you actually based your paper upon in a way that a reader can follow your derivation. It is nice (but scientifically optional) to mention completed work of others in the introduction. A typical situation where not mentioning the other paper would absolutely be ok, if the paper was already in the making/writing process (yes, from first draft to published paper, it can take years)  in the other group when they heard about.
I personally find it easier to read papers which clearly limit their citations in the main part to the ones they actually used.
OTOH I have seen whole string of publications but specific authors who obviously did not cite specific other authors (in that case most likely to hide the fact thay own paper was not state-of-the-art from referees).
Scientific misconduct would be only there if they actually used your paper and derived their work from it (theoretically it should be possible to establish a timeline in which the work happened in their lab).
Unless you find a subtle mistake or some other signature (like unusual variable names) in your derivation which made it to their work, that will be difficult to prove and get a starting point.

So unless you actually have a strong indication that they really behaved bad, it may be wise to swallow it and not waste energy following it up.


What are the possible pitfalls of a university employee and a student being roommates? Is it best to avoid this situation? I have two closely-related questions:

First:

  What are the possible pitfalls of a university employee (faculty or staff) and a student at the same university being roommates?

And, in the event that I need to take on a roommate as a faculty or staff member at a university:

  Is it best to avoid living with a student and ask, for example, another university employee to share my living space?

Yes, it's basically allowed everywhere I know of, but there are plenty of situations where it might get weird. On the non-weird end of the spectrum, I was a researcher and manager at my university when my live-in fiancee decided to go to grad school there in a different department. We even got married the summer between the two years of her master's program. There were no problems and no rules that prevented this. We didn't even need to tell anyone about it.

Now, if she had worked for me or enrolled in a class that I taught, there would have been some people we would have needed to tell to make sure that there was no favoritism for her and that everything was fair for other students or employees. She probably would have had to have a different manager appointed for work if I would have otherwise been her boss, etc. Our living situation wasn't the determining factor, but rather our romantic involvement.

If the staff member isn't romantically involved with the student who is also their roommate, then there's generally no issue. However, if the nature of the relationship changes from roommates to partners, then depending on local rules and the proximity of the staff member's job to the student, someone probably has to be notified at the very least and a management plan created in some cases to deal with it. If the student and the staff member aren't in the same department, then there's usually no need for notification at my university.

E.g. if a psychology student wants to room with an admin in the Geology department, it's fine. If a student wants to rent a room from his English professor, then maybe some departments want to know that. If a Physics student wants to date/marry a Sociology prof they will never take a class from, it's very likely that the university needs to know, and they may try to forbid it. And if a student wants to become involved with their PhD supervisor, the university will definitely get to have a say.

As best I can tell, the rules tend to be about who is romantically involved with whom, not where students choose to find their accommodations.

No. That leads in to favoritism and special exceptions with students plus a whole lot of other liability issues.

They should live with colleagues that they are not the boss of and do not manage or are managed by.


Is it inappropriate to tell my students to check their school email? I am a new STEM faculty member at a primarily undergraduate institution. I emailed my students (through the school-mandated online course management system) before the beginning of the term about the availability of the syllabus online, as well as other things. Several students told me that they hadn't checked their emails and didn't know where to find the syllabus. I have also sent emails to students about their testing accommodations, only to learn that the students hadn't read my email to them even though it concerned an upcoming quiz.

Would it be inappropriate for me to make a general announcement in class that it is important for students to check their school email accounts frequently, as that is how I plan on communicating with them? I certainly won't call out any students or mention any specific scenarios that prompted this announcement.

At every (US) institution I've attended or worked at, there's been an official school-wide policy that students are expected to check their school email regularly, and that sending official communications there constitutes sufficient notification.  So check your school's policies; if you have such a policy, then it's certainly appropriate to remind students about it.

Moreover, in such a case, you can enforce it: if you send an email to school accounts saying "Please respond by date X if you want Y", and they don't respond by date X (whether because they didn't check their email or for any other reason), you may not be under any obligation to give them Y.  (Disability accommodations could have special rules so contact your school's disability office to check on that.)

Am I the only person who thinks there is a problem here indeed? As mentioned, most schools advise their students to verify their e-mails regularly, but what does this mean? On a daily, two-daily, weekly basis?

It is commonly known that once you start a computer, you have the tendency of browsing the internet, checking social media, ..., in other words, losing time, and it's only fair that schools don't encourage their students to lose time, but to use it effectively.

So I would advise schools and teachers to set up a rule, saying that students are expected to read their e-mails on a weekly basis. If a teacher wants to communicate with his or her students using e-mail and the message must pass in less than a week, the teacher must mention this e-mail during the class.


Advisor going over and unhelpfully modifying my presentation structure and slides At our institute, PhD students carry out presentations on the advance of their projects once a year. The presentations are "internal" in the sense that only undergrads, PhD students and professors of our institute may attend.

I am about to carry out my second such presentation corresponding to my second year progress. For my first presentation (one year ago), my advisor asked for my presentation and called me into his office one day before the presentation and went over it, changing it in a non-trivial way, i.e. deleting slides, changing titles, content, etc. I found most corrections counterproductive or superficial at best. In the end I did not include all corrections, just enough to keep him/her happy.
I was quite frustrated and stressed since the overall tone was "this is terrible", "we are way behind in our project", "this is bad". After the presentation I got very good feedback from professors and colleagues (my advisor is not a professor). Once he saw the feedback, he changed his mind from "this is bad" to "good work, good presentation".

This has also happened a couple of times with other internal presentations at our institute. I am pretty sure this will happen again in the next days.

My questions are:

Is it common for advisors to carry out extensive and minute corrections on the presentation structure and slides of its PhD students?
What is the best way to communicate that I will not follow corrections with which I do not agree?
Or, are PhD students obligated to follow the commands of the advisor?

There are simple technical solutions that allow you to avoid unpleasant discussions if you want. Prepare your presentations in LaTeX or export them to pdf format, but do not give your supervisor the source code or editable ppt version. Or simply print the handout for your supervisor and present the talk orally. Collect feedback in a form of comments written over the text. Then go through suggestions and decide, which to take on board and implement, and which not.

I had a PI who did this. I just stopped telling them when I had a presentation and removed the opportunity for them to meddle. I guess this isn't possible for you as they know this talk is coming up!

If they insist on going through it again, you can calmly point out that: you got good feedback from your peers and senior scientists last time; and that, while you appreciate your supervisor helping you, you don't agree with all of their suggestions and will be guided by your own judgement (as that worked well last time).


One of the authors changed idea before submitting paper I have just finished a paper together with a number of colleagues and collaborators from other universities.
We were about to submit it but one of the authors does not agree anymore. His explanation is that, while he thinks the paper is fine, he has a new idea and does not want to publish this as it would make his idea ‘‘less original’’ (because some parts of his idea are already in this paper).
Mind that it would be difficult to  include his idea in the paper as while the methods are the same, the applications are totally different.
What would you do in this case?
I am the main contributor and another professor had the idea. He wants to cut out some other authors, including the professor who had the idea. He’s quite a powerful and famous academic though, that’s why I think he’s feeling entitled to do so.

Talk to the other collaborators who probably agree with you, and then take a unified front to tell him that holding several collaborators hostage is not ok.
Additionally, if part of his new publication uses a jointly developed idea which he intends to publish alone while blocking your joint work (that should be in the references of his planned solo paper), then this strikes me as borderline plagiarism. In any case, it’s very bad form.

Many journals have a policy that all authors must approve of the paper for it to be published, and if any authorship changes (for example, adding or removing authors) occur between submission and publication, all authors must agree to it. If you had submitted the paper with his name as a co-author, he might have been able to try to use that as leverage to block the paper from getting published in that journal.
Since you haven't submitted it yet, the situation is a bit better, but still very messy:

(1) If it is possible to remove his contribution and publish the paper without him as a co-author, the journal is very unlikely to let him block your paper, but this might make him angry, and since he was your former PI when you were a student, this might not be a good idea. Pissing off your former supervisor can sometimes be harmful to your career (for example when you apply for things, your former supervisors can often be contacted informally, even if you haven't listed them for a letter of reference). So preferably, you won't have to do this.

(2) If his contribution was essential to the paper (i.e. cannot be taken out), if you submit the paper without him as a co-author he could file an academic integrity complaint at your institution (or with the journal if you don't have an institution). If his contribution was essential, he would hopefully win in this academic integrity investigation. So I highly recommend not to do this.

So what can you do that doesn't jeapordize your career?
Two options that are better for your career in the long-term (despite not looking better in the short-term) are to:

(3) Try to discuss the situation with the other professor, in a professional and adult-like way. Perhaps get the other co-authors on your side and get the senior-most one to do the talking (you said there was another professor involved).

(4) Take a sacrifice and make a compromise with yourself: your long-term career may be more important than the short-term gains this paper provides right now, so maybe you can accept the cost of having to avoid publishing this paper, in exchange for the benefits of maintain a good relationship with this professor who you said is "powerful and famous". Hopefully the "powerful and famous" professor would be able to include you on the subsequent paper. While this is not ideal, it would not be necessary if you are successful with your attempts in option (3).

So option (3) is the best option here, and if it doesn't work then I would in many cases recommend option (4). The third and fourth best options would be (1) then (2) respectively. No option is perfect for you in the short-term, unfortunately. This is academia.

I personally have settled with option (4) many, many, many times.
I can't count the number of times I did not publish something because a more powerful academic preferred to wait (even though that academic did not need to be a co-author.


Masters in mathematics after bachelors in mechanical engineering I am in a bit of dilemma regarding my career aspirations.
I am a mechanical engineering graduate from one of the top 5 IITs in India.
I have a average CGPA of 8.87/10 (top 20 in my class).
I have taken close to six mathematical courses like: Maths1(grade A), Maths2(grade B), Transform Calculus(Excellent grade), Partial Differential Equations( Excellent grade), Probability and statistics( grade A), Control systems( Excellent grade).
Currently I am working as a quantitative analyst for credit risk team at an investment bank, the job here has drawn me closer to the field of mathematics and statistics and through a lot of self-study, I have decided to pursue a masters course in statistics/applied mathematics and possibly use that masters degree for phd applications later.
I am in my mid-twenties currently.
I have self studied the entire statistical Inference book from Casella and Berger to supplement my knowledge/fill in the gaps.
However the problem lies in the application part for the masters program as they require an undergraduate degree from mathematics and letters of recommendation, while I can arrange for letters of recommendation from my manager here at workplace and a few professors whom I did my bachelors project with/took their courses, however I am not sure how relevant they will be.
I understand that because I don’t have a undergraduate in mathematics, even if I get admissions, they won’t be into any top coveted programs but I am willing to put in the extra effort/fill up the gaps using my experience in that college for graduate school admissions later on.
Does this sound like a plausible plan or am I working for a lost cause?
Do I stand a chance with my profile for admissions into decent masters courses in mathematics in US?
Can attending a decent mathematics masters program work as a stepping stone into some good graduate programs?
Any insights would be helpful.
Thanks in advance.

I think your plans for your future are quite reasonable, but my thoughts count for very little. Many engineers have a mathematical bent of mind and I believe many mathematics departments (especially in applied fields like statistics) will recognize that. An example of an engineer who became a mathematician is: Raoul Bott. In all probability, you are not going to be Raoul Bott (prove me wrong), but I think it's worth pursuing the career goals you want. Your job, is to make a convincing case for yourself and to find the right department for you. You can do this by talking with people who have achieved what you are trying to achieve, getting their feedback on their department and your application (especially statement of purpose).

Take the GRE subject test in Math.  If you do well few will care about your background.


PhD supervisor (who I use as a reference) is the department director for position I am applying for. Should this bias be avoided? I am applying for a position at a University. The director of the department at the University I am applying to was my PhD supervisor.
Is it still proper to ask them to provide a letter of recommendation? Or is this a bias (conflict of interest) I should try and avoid?
EDIT: The director IS involved with both the interviewing and hiring process; however, they said to still use them as a reference.

I suggest that you ask the person whether they believe it is proper for them to write you a letter. They know the institution to which you are applying and its procedures. If they indicate that it should be fine, then it is fine. Otherwise, look elsewhere for a letter.
But it is good to avoid assumptions in a case like this. The director may be involved or not. A letter from them might be considered proper or not. Don't assume. Don't guess. Ask.
You can indicate in your note that you don't know the proper rules and, while you would value a letter, you will understand if they think it improper. Hopefully you know them well enough that such a note won't seem out of order to them.

You could request them to give a general recommendation letter (To whomsoever it may concern) and then add it to your application. Now it is up to the committee or your former supervisor to decide the outcome. Your association with the director in a professional capacity should in no way be detrimental to your chances of securing this job. If it is, then it is a case of reverse bias.
In any case, it is not something you must be worried about. In fact, you should feel more confident in getting the position as your skills and strengths are well known to the potential employer.
Best of luck!


Can one or two emoticons be used in a PhD Thesis? I have a very dumb :-) question:

Are emoticons (if rarely placed - one or two times) in a PhD thesis considered unorthodox?

I have an introduction where I give an apt example and appended some small footnote where I make fun of the author (that's me) and I was so laughing when writing this I almost liked to put a smiley at the end of the footnote.

The reader of this question should note, that the thesis is already enough serious such that a smiley might be surely a relieve for the reader maybe :-)?

What is the general thought about this?

Update:
After all these enlightening, entertaining and thoroughly funny thoughts, I decided to go with a humorous footnote but of course without a smiley. :-P

I highly value humor and love to entertain whenever I can. In formal writing, I would encourage you to go ahead and write something that you think would be funny. Then reread it. Then reread it again. Read it aloud. Read it silently. Read it again tomorrow while you edit it. And read it again. And again. And again. Imagine reading it out loud to the people with the least sense of humor you know. Imagine reading it to a person with a furrowed brow, in a bad mood, who is trying to find anything they can to rip apart what you have laid down, to find a reason to cast it aside as useless junk.

Then read it 10 more times, as any good writer must inevitably do. Now imagine reading it again in 10 years (if you are lucky and what you've done turns out to be of use).

Personally, I have found that after the 20+ time I've read something, it isn't even funny to me anymore - and I think I'm hilarious! But even the best jokes I've ever told never landed 100% of time, or to 100% of the audience - and in formal writing I don't even know who the audience is - they might speak my language as a 2nd (or 3rd or 4th) language.

Being stubborn, I like to write humor into anything I make. But after the 20th read through I realize it just isn't funny any more, even to me - and if that's how a reader would feel who doesn't get or appreciate the joke, it just isn't worth it any more to me to include it. I'm basically writing a technical instruction manual, and there's a reason those things aren't really funny - you are supposed to read them and refer back to them repeatedly, and jokes get old fast.

If I really like a joke, I'll save it for when I can make it in person, in a talk or in a presentation, when I can personally hear the laughs (or gauge the room and know to skip it entirely). Or I'll be funny on a website like this so I can wallow in a mass of glorious unicorn points.

But in formal writing like a thesis or important research paper? Well, you decide after you've read it for the 30th time if it is still worth inclusion, or if that emoticon makes you smile - or if you want to poke it in its tiny little semi-colon eye.

There is a far better than 99% chance that nobody outside your committee will ever read your dissertation. It's probably 50-50 that even your advisers read the thing in its entirety at any point (This likely depends on your particular field, of course). So you could probably slip anything you like in there without serious repercussions.

That said, your dissertation is not the place to be cute. My personal rule would be:

You are the author. You are the single greatest authority in the entire world as to what belongs and what does not belong in your work. If you truly feel that what you are suggesting aligns with what you are attempting to accomplish with your work, than by all means include it. If you are not sure/confident that it belongs, it may be wiser to leave it out.


I don't know what to say when meeting the supervisor after he has suggested me to leave the research group I am a PhD student in Germany and my supervisor has suggested me to change the research group because he has told me I cannot write a good quality dissertation within the time framework of three years. He assumes that the maximum possible time for doing the PhD is three years and this time framework cannot be extended.

Now I want to talk with him face to face, but I don't know what to say. Has anyone had a similar experience? Should I fight to keeping this position or I should find another position in another university?

edit 1: I personally prefer to leave the group because I never felt I'm part of the research group even after one semester. I didn't get that feeling even from my supervisor.

This adviser is doing you a favor. He is telling you at the very early stage of your PhD that you're not cut for it according to his standards. That sounds harsh and that's why I think the funding argument is merely a diplomatic excuse.

Imagine if he had told you the same thing after 2.5 years, or failed you at the defense (if that still happens).

I have no ways of knowing whether he is right or wrong, but that is irrelevant anyway: he doesn't want you to get a PhD under his supervision, hence you won't get it. Your only viable option is to leave.

For your discussion, ask more details about what you could improve, or what other path he would suggest for you. He is in no way obligated to answer but it might be helpful to you. Based on what he tells you, you might get an idea of what can be next for you: switching group, taking additional education, switching field of research, looking for opportunities outside academia, etc. That is not something we can help with without knowing you and your work.

Here is what a good supervisor should do:

Before hiring you, evaluate your qualifications and abilities in a diligent way.
Once he has hired you, take a certain responsibility for your professional developement, and provide you with his (hopefully prudent) advice, in particular in times of troubles and doubt.
If you fall short of his expectations, tell you in a non-threatening way and look, together with you, for solutions.

As your advisor seems to do none of this, my advice is to run as quick as you can from his research group and look for another position.


Appropriateness of dedicating my thesis to a Jewish mathematician who died in a concentration camp I am a Muslim student in a non-Arab country. Would it be unwanted/inappropriate for me to dedicate my thesis on Tauber theory to Alfred Tauber, and more generally to all those Jewish mathematicians who died in Nazi concentration camps during WW2? I thought it would form a nice opportunity for some remembrance of the fact that so many people whose work we value today were affected. I was greatly saddened to learn about the fate of A. Tauber and wanted to do something with that. On the other hand, a mathematics thesis might not be the place to "confront" like this.

Aeismail’s answer is spot on: who you choose to dedicate it to is entirely up to you (modulo political expedience). I've read theses dedicated to martyrs and I've read theses dedicated to cats. Do what you feel moved to do. See answers here for some discussion.

As for how it would be received by the Jewish community and Jewish mathematicians, I am confident that the answer is "extremely well," based on my experiences and conversations about similar tributes. On a personal level, as a Jewish mathematician and descendant of survivors I would find this incredibly meaningful to come across and quite likely be moved to tears by a well-written dedication along these lines.

A tip about writing the dedication: one common mistake that people writing about the Holocaust make is to paint it as “unimaginable” or “unprecedented.” Although it is by far the single largest genocide in terms of total number of people killed (6M Jews, 5M others includes Poles, the disabled, and homosexuals) that usually rubs me the wrong way. The Holocaust is without a doubt the most socially prominent, but definitely not only, example of persecutions of Jews or of genocide as a whole. It’s also not the most recent or “last” (I see people use this term) genocide, nor has Nazism gone away. Today there is genocide in Myanmar against the Rohingya people and in Iraq against the Yazidi. Today neo-Nazis openly march in Virginia, USA while targeting Jews in their chants and waving the swastika. These facts are things people tend to be unaware of, and so people can sometimes accidentally take away from their tributes through inaccurate or dismissive words.

I think a dedication to Tauber and the others who were murdered would be lovely, but caution you to think carefully about the wording lest you accidentally minimize or dismiss the aforementioned facts.

A couple of people seem to have missed the fact that there’s a direct connection between Tauber and your work. To explicitly state that for anyone who is reading this: the field that is the topic of the dissertation is known as “Tauber Theory” and (presumably) Tauber’s work was foundational and central to the field and the dissertation.

You're a Muslim? I'd definitely avoid it. Even if you weren't a Muslim, I'd tell you to avoid it because of how touchy a subject it is unless the person in question was directly related to the work you've been doing, or you personally were directly related to them, but when you add in the ongoing tensions between Israel and much of the rest of the Middle East, there's too big a risk that it might come off as mocking them or gloating about it.

Additionally, even if you manage to avoid falling into that additional pitfall, there's enough antisemitic sentiment among the Left-wing political activist types common on university campuses (e.g. the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement) that I'd recommend against referencing them at all, even in a positive light; you never know if one of the people marking your paper is one of the people that really, really doesn't like Israel.


Why don't universities reveal the extra time they give to students with disabilities when taking exams? Many (most?) universities have a system of allowances for students with particular medical conditions/learning difficulties including dyslexia, dyspraxia and others.  The most common allowance is extra time in exams.  Sometimes this can be an extra half or whole hour but in other cases can be, for example, 8 hours allowed for a 3 hour exam.

There are various arguments in favor of giving this extra time but of course the merits of doing so can also be debated.

When the student graduates, as far as I know no universities include a record of this extra time on their official transcript.  This appears to hide an important piece of information from a potential employer and also makes it very hard to compare one set of grades with another or to interpret the significance of any particular set of grades.  Of course an employer might not care how long it takes a student to solve a problem or write an essay as as long as they do it well. But for some employers it might make a crucial difference.

Why don't universities provide this information on the official grade transcript that a student gets?

You already gave the actual reason: to hide it from employers. Why? Because it is irrelevant.

Diplomas/grades from university are the same, for all students. Period. It does not matter how you acquired it, the university recognised you meet the criteria (skills, know-how, ...) for having this diploma. That's all the employer needs to know.

Edit from comments:

The employer just has to know the grades/diplomas are assumed to be given objectively.

Time is irrelevant, because extra time allowance is here to level the student impairments to give him a fair chance at proving his/her skill on the subject. Time is usually a factor because there has to be a point where it's finished. The duration is not a factor of evaluation. Diplomas and grades are the same for all students because they evaluate the skills/knowledge of the students and not his/her performance.

If an employer needs someone who can do things in some timely manner, they are the one who needs to test candidates on that criteria. Universities just don't do this.

Because non-disabled students would likely react negatively to finding out or being reminded that disabled students were given special treatment over them. People tend to like to think that they're the ones getting the special treatment or that everything is fair - not that they're the ones at a disadvantage. And universities generally want to keep their customers happy, like other business.


What is a “service lecture”? On a form for a job application, I am being asked to list, among others, what “service lectures” I have given. What exactly is meant by that? What does, or does not, count as a service lecture?

In my experience, service lecture is used to refer to a lecture (course) about your field given to students of another field, usually an introductory course to give those students the basics that they need for their studies.

For example, at my university, there is a course Physics for Chemists, Biologists, and Geologists which is organised by the department of physics and given by a physics professor and which teaches essential concepts of physics to students of the named fields. In contrast to “physics for physicists” lectures, the department of physics does not benefit from the effort put into this lecture as it’s not teaching its own students. Thus giving this lecture is a mere service to the departments of chemistry, biology and geology.

Of course, to be sure about the intended meaning, you would have to ask the issuers of the form.

As this is for a job application in a presumably academic position, reaching out for more information in a state of ignorance demonstrated you grasp one of the most basic academic principles and virtues. This would do more to improve your reputation with said institution than hurt it.

Even outside that, there does not seem to exist a general consensus as to what the term means. I've seen references mentioning similar definitions to the other answers, but also places where service lectures are described as the mandatory lectures given during a PhD track.


Do people with masters degrees have an advantage over undergrads in PhD admissions? The pool of applicants for a PhD program consists of people applying straight after undergrad, and also people who have done masters programs. Do students with masters degrees have an edge over undergrads in the process? Do admissions officers judge undergrads and masters students differently? If undergraduate students have taken graduate-level courses (but perhaps not as many as a masters student has), where does that put them in comparison?

It very much depends on the Country, the Field, and the Master's.

I'm assuming, since you are asking that you are interested in Country where a Master's degree isn't an absolute requirement for a PhD in your field of interest. My field (Life-Sciences) in my country (UK) is like this.

I would say that it very much depends on the Master's degree. As far as I can see there are three types of Master's degrees in UK Life-Sciences

Those for people who want to learn something different to what they learnt at undergraduate. So for example, my research is in Bioinformatics, and this is not normally covered in UK undergraduate degrees. This could be an advantage if you wanted a PhD in that area.
Master's degrees that are integrated as the 4th year of an undergraduate degree, and are generally almost entirely research based. I have found the students with these often have an advantage over others as they have experience of doing real research in a real research lab. This is important because UK PhDs are generally 3 years (4 at a maximum) and you need to hit the ground running.
General topic master's degrees for people who didn't get a good enough grade to go straight to a PhD. These might help you make the grade (i.e. if your undergrad grades were too poor there is 0 chance of a PhD, and a none zero chance after the master's), but if you have the grades to be accepted, this master's is useless to you. Worst, it might you look worse.

So in conclusion, it very much depends on the master's and why you took it.

You need to have a masters degree to even be able to apply for a PHD. It's a basic legal requirement. In most countries (In Europe and America. USA being different clearly than the rest of the continent while most latin countries have extremely similar systems between them and regarding Europe given the inspiration came from there) you need to have graduated from university to make a masters degree and then graduate with a masters to apply for a PHD.

Graduation does not mean to just finish school by acquiring the necessary credits or passing/approving the classes. That is the first step, after which there are some graduating/titulation requirements like making a thesis, publishing articles, passing a seminar, etc (plus doing X hrs of social service, presenting extra documentation, etc). And then of course are bureaucratic tramits to certificate it all and be government approved as a graduate of the scholar level. Only after you get that can you pass to the next level.

Check if such is the case for the specific PHD you are considering.


If someone conducts unethical research unbeknownst to anybody, but produces positive results, what would happen to the research once discovered? I was just wondering about this specific scenario.

Say someone was researching nature vs. nurture, but his experiments involved keeping babies in a controlled environment for the first 10 years of their life. His research is secret and he has ways to smuggle children for his research (don't ask how).

After 15 years, he publishes a paper and confirms that there is a set amount of characteristics that can be transferred via genes.

What would become of the researcher and his research? Will the researcher be jailed, but the research results recognized?

This question is about unethical research in general, not just ones involving human subjects.

P.S. No babies were harmed in the making of this post

Unfortunately, history has already forced this question upon us, and the answers are not entirely clear.  The Nazis inflicted widespread and breathtakingly horrifying human medical experiments on their victims during the Holocaust. These yielded quite a bit of medical data, that some want to unearth and apply today.

This has ignited quite a bit of debate on the ethics of using this most obviously and supremely unethical research.  The science may be dubious as well, given the circumstances under which it was performed.  An excellent discussion of the dilemma may be found in the article "The Ethics Of Using Medical Data From Nazi Experiments" by Baruch Cohen.  In essence, Cohen argues that in certain extreme cases it may be possible to use the data, but only when accompanied by strong condemnation of the methods and only when it concerns information that is both otherwise impossible to obtain and of life-saving importance.

Nazi medicine is an extreme case, but unfortunately by no means isolated, and the judgement of history and science on these studies contains less uniform condemnation than we might like.  The modern consensus, however, seems to be that except in very unusual circumstances, unethical studies should not be rewarded in any way by recognition.

To get some perspective, what if this doesn't happen in academia but in "real life"? If the person "conducting unethical research" is a police officer searching your home without a warrant, and the "positive result" is that he or she finds conclusive evidence that you committed a crime?

In that case, the rule is that this "positive result" cannot be used in any way whatsoever. Not only can the conclusive evidence not be used in court, it cannot even be used as a reason to investigate you further.

That seems to be the correct way to handle the situation in academia as well: The results of unethical research should be completely ignored, so there is no motivation to conduct unethical research at all.


Is it acceptable to take photos of slides at a conferences for private use? Is it accepted/appropriate to take pictures of presentation slides at conferences for private use?

I am not talking about putting those pictures out in the public afterwards, I know this is illegal without consent of the presenter.

Should it matter, I am talking about math conferences.  And I am asking because I don't see anyone taking pictures.

I have seen it done many times, sometimes I would see people recording entire sessions on video. My guess is these are people coming from institutions that cannot afford to send many researchers abroad and the one person sent will pass the material to their colleagues in their home country.

Some conferences explicitly forbid recording presented material. See for example the American Association for Research in Otolaryngology (ARO):

  ARO   does   not   permit   audio   or   photographic recording  of  any  research  data  presented  at  the meeting.

But that rule was not strictly enforced at the meetings I attended. So the answer is: it depends on the venue.

Actually all these comments are naive. It is completely inappropriate to take pictures. If you have sat behind an idiot who does you'd know why - its bad etiquette and interferes with the focus and thinking of all those around the idiot. A presentation should be listened to, not raising cameras obstructing others views and then distracting the thought processes further with noise and lights. Presentations are not there for taking pictures but actual communication - its not wonder there are no more questions these days after many presentations other than from the front.