How to publish superseding results without creating enemies While working on a research paper with a coauthor, I found an unpublished paper in arXiv and discovered out that the technique we developed in our paper can be used to improve a result in the unpublished one. Specifically, we can design a superior algorithm to solve the same problem solved in the arXiv paper.
If we publish our results, then the author of that arXiv paper will have a hard time publishing his paper, since some journals will not consider his algorithm once a better one is available.
Of course, we cite the arXiv paper and there is no law against publishing improved results, but this may harm the author of the arXiv paper. Is there a way to publish the new result without creating enmity?

One potential option could be to combine the work and submit a joint paper. However, the papers do not "mix" very well since our paper is mainly about a different technique - the improved algorithm is only a usage example of it. Combining the papers will create a very large and inconsistent paper.

Another option is to wait until his paper is accepted for publication and only then publish our paper with the improved result. However, it seems unscientific to withhold results that we already know.

I disagree with the premise of your question. “Publishing superseding results” is basically the same as what’s known as “publishing”, since all papers build and improve on the existing literature in some way and push some older work slightly toward obsolescence or irrelevance. The extra twist in your situation that you are improving on unpublished work is of hardly any consequence and simply not worth worrying about, for the following reasons:

As others have said, the authors of the arxiv preprint still have precedence and will get credit for making their contribution at the time they did, before your subsequent improvement was discovered. Referees and journal editors should (and almost certainly will) take that into account, within reasonable limits.
In general, when you improve on earlier work you show that it is interesting and relevant enough for other people to follow up on. This is actually flattering to the authors of the earlier work, even if you imagine that it is unflattering (it’s also true that an improvement can sometimes portray earlier work in a slightly unflattering light, but my point is there would still be a separate flattering aspect that I think you are ignoring, and which in most cases will far outweigh any supposedly unflattering aspects).
The publication status of the earlier work is simply not your concern. It is up to individual researchers to submit their work for publication and otherwise promote it in a timely manner. If they fail to do so, they have only themselves to blame, and they should not expect others in the scientific community to delay their own follow up research, at the cost of hurting their own careers and slowing down scientific progress, out of pity or charity.

To summarize, I think the idea that you will make enemies by publishing honest work that you did in a STEM field, regardless of the specific circumstances, might make for a cute plot element in a satirical TV show or novel about academia, but is not a realistic thing to worry about in real life.

Let's be practical:

Talk to the author of that paper. Tell them about your improvement, tell him you want to treat their work with the respect it deserves, and ask them what they feel would be fair/appropriate.
The author of the arXiv work could have a note or a brief section, either with or without your participation, mentioning how the result can be improved. He can then update his section of applications to take the improved result into consideration. That makes his paper not-superseded.
You can minimize your description of the improvement on his result, so that nobody can understand what you're talking about without reading his paper. You could even do that while showering some praise on his paper and nudging your readers to go read that one.

Like others suggest, however, I wouldn't delay nor refrain from publishing the improvement.


Giving a career talk in my old university, how prominently should I tell students my salary? I have offered to do a talk at my old university’s 'employabilty fair' ten years after graduation, where am I now. With some advice on traps to avoid, how to make the transition from university to work life etc., with some anecdotes along the way type thing. Within the realms of software engineering.

The person who asked me to do the talk thinks I should put my current salary on the first slide to grab their attention in a 'this is what you could aim for' type way. But I feel it's a bit crass. I don't mind sharing my salary with the students if they ask, but I think it's a bit odd to stick it on the first slide.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this that could help me make this decision?

Update

the talk went down very well, no one asked about my salary and I didn't see anyone suddenly become more engaged after I pointed to the salaries in the Glass door table.

There were a few very engaged students who I think will do just fine, they definitely seemed more interested in my day to day and whether I actually enjoyed it :p it was good to see.

There were a couple that might have listened more intently if I had framed it as "I earn X and this is how you can do to" but I'm glad I didn't. In the end of the day that might have got a couple more students to care a little bit more but the focus of the rest of my talk was for the students that love software engineering. Career traps to avoid (manipulative managers, stagnation etc), the differences between uni and job mentality (individual vs team etc) and the fact that I enjoy my job (and that its not just coding all day :) )

I agree with you. I feel the request to put your salary on a slide (on the first slide, no less!) is rather unexpected, and quite frankly does not speak highly about the professionalism of your contact. I would decline this, for multiple reasons:

Your salary is nobody's business. Not sure what more there is to say about this.
Students are, for the largest part, intelligent adults. Many would take this exactly for what it's meant to be - rather crude marketing and hype generation. This would detract from the message you actually want to transport, and would undermine your following talk.
Focusing so much on how much you make is arguably not the best way to motivate young people for a specific career path anyway. If you talk about why you love your job (if you do) will encourage more people than a six-digits salary number. More importantly, it will probably encourage the people who will actually be happy doing your job, not the ones who would end up wealthy and miserable.

You can of course provide a salary range as proposed by other answers, but I would not emphasize this point much (and base it on third-party data, such as Glassdoor, not just your own experience).

I would not recommend you share your salary.

Instead, why do not try the approach of sharing the milestones you have achieved since graduation? Do not hide the struggles so you can empathize with your audience but also highlight why you do not regret studying at your University.

I am pretty sure you did not learn everything at the school, but some elements were key for you to be the person you are today.


Is it a good idea to include my professor who left academia as a reference in my PhD application? I contacted my professor to ask for a recommendation letter and I knew from him that he left my institution and asked me to use another e-mail address for him in the recommendation which is a Gmail. Will this affect the credibility of his recommendation in my application?

It seems unlikely that it would have any effect. I assume that he knows how to write a letter and explain things appropriately. The fact that he isn't an academic any more is less important than the relationship you once had and what he can still say about your prospects.

Of course, it is best if he has left a trail of accomplishments behind in his own work that will reflect on you. But he will likely know to point to that in his letter.

Don't depend too much on a single letter, however. You will want several if the institution will accept them.

People also retire, of course, and sometimes get asked for letters.

It is better to include , for honesty and reputation.


Are there any for-profit schools that have achieved a good reputation in academia? Is the for-profit model feasible to higher education institutions? In other words,  are there any for-profit schools that have achieved a good reputation in academia (teaching and/or research)?

This answer is about the US.

  Are there any for-profit schools that have achieved a good reputation in academia?

As far as I can tell, the answer is (1) we don't know, but (2) probably not.

The reason it's difficult to know the answer to this question is that although there is a variety of mechanisms for judging the quality of education at non-profit schools, such mechanisms either don't exist or aren't working well in the for-profit sector. US News and World Report doesn't rank for-profit schools. There are accrediting bodies, but the ones that handle accreditation for for-profit schools seem to be lap dogs of the industry.

Because of the lack of data, people in the federal government who have been trying to crack down on fraud have been forced to use various proxies as measures of educational quality. For example, they look at the percentage of graduates who default on the government-sponsored loans that they used to go to for-profit colleges. People have also tried to figure out what percentage of students at these schools actually end up employed in their field of study. All of these statistics are at best indirect measures of quality, for-profit colleges tend to come out very low on these measures, and the colleges tend to give out fraudulent numbers to try to make themselves look good by these measures.

You can try to try to pick out a specific college, or a certain program at a certain college, as a success story. I didn't have much luck at that when I googled. One article mentioned Microsoft certifications as an example of something reasonable that you could pay a for-profit college to help you prepare for. But when I started looking up information on Microsoft certifications, it basically sounded like a scam in which the instructors are really not vetted at all, and the purpose of the program is to achieve sales and vendor lock-in.

Another example I've heard about is that often community colleges don't have enough capacity to handle the demand for certain programs like nursing. In theory, it would seem to make sense for the private sector to take up the slack. As private, non-union businesses, they are more agile. But the reality seems to be that these programs are of extremely low quality. For example, stories abound of students taking a semester-long nursing course in which five or six different instructors come and go before the course is over.

Delineating for profit and nonprofits is not entirely as clear as it may seem.  Simply put, a "Nonprofit" a technical  designation for an organization that is tax exempt and therefore does not pay income tax on the money that they receive. Being 'nonprofit' does not mean they can't take in more money than they spend.  In fact many do and HAVE to take in more money than they spend in order to survive over time.   Harvard , for example, is nonprofit but has an endowment of $40.9 billion.


Proper citation of equations in scientific papers - terminology Most scientific papers refer to almost any formula that contains the "=" sign by the word "equation". Consider this case:

Let value = function(input) (1) where input is a known input value and value is the result of the function computation. In this situation, there are no effective unknowns (we are guaranteed that no unknowns are hidden in the function expression either).

Most papers (if not all) often refer to expression (1) in sentences like "equation (1) is equivalent to", "referring to equation (1), we see that..".

Some pedantic referees, however, suggest the use of a more proper word (e.g. formula (1) instead of equation (1)).

Is there a grammar reference that solves this seemingly insignificant issue?

Further clarification

An  example of an expression not considered an equation by a referee:
(a+b)^2 = a^2 + 2ab + b^2 (1).

From Higham, Handbook of writing for the mathematical sciences (emphasis mine):

Referencing Equations
When you reference an earlier equation it helps
the reader if you add a word or phrase describing the nature of that
equation. The aim is to save the reader the trouble of turning back to
look at the earlier equation. For example, "From the definition (6.2)
of dual norm" is more helpful than "From (6.2)"; and "Combining the
recurrence (3.14) with inequality (2.9)" is more helpful than
"Combining (3.14) and (2.9)". Mermin [200] calls this advice the "Good
Samaritan Rule". As in these examples, the word added should be something more informative than just "equation" (or the ugly abbreviation "Eq."), and inequalities, implications and lone
expressions should not be referred to as equations.

Pro-tip: arguing with a referee on such trivialities is rarely worth your time. Just do what they suggest.

I'd say your referee is right.

When you have variables on both sides of an equality, i.e. when you show some relationship between variables, we tend to say this is a formula.
E.g. x + 2y = 3z is a formula.

If, however, one of the sides of your equality contains no variables, just value(s), then we say it's an equation.
E.g. x + 2y = 3 is an equation.

Edit: The "equation" environment in LaTeX can be quite confusing this way, as it is often used for formulas, rather than equations...


Can you have a career in academia without having to write grant applications? I really like doing research, but I've heard that all the fights for funding can be a major headache. So I am wondering, how can I enjoy my work without worrying about grant applications? Are there specific fields or positions that don't require this?

The need for grant funding depends a lot on the type of research that you do.  The more that your research requires laboratory facilities and equipment, graduate student research assistants to run the equipment, or travel for field work than the more that you're going to need grant funding.  In the other direction, grant funding is less important if you do more theoretical research by yourself or with collaborators at other institutions.

No matter what type of research you do, you're going to need time to work on the research and some money to travel to conferences and present your research.

One of the few ways in which this can be done is to hold a faculty position at an undergraduate liberal arts college.  Some of these positions have reasonably light teaching loads (although typically higher than at research universities) and funds to send faculty to conferences.

The key point is that the money for your job needs to come from somewhere and as such grant finding is a massive deal for the majority of academics.
In my experience in the UK and understanding of the general nature of academia you will struggle to be defined as an 'academic' without partaking in the perpetual search for funding. Academics are not simply employees of a university or other institute, finding funding to do their research is an absolutely key part of the job. Even as an undergraduate researcher I had applied for funding for various summer projects, its quickly something that becomes relevant but it sounds like you haven't yet experienced it?

Finding funding is also fundamental in supervisory positions where you employ other academics, it would be your job as a PI/group leader to build the group and apply for funding to do that. Are you just interested in research and not in the wider nature of academia such as supervising other research scientists, coming up with new ideas for research and presenting at conferences? If you are just interested in the practical research aspect you could work in industry or as an employee at a university/institute (via teaching positions, research assistant etc) but you are unlikely to have the same freedom of research ideas or same long term career prospects as a typical academic, for example you would not reach group leader/PI without writing grants but you could reach a lead scientist role in an industry job.

It is also worth considering that the time you would have spent applying for grants would likely be exchanged for time required for teaching or other tasks that earn you the paycheck.


Is postdoc experience valued by industry? I have recently finished my PhD and am currently considering my options. I have come to the conclusion that the teaching or the "publish or perish" nature of academia isn't really appealing for me.

I have been talking to several people regarding my thoughts and I have noticed an interesting difference in opinion; senior academics have been stressing the value of doing a post-doc before a potential move to industry, whereas industry contacts say that it's much better/easier to do the move to industry within two years from dissertation. I inquired further asking whether or not the postdoc years would be valued by companies, and the answer was essentially that:

  unless the postdoc years are immediately relevant to the applied job, it wouldn't really give any seniority, as companies want to nurture their own culture and staying in academia for "too long" might lead to certain "habits" not appreciated in corporate world.

I want to get further opinions on the matter; is doing a postdoc valued by industry in general? The field is life sciences and bioinformatics, if it makes a difference..

There certainly is no "correct" answer to this question, as it depends on two factors: (1) the company (some will see it as useful, most probably won't), and (2) the type of postdoc (with or without management tasks? project lead? PI on a small project? independent or highly dependent of a professor?).

However, at least here in Switzerland and for Computer Science, the rule of thumb is that as soon as you are 100% that you won't stay in academia, every further month spent as a postdoc is inefficient in terms of career development. Yes, some companies may count your years as postdoc as some sort of relevant leadership experience, but most won't, and even those that do will consider a similar candidate with the same number of years working in industry to be much more attractive.

There is also another angle to look at this - you are currently looking to move into industry, and you have differing opinions from people that are already working in industry and people that are not. In absence of any other information, you should probably give more weight to the information provided by the insiders.

In life sciences and bioinformatics, more  experienced you are, more employable and attractive to recruiters you will be.

EDIT:

These informations are based according to my university Alumni organisation, and department tracking of employability of their student.
More suggestions what organization are responsible for tracking such a records I added in comments below


PhD candidate vs PhD student I see researchers working on their PhD calling themselves PhD Candidates, other call themselves PhD students. What's the difference between a PhD Candidate and a PhD Student?

According to two posters on the WordReferences forums:

  This terms vary from university to university, usually a PhD student is granted the candidate status after completion of a “comprehensive examination”, which occurs sometime after the first year.

and

  Here in the U.S., a “Ph.D. Candidate” is a student who has completed all of the academic requirements for their degree, except their dissertation.

So this works in the USA and Canada I presume, because they have structured PhD programs where you attend courses as part of your PhD. Unlike most of the universities in Europe where a PhD student starts off directly with his/her PhD thesis. (Europe does have structured programs as well, but they are not as widely spread yet).

In some countries (e.g. The Netherlands where I obtained my PhD degree) you are not considered a student but a paid employee (staff) with the university. To discern between these, people sometimes translate their status to English using term "PhD candidate". Btw, this has nothing to do with the length of the program or your progress.

I am surprised at this controversy and answers. When someone applies for a status, this person is called a candidate. If you apply for job, you may be called a job candidate. When you apply for the studentship for any PhD program, you can be called PhD candidate. Candidacy means intention of getting selected. We can have Presidency candidate, job candidate and so on. If a person applies for admission for post graduate program, the person will be called PG candidate. Any program PG or UG or PhD will have so many candidates, but all are not selected. Once selected the status becomes Student. Many universities still force PhD students to learn many aspects of PhD. After a program finishes and the student successfully passes the requirements or exams, the student gets a degree of PhD/PG/Graduation.

So the three stages for a PhD aspirant would be;

to get selected as a PhD candidate (some do not qualify this stage also as they do not meet the requirements of candidature, then
to get selected as a PhD student and, lastly,
to pass the requirements, stages and exam (viva) and be come PhD degree holder so that you can write PhD as a title in your name.


What is the name of the style where research papers are written in a story-telling fashion? The following research paper is written in a story-telling manner:

One Mentor-teacher's Personal Narrative of Collaborative Research on the Teaching Practicum

What is the name of this style of research paper writing?

One word for this is an experience report. This search on Google scholar reveals that many experience reports seem to have a similar purpose to the paper you ask about.

An experience report relays some important, often qualitative information about the authors' experience in deploying a method, hypothesis, or idea in the real world, whereas a regular research paper focuses more on proposing a new method, hypothesis, or idea, and arguing why it advances the state of scientific knowledge.

Also, I think we should separate two things here: the style of the article, and the style of the writing. The style of the article is accurately described as an experience report. On the other hand, many experience reports (see the above Google scholar list) do not have such a flavor of a story -- unlike your article, which begins

  I remember sitting on the green couch...

I would say this is more a matter of writing style than actual content. I have read articles in my field (computer science) that are like this, but it is rare and unorthodox. It likely varies by field, and in some fields (I would guess that philosophy and comparative literature are examples), storytelling is a standard and accepted style of writing.

A formal word for a story is "narrative."


How to deal with an advisor who wants a "friendlier" relationship with me than I do? I work as an assistant at a university in Australia. I joined the team consisting of my current advisor and his two PhD students. The other group members are men and they have a co-worker-like relationship with him. At first it was good, my advisor was very helpful (I have worked there about ten months and I published two papers with him, both in journals with a high impact factor). But when we started to get to know each other better, it unfortunately changed. I am a young woman and am afraid that he wants me to become romantically involved with him.

I try to keep this relationship work-only, as it’s the most healthy way, in my opinion, but sometimes my advisor seems to think differently. Here are some of the things that have made me think my advisor wants a romantic relationship with me:

He comes to my room very often with no research-related reason and wants to talk, talk, talk about everything but work.
Once, when I was busy working, he came to my room and asked if he could take a photo of me. I felt ashamed and did know what to say and then finally, he took the photo.
Sometimes I think he is mad at me that I want to keep this relationship work-only, and then does not answer my emails about our research.
He is very careful with all this, says those things only when we're together. A while ago I heard that his PhD student suggested to him that he spends too much time with me. He laughed and said it's not his business, and that we are working hard on some novel research method.

My advisor has powerful connections here at the university and I'm afraid no one is able to do anything about it. I’m only interested in having a professional relationship with him. However, I’m afraid that if I don’t agree to be his “very close friend,” he will try to kick me out of the university.

I can not move to a different city because of some family issues and can not change my advisor since he is the only person at the university who works on the research I’m interested in. What can I do?

I don't know if a meeting at which you "set the agenda" would be particularly helpful at this stage. It might make him feel "attacked", put him on the defensive, and he may retaliate against you in response. (I'm not suggesting that he would try to get you kicked out of the university or the department; there are many, many other small and large ways an advisor can make things difficult for a student. You already suggested that when he's mad at you, he deliberately ignores you emails, for example.)

I strongly disagree with the advice to flaunt a (real or fake) relationship, to let your advisor know you're unavailable. I've seen people try this, and in my experience, when applied to someone who does not respect boundaries, the outcome is often that then he starts asking you a whole lot of very uncomfortable questions about your boyfriend and the relationship.

Also, he's probably doing this because he enjoys it (flirting, the chase, whatever), not because he wants an actual committed relationship. So I'm not convinced that he would be dissuaded by your unavailability.

Instead, I suggest you start using a variation on the following phrase to respond when he does something that makes you uncomfortable:

  I don't want this. This makes me really uncomfortable.

As in,

  I don't want you to take my photo. Please don't ask again, it makes me really uncomfortable.

or

  I don't want to talk about my personal life with you. It makes me really uncomfortable.

etc.

And, if he persists in whatever is making you uncomfortable,

  I need to go (get a cup of coffee/make a phone call/talk to another student before he leaves for the day/make some photocopies/etc.)

then remove yourself from the situation.

I recommend practicing saying these words on your own, until they feel natural. This will help you feel less flustered when a situation comes up.

I also concur with StrongBad's suggestion:

  I would suggest the OP writes down every time she tells the advisor he made her feel uncomfortable. She should also keep track of times he makes her feel uncomfortable in which she was uncomfortable telling him he made her feel uncomfortable.

and I would add, also make a note of who else (if anyone) was there at the time.

This will help in two ways:

You'll be able to tell if the situation is getting better or worse with time.
If you do need to escalate at some point, you'll have some documentation.

All the answers are fine. However all of them are related to the answerer’s personality and I assume the questioner can't replicate that exact personalities or some answers suggest to do something that the questioner doesn't want to perform like, skipping, changing field or research.

From my point of view, this question is a common among most employed women. However as per my experience, if you take any step to get confront the advisor by discussing about this problem directory would make him mad. Also even if you follow the professional protocol to follow this issue, the situation would cost even your career as you said. However the end result is based on person to person.

There could be lot of ways to solve this.
However in here I'm suggesting an one method to neutrally stabilize the situation. however this method is framed with some criteria.

Tips to neutrally stabilize the situation:

What if an annoying car seller tries to sell a car and calls you all the day? Without complain to any law authorities or whatever, the easiest thing that you could do is to show him what you currently own and you don't prefer a new one.
If you got a partner or just a boy friend, this can be solved very easily. Or if you are currently not up to any relationship just ask some help from a close male friend. (For now lets call this guy as your partner)
Safest play would be to show up some basic personal stuff over your social media, FB, instagram in very neutral manner. Like the dinner's you both gone out, etc.
Or ask your partner to take a visit at university, or you could introduce him to the advisor.
When the advisor is around, Ask your partner to pick-up you after work.
Also if you could show up a photo of your partner's or of your both on your working desk, noticeable wallet or on pendant would be another good idea.
When the advisor is talking about non-work related personal stuff, you could respond to those topics like , "as my boy friend says like this, like that"
He will indirectly know that you value your personal stuff.
Let him know that you are not your own and there are people around you to support, protect.

My suggestion is to continue work with him as usual and eventually you could indirectly let him know that if he's up to a such a relationship, that you are not available and you are occupied.

Also he will eventually know that he doesn't have any chance and retreat without any hate. However this depends on the person's personality.
Expect the good side.

Good Luck!


Should I ask for a submitted recommendation letter to be retracted in order to submit another, stronger recommendation? I am currently applying for a Ph.D. in Physics in the US. One of my recommenders has already submitted a letter to the schools I'm applying to, but I was advised by another faculty member that I should have gotten a letter from a different professor I worked with since the submitted one wouldn't be as strong. The latter professor would most likely write a stronger recommendation.

All of the programs I'm applying for require three letters, and most allow for four; would simply adding the extra recommender be sufficient or should I contact the school to remove the weaker letter entirely if possible? In other words, would having it there bring down my application if there is a stronger one I could replace it with or would it reasonable to assume that reviewers would consider all four and think of the weaker one as extraneous (since I cannot define a ranked order)?

You can't "retract" a letter.  This isn't done, and I think it would look weird and somewhat suspicious.  The committee might be inclined to read that letter more closely in case it contains something damaging that you were trying to conceal.  At the very least, it seems distasteful to be "gaming" your professors' supposedly well-considered evaluations in this way.

You certainly can have this other professor submit their letter in addition to the others.  For those schools that specify three letters, it will be up to the committee whether they read all four, or choose three in some arbitrary way.  I suspect that if three letters suggest you're a viable candidate, the committee will be willing to look at the fourth.

The writer of a letter should be able to retract if they discover something about you they don’t like.

You should be able to retract a letter if you discover that the author has credited you with accomplishments you know are not true.

But I say “should” for both because many things could interfere.


What is an effective way to copyright my teaching material? I am an adjunct instructor at a technical college in the US. I was tasked with creating a new class which I would teach in the spring. I have finished all of my course materials (.pdfs, lab sheets, power points, etc etc). When I was first hired and told to create the new course, I was informed by some of my colleagues (former adjuncts at the same institution) that I would be paid for my course content. However, in speaking with my directory I was informed that I would not be paid for my course content as it is part of running the class.

Now whether or not that is right or wrong, I'm not too horribly concerned. However alot of my own personal time goes into creating these materials and I would like to protect my time investment.

Would it be wise or prudent to try and protect my course materials through some sort of copyrighting process of some sort, or something to that effect?

If so, what is a sufficient way of documenting my materials and ensuring that any party who obtains them sees them as "copyrighted" or possessing whatever protection that is applied to them?

My interest is in ensuring that my course materials are not gobbled up by someone else in the program, then taught by someone else without having been properly reimbursed for my development work in my personal time. Everyone else I have spoken to has said it sounds "not very kosher" that I am not being reimbursed for developing the course work.

I would simply like to protect my personal investment into these materials.

Thoughts? Insights? Experiences? Thank you!

I went through my contract, and there are two subdivisions that outline IP and copyright goodies, etc etc. The first paragraphs in essence state "The faculty member is entitled to the results of their research, IP, etc, EXCEPT when we pay for the research to be done, OR give you a break in your work load but still pay you to do the research, OR" - now this is the line I'm not sure about, "C. Under an assigned duty and/or work-for-hire arrangement with an external sponsor.
" I was very informally asked "Hey, would you be willing to put together and teach a class on subject X?" Me - "Sure.". (That's fairly literally, the extent of the request and my response). Would that fall under either of the definitions of C?

To be clear, I am developing the materials while not teaching any courses or being paid by the school in any manner. It is currently the summer semester and I am not being paid to teach, develop course work or anything. I will have to try and find my contract.

The shows a misunderstanding about the nature of a teaching job. When you're paid to teach a course, you're not being paid to do work only while the course runs. You're also being paid to prepare the course, and you're going to need to do that before the first meeting.

  I have finished all of my course materials (.pdfs, lab sheets, power points, etc etc). When I was first hired and told to create the new course, I was informed by some of my colleagues (former adjuncts at the same institution) that I would be paid for my course content. However, in speaking with my directory I was informed that I would not be paid for my course content as it is part of running the class.

Your colleagues were probably confused. Nobody pays instructors extra money to produce powerpoints and handouts. It goes with the job.

If you don't want others in your department to use your lab handouts without paying, don't give them your lab handouts. If you don't want others in your department to use your powerpoints without paying, don't give them your powerpoints.

As Bill Barth and JeffE have pointed out, copyright protection is automatic in most jurisdictions. It can be wise to put a copyright notice on your work, since a possible defense against a copyright-violation lawsuit is that the defendant didn't know it was copyrighted. A formal copyright registration is necessary in the US if you want to be able to recover more than actual damages, i.e., if you want punitive damages.

In general, the question shows an unrealistic set of assumptions about what teachers do; what they're paid to do; and what the normal contractual arrangements are. Furthermore, many people who write have an unrealistic belief in the quality and market value of their writing. There is no particular reason to expect that anyone else in the department will like these materials so much that they would want to use them. Most people prefer to do things their own way.

You are being paid to teach a course, which means you're getting paid to create things like power point presentations, OR simply write on the black board... Since you're choosing to create a more concrete item, this is your choice, and that is still the property of your faculty. Whatever you create is being governed & paid by the faculty.

What investment are you talking about?? Please don't be delusional. You're not writing a research paper which is being published under your name. You're relaying information to your students. This information is out there because you were paid to create it. There is no investment here.

You're trying to get paid say $50,000 to create things for your course, teach it, and then get paid again for the same material!

That makes absolutely no sense! Find another field of work if you want to get royalties.


What should a reply to a peer review look like? Recently I have received a peer-review letter on my article. While preparing an answer I've found that I have no idea what I should include in the answer.

There is multiple "idea" notes and few language issue mentioned.

It's my first peer-review, so it would be very useful to have some idea how to compose a good reviewer reply.

Generally, the best way to respond is with a detailed rundown, discussing every point that the referee raised in turn.  (This may be unnecessary if there are only a handful of minor changes asked for, but it doesn't hurt even then.)

What I generally do is to start with a two or three sentence introduction, stating that I have made all the changes that the referee suggests.  If there were changes that I was unwilling to make, I just say that I have made most of the changes but that I feel that one or more of the referee's requests were not appropriate.

Then I begin a point-by-point analysis of what the referee said and how I have responded.  Usually, I address the points in the same order as the referee raised them in their report, but not always.  (Sometimes there may be just one major revision that was requested, and I want to discuss that first, before the minor points, even though the referee did not order things the same way.)  It's often a good idea to quote directly what the referee said in the report and then follow up with an explanation of the changes that have been made.

Sometimes, just stating that the change has been made is sufficient.  This is typically all that's needed for linguistic problems.  If the editor and referee may have trouble finding a change, you can point out where it is.  If the changes are more substantive, it's a good idea to give a summary of what the changes were.  These don't need to be long, but the should point out the main significance of the changes.

If there were changes that you were unwilling to make, you must carefully explain why.  If you think the referee was wrong, this should be pointed out very tactfully.  A good referee will recognize their error if they really made one.  If there are matters of opinion, it may be trickier to convince editor and referee that things are really better your way.  It is also important that you make it clear that you are reasonable about making changes.  If you refuse to make anything but the most trivial corrections in response to a referee's report, that makes you look stubborn and probably unreasonable.

It is not actually appropriate to reply directly to the reviewer, instead, you should summarize to the editor (knowing that the reviewers will see your response) what changes you made (especially relating them to what reviewers tell you you should do), and what changes you did not make (briefly justify not making a change requested by a reviewer). Most of the time, you should make a change, though it may not be the change requested. For example, if a reviewer tells you to used method X rather than Y, you don't have to use method X but you should explain in the paper why method Y is not appropriate. The reason for doing that is because if the reviewer didn't understand your paper well enough to see that, other readers are also likely to be perplexed, so you need to explain better. Sometimes reviewers are just embarassingly wrong so that anybody in the field should know why you use Y rather than X, in which case you can keep the discussion out of the paper, and simply tell the editor why Y is the appropriate method.

There is no need to give a detailed accounting of every criticism, and you could summarize criticisms of exposition with a general statement like "problems with language have been resolved throughout the paper".


Can I use a section of my thesis to "soap-box" about a meta-issue regarding research? I'm a big believer in FOSS (Free Open Source Software), and a physics graduate student. I believe a lot of current researchers are not aware of free solutions to problems that are usually encountered in a lab, and since money is often tight in academia I think it's important.

I also feel like my thesis is the only bit of work I'll do in academia that's truly mine; there's no journal with strict criteria on what I can include.

So do you think it's appropriate to include a section at the end of my thesis, essentially completely separate from the rest of it, containing my views about the state of software in science and solutions to problems? I'm worried that it might seem a bit preachy, but I think that's a problem that can be solved with tone/phrasing.

I think this is a fairly bad idea, for the following reasons:

It's largely shouting in the woods. Let's face it, while you may feel that your thesis is the only piece of work that's "truly yours", it will likely also be the least-read piece of your career. More to the point, your (presumed) target audience (young physicists in other departments) are very unlikely to ever come across your statement. How many PhD dissertations of people you don't know personally have you read to the end?
It has a non-zero chance of annoying somebody in your committee. Again, a physics thesis nowadays is mostly there to appease your committee (as few to none outside of the committee will ever read it), so a section that does not contribute to or actively hurts this goal seems like a bad idea. And I would argue that there is a real danger that somebody in your committee is not thrilled about the unconventional political statement in your thesis, as:
You may be unable to write it in a way that it does not come across as preachy. I think the pure existence of such a section will be perceived preachy, so no matter how you phrase it, it may always be perceived as such.

So if your thesis (and formal papers, obviously) are bad places to communicate your opinion on science politics, how can you communicate these matters? Most people I know with strong opinions on political matters of science (be they about career models for young scientists, open access, reproducibility, ...) tend to primarily communicate their thoughts over various social media (blogs, Twitter, Facebook), with the occasional invited opinion piece on the topic in a journal or magazine editorial. Every now and then, they are also invited to talk about the issues they care about in seminars or as invited speakers in conferences. Presumably, in some cases, they have just been invited in general and have decided on their own that politics is what they are going to talk about. This strategy reaches substantially more people (even if your blog entry never jumps across 100 views, that's probably still more than your thesis will get in the next 50 years), and from a blog or Facebook entry, people expect opinionated content, so there is much less reason to think less of you (unless they vehemently disagree with your opinion, but in this case no way of communicating your thoughts will help).

I think as many have said here, there might be objections which wouldn't have been there if you hadn't included the "soap box". I would suggest becoming well settled in academia first (gain tenure etc.) and then one day on your own home-page have a section about your personal views on FOSS. This would mean that people who would want to reach out to you and actually follow your views (future students) would get to read them.


Is it unethical to expect one's PhD students to work after graduation without compensation? Should graduates ask for compensation for work? My thesis advisor expects me to 1) write the paper rebuttal and 2) finish any remaining experiments by coming in on the weekends, for free. I am now working full-time in industry, and no longer being paid by him. Is this ethical?

Part 2 of my question:
I would be happy to do this if it had been my fault that we didn't submit my paper until the week I graduated. However, my history with this advisor has been:

1 year before Jan graduation date: We agreed that in 1 year I could graduate given the finishing of certain key experiments. He also insisted that I be here for the rebuttal of the paper after its been submitted.
During this year, we agreed that I was on track for this.
3 months before Jan graduation date: I brought up my Jan graduation again, and he protested saying it would take longer than I thought to write, submit, and wait for revisions to come back (different than being on track like we had agreed I was!)
I of course was dissapointed that he didn't tell me this sooner, that I wasn't on track. I relented to a compromise where I graduate in March instead of Jan.
Dec: All of the key experiments had been completed and I insisted on submitting in Jan or by the end of jan so that I could still be here for the rebuttal (3 months to write, submit, and get reviews back). He agreed that would be enough time.
Jan: He now wanted me to do several more, additional experiments for the paper. I tried, but the experiments were not going well. I kept trying to mention that the paper needed to be submitted. He relented, and we ended up submitting at the end of March.

Now, he doesnt even have the time to give me feedback on a draft of the rebuttal until after I put everything together (meaning I may be wasting my time on things that he will ultimately throw out or veto)

Therefore, I feel he has fanagled things so that he can get the most value out of me without regard for me as a person, and that includes this new period of being asked to do work with no mention of pay. Is this unethical and should I ask him to pay me for my work on the rebuttal?

You are thinking about this like an industry employee (which you are, so that's a reasonable stance).

Your advisor is thinking about this like an academic (which they are, so that's a reasonable stance).

Some perspectives:

Academic work is personal work and community work

You don't work for someone in academia as much as you work with someone. It seems like you are feeling a lot of conflict with your advisor right now, but I'd step back a bit and think about whose research this is. Certainly at some level your work benefits your advisor, but isn't it your own work, too? Do you not want to see your results published?

Is your advisor making decisions about suggesting further experiments that pushed your timeline beyond what you hoped because they are getting free work out of you, or are these steps to make the paper better and importantly to make it publishable (see below)?

In academia, it is normal to work on projects from a previous position; in industry it is not

Almost every academic will, at any time they move positions (including graduating as an undergraduate/graduate student, between temporary positions like post docs, and when getting hired as a professor and any moves afterwards) have some unfinished business at their previous place of work.

It's not reasonable to expect every research project to fall neatly into the academic calendar, conveniently finishing right at the conclusion, especially given the unplanned timelines surrounding peer review. Therefore, people tend to spend part of their time in their new position finishing up things from their past one, while being paid only by the new institution.

This gets "paid forward" in the future when the same happens during the next transition. A frequently asked question here at Academia.SE is some version of "which institution/affiliation should I list on this paper, new or old?" because of how often this happens.

Unpublished work is worthless to you and the academic community

Maybe your work is in a thesis in some draft form already, but all of the work you've done that isn't published is doing nothing for you or for academia. Maybe you're fine with that, because you aren't an academic anymore, but ultimately whatever funding agency funded your research and the university you worked for did so because they wanted you to produce published results, not just to give you the PhD title. If you think there is value in the work you've done, then that should be an incentive to get it into a form that can be shared.

On the other hand, you may decide that publishing is not actually of any benefit to you. If you don't feel intrinsic worth in the project, and if you don't plan any return to academia, then probably one more published paper won't mean anything tangible for your CV.

Given these differing perspectives...

I don't think there is any fixed answer. Should you do work for a past advisor without compensation? No. Should you collaborate with people you've worked with in the past to share your research with the broader academic community? Probably yes.

Ultimately it's up to you to define where those boundaries are. Personally, I would think it to be irresponsible to fail to follow up on basic authorship duties like responding to reviewer comments, editing manuscripts for submission, etc. These activities shouldn't replace paid employment, but they can be completed in a few free hours during a transition period. Coming in on several weekends to run experiments sounds like a bit much - maybe there is a compromise solution where you can train a new student to run those experiments, add them as a coauthor to the paper, and continue helping with the manuscript(s)?

Regarding your question about payment and ethics: I don't see ethics involved. And as you just started in industry, you are not facing poverty or a long stretch of time without any payment. Finishing a paper after starting an industry job is not unheard of. You get your name on the publication.

My advice: Try to finish the paper with as little work as possible. Try to deny doing any additional experiments. These can be done by another scientist and they can write another paper based on further experiments. The rationale is, that you don't waste your work, but you limit the amount of additional work.


How can I communicate that the word limit prevents you from elaborating something in an essay? Let's posit:

You're a university student. I don't posit degree level; you can be undergraduate or postgraduate.
You must not overstep the essay's word limit, whatever it is. You lose marks if you overstep.
Your word limit is too short to elaborate an argument or idea.

How do academics write that the word limit precludes elaboration? Is this common or professional? Something like

The word limit prevents me elaborating this idea.

I cannot elaborate this argument here given the word limit.

Or is this stupid? Will the professor already know the word limit precluded you from elaboration?

How to communicate that word limit prevents you from elaborate something in essay?

You don’t. You take the time and put in the effort to make your argument in the available space. If you do that, more likely than not the resulting essay will be a better piece of writing that does a better job of putting your argument across than if it had been longer. Thus, you will have nothing to excuse or apologize for.
And don’t take it from me, many famous thinkers have expressed similar thoughts about the benefits of conciseness (and the difficulty of achieving those benefits). My favorite one of these quotes is Woodrow Wilson’s reply when he was asked how long he takes to write a speech:

“That depends on the length of the speech,” answered the President. “If it is a ten-minute speech it takes me all of two weeks to prepare it; if it is a half-hour speech it takes me a week; if I can talk as long as I want to it requires no preparation at all. I am ready now.”

I can only answer from a student's perspective (in the US), but if the professor sets a word limit, that's the length they're looking for. For example, even though you may have a lot to say on the topic, and they may be good arguments/ideas etc., the professor doesn't want that much elaboration. (It may be because of time constraints on their part or because of the level of the class etc.)
Will they know if you exceed the word limit? It's likely, and they could take points off for not following the instructions.
Edit- I removed the suggestion of asking your prof. to remove the word limit. I can see others' point about it looking like you're unable to do the assignment if you do that.


As a professor, can I copy exercises / problems from a textbook without referencing the source? In creating a final exam for my course, I would like to use problems from a textbook that I did not assign to the course. Do I need to reference the source on the final exam paper or is it not necessary?

I have never seen a university exam in which problems are cited to sources.  The vast majority of exams I've seen are intellectually derivative on other sources: for many courses, an exam which is not intellectually derivative would be difficult to write and very painful for students to take.

In my opinion, in current academic culture course exams are not viewed as academic works which are subject to the standards of plagiarism: there is no pretense of originality.  However, copying exams from standard sources has issues other than intellectual priority: as already mentioned, it may give an advantage to students who are consulting those sources.  In my opinion, it is a good practice when writing an exam to never copy a problem wholly and directly from a standard source.  A question can always be reworded.  For a large array of problems in STEM fields, parameters can be adjusted or other incidental features changed, creating a problem that to a sufficiently expert eye looks isomorphic to the textbook problem, but is different enough so that someone who would feel that way has mastered the material.

When I write undergraduate exams, I usually do so with my own study materials and exams given in past iterations of the course in view (and I also give these to the students, in most cases).  With this in view, I try to create an exam which has the right amount of similarity to past exams and review materials: neither too much nor too little. For intermediate undergraduate level math courses, I have found that having one problem or part of a problem be basically identical (though somewhat reworded) to something in the study materials has a positive effect on the course: as the students run through several midterms and the final exam, they learn that the study materials are actually to be carefully studied and mastered, which increases their learning.  In general I find that changes that I regard as relatively modest -- e.g. swapping out one problem for a "cognate problem" -- are often regarded as "completely different" by students.

In short: you can and probably should use other sources for inspiration and calibration purposes when writing an exam, and I have never seen anyone document their sources as if an exam were an academic paper.  (In most cases one would not be documenting the "true author" of the work but simply identifying the previous person in the borrowing chain.)  However, you should not blindly copy problems from other sources, and you should watch carefully to ensure that your students regard your exams as having a sufficient amount of novelty.  To do otherwise is to shirk one of the most basic duties of the course instructor.

tl;dr: it's not OK

Long answer: I see two aspects here.

To use someone else's work without referencing it.

Ask yourself, would you like your students to do the same?
Academics generally agree that plagiarism is not acceptable and constitutes a significant academic misconduct. As a professor, you are seen as a model example by your students. Show them a good example by always referencing your sources (in lectures, exercises, and of course your research papers).

To use previously published problems in the final exam.

Policies may vary from School to School, but in many places it is expected that the final exam (and any assessment in fact) consists of problems, which are new to students. If problems are copied from a textbook, how do you know that students did not have access to these problems, and to their solutions before the exam? There is no control over it, which puts some (lucky) students in more favourite position, not because they learned the material better, but because they ran across the same textbook you are using.

For both reasons, it is not OK to use textbook problems in the exam, and it is  not OK to use textbook problems without the reference.


Student requests to know their "grades so far" I periodically get requests from students to know their "grade so far". From what I can tell, this is becoming more prevalent, and more encouraged by administrators. And there is a box for "Total Grade" in our LMS, turned on by default, which I have to manually disable.
I feel that telling them a number might mislead. For example, this fall, the final exam is split into sections corresponding to the midterms, and students can replace each of their midterm scores by doing better on the corresponding section of the final. Also, there will be an extra credit final homework. So, even if a student is failing "so far", that doesn't necessarily mean that they're likely to fail the course.
What is the best way to address such questions? Be evasive? ("It's complicated...") Give them a number, even if misleading, along with some caveats that they might not read? Or design simpler grading schemes in the future, even if the "complicated" features were intended to be helpful?
A few remarks following the comments:

I have provided them with their grades on every assignment so far, and I have also told them exactly how their final grades will be computed. The issue is—the students who ask, say they're a bit confused about how well they're doing (even though I did my best to explain it clearly), and seem to want an answer like "Your average is 73% so far".
The students should be perfectly capable of assessing their performance so far. But they are overwhelmed, they are struggling, and they are anxious—especially this fall, with the ongoing pandemic, and where I'm teaching online and not face-to-face. And they might be afraid of hidden gotchas—some rule buried in the fine print of the syllabus, which I'm going to call them out on later (I'm not). I can sympathize with my students' desire for a simple answer.

If I were a student, I would prefer your second suggestion: A number along with some caveats.
Basically I would want to know what I have to do in order to pass.
When I taught my first class this summer I was giving my students a number and then a short note which explained that I wouldn't be assigning letter grades until the end of the course, so I don't know their letter grade along with a sentence or two about how I personally think they are doing and what I think they can do to improve. This seemed to work pretty well.

To give another perspective, I think by withholding their grades so far, you may actually be doing the students a favour.
I had a class where the lecturer didn't give any marks back at all during the semester. You could turn up to tutorials and consulting hours and get as much help as you wanted (within reason of course), but the actual number of your grade, or even the actual assignment was withheld - not by accident either, I distinctly remember getting an email the day after the exam saying we could collect all our coursework.
Of course we all whinged and moaned about, but in the end, it ended up being my best subject that year. I was terrified of failing so I put in a lot of effort to make sure I understood the material for the (heavily weighted) exam.
I don't know what the story behind that decision was - that particular lecturer was known for doing things like that, so he could have been making a point to the students and the university for all I know. Maybe it never happened again.
But over 10 years later, I still remember the lesson I learnt from that class: sometimes you will be in a position where there will be no feedback and you'll need to commit, so you better be damned sure you're confident in your answer.
As for how to deal with it, if you choose to go that way, just stick to your guns and bear the brunt of the questioning. I don't know how the lecturer handled it himself, but I can imagine him outright ignoring the emails, or simply saying "No."
I will add that this was a third year course, and was compulsory for the major I was taking, so the context may be different to your case.
Edit:
To address the top voted comment more visibly, I never said no feedback ever. Feedback is a very important tool for gauging your understanding. Feedback doesn't have to exclusively come from graded assessment either. I'd argue far and away the best form of feedback comes with engaging in the course: taking advantage of the resources given to you!
Further to that, the fear I had of failing came from (I'll be honest here) having a habit of not taking the best approach to learning, basically relying too much on graded assessment as my only practice and feedback. I'm a little embarrassed to admit it, but I'll wager I'm not the only person who has ever fallen into that trap.


Students trying to negotiate away penalties for late submission of coursework I'm teaching a course where coursework is submitted online.
Recently, an important group project assignment was due.
The students are required to submit a project report,
which contains a link to a video produced by the students,
usually uploaded onto a site such as YouTube, Google Drive or Dropbox.
We had announced that for every day that an assignment is late,
students will lose 10% of their score for that assignment.

As you might have predicted,
there were several student groups who submitted their assignments late.
The problem is that some of these students
have sent me e-mails begging me
not to impose the penalty for late submission.
They gave reasons such as:

The original PDF file which we submitted was corrupted,
so after the deadline, we had to submit the PDF again
There were some technical problems with the original video link,
such that it is not possible for the video to be viewed at that link,
so we had to upload a new video and are now sending you the new link
The project was due at 9 PM, and we submitted it at 9 PM
(see our screenshot!) but the system marked it as late

Initially, I told them that
they will be penalized as specified in the policy,
in order to be fair to the students who did submit their work on time.
However, the students continued to say that
I should be more considerate or fair.

In my mind, I want to say to these students,
"Stop wasting my time arguing for marks!"
But this doesn't seem to be
the right way for me to respond to the students.
How should I respond to these students
who keep on asking me not to penalize them
when the penalty is deserved?

Adhere to the guidelines and syllabus you posted. If students can get around consequences of late submission by arguing, you have set a precedent, and they (and future generations of students) will argue again the next time. Don't go there. Consciously cultivate a reputation that pointless arguments don't work with you.

Next time, make it clear that "normal" IT problems like corrupted files or network lag is not your responsibility, and encourage students to upload their work sufficiently early so they won't run afoul of such problems. If possible, allow students to change their submissions, so they can upload whatever they have a week before the deadline, and keep on uploading polished versions, with the last successful submission before the deadline counting for the grade. This is the way most MOOC sites do it.

(Of course, if the university servers went down, you should take this into account.)

This earlier question seems to be similar: How to deal with failing a student? (And I gave the same recommendation there.)

Use services that backs up all changes and logs events.
Set deadline for upload and deadline to verify succesful upload. (say one hour)
If students encounter any problem, they shall inform you. (Server is down, what should I do?)
Set the rule, that after deadline student will lose 10% per day.
Count it as -0.007*[minutes].
Add false-complaint penalty of another [significant ammount].

Cancel the penalty only if the student proves that the hour-long delay was caused by university servers malfunction (brakedowns shall be logged) and that the work was done before the deadline (timestamp).

If they cannot prove their statements then apply both delay and false-complaint penalties.

You can make submission more bulletproof when using multiple services and the work must be uploaded to all services on time. Probability of all services corrupted is much lower than probability of one service corrupted.

Or you can reject their complaints saying:

  You were expected to upload your work and verify its validity before the deadline and proper plannig was part of the task. Your complains were raised late and will be ignored. Take it as a lesson for your further work.

In real life, companies are losing fortune per day if the work is delayed, no matter the circumstances. Students are about to lose couple of points. Take it to acount as well. :)


What university affiliation should a retired member of staff use? University retired researchers often get privileges to use Libraries etc. When a retired member uses the university library for research are they obliged to mention the university affiliation in subsequent publications?

One can be affiliated as an independent researcher and acknowledge the usage of university library. One is a retiree of that university.

TL;DR. A retired member of staff should use any affiliation assigned by their previous employer. If no affiliation has been assigned, then they should ask their previous employer.

  University retired researchers often get privileges to use Libraries etc.

Such privileges are presumably associated with a title: Universities generally control access to resources (such as libraries), hence, some form of access token is required and that token must be associated with an owner. The owner is typically affiliated with the university in some way, which merits a title.  Some titles aren't sufficiently formal (e.g., graduand) to merit affiliation, others are.

  When a retired member uses the university library for research are
  they obliged to mention the university affiliation in subsequent
  publications?

If the university has assigned the retired member a (sufficiently formal) title, then that title should be used. Otherwise, it is unclear whether the university considers the retired member to be affiliated with the university, hence, claiming affiliation would be misleading. I'd recommend asking the university in this case.


How to quiet noisy undergrads students during lecture I am teaching a class of about 100 undergraduates.
The class meets for a three-hour block every week
in a lecture hall which seats about 120.
We have about 2-3 breaks every lecture,
to give students time to buy food, go to the restroom,
and also to work on some in-class problems
which they have to submit after the lecture.

The problem that I am facing is
that many of the students like to chit-chat even when I am talking.
I find that this is distracting for the students
who want to concentrate on what I am saying.

What are some techniques which I can apply
to nicely tell the students to keep quiet?

Clarification:
When it's time to work on the in-class problems,
the students get 20 minutes to do so,
and are free to talk as much as they like.
The problem with the students being noisy
is that they are noisy during the lecture
when there are supposed to be quiet.

Call them out when you notice it. Stop what you're doing - single the chit-chatters out, and ask them if they have anything they'd like to say.  If they have questions they should ask them so that the entire class can hear - that way everyone can learn.  If they do have questions, remind them of whatever protocol you have for questions (raise a hand, hold questions for designated question breaks, etc).
Otherwise, make it clear that you won't tolerate chit-chat and, if they persist, simply remove them from the class.  Make it clear that they are welcome to return to the next lecture on the condition that they keep quiet during the lecture. Be sure to be polite and cordial, of course, but don't waver on being firm.
It is not acceptable for a few noisy students to compromise the learning environment for everyone else. Just get them out of there. You probably won't have to do this more than once or twice before the rest figure out that you're serious. As a lecturer, you're the captain of the ship. Don't be afraid to be the captain - keeping order is your job.  The quiet students are relying on you.
Also keep in mind that it is not your job to make sure that they pay attention - that's their job.  "Listen to me" should not be your responsibility, it should be theirs.  Your responsibility is primarily "Don't disrupt my lecture!  Others are trying to listen to me".  If they would like to quietly not pay attention, that's fine.  They're paying for a seat in the lecture hall - what they do with it is up to them, so long as it does not affect the learning environment for everyone else (who are also paying for their seat in that lecture hall!).

Me: "You two with the conversation.  What are your names?"

  Them: "Mike"  "Dan"

  Me: "Hi Mike and Dan."  "Class say hi to Mike and Dan."

  Class: "Hi Mike and Dan."

  Me: "Mike/Dan you must have some really good stuff you are talking
  about.  Since your conversation is more important than your
  classmate's grades whatever you are talking about must be
  groundbreaking."  "Can I get two volunteers to come up here."

  Two students come up (the other students love this).

  Me: "I am going to ask my volunteers to stand 30 feet apart.  Mike/Dan
  come on down and stand next to one of my volunteers."

  Mike and Dan stand next to one of the volunteers.

  Me: "Now whisper to the volunteers what you were talking about and why
  it was important."

  30 seconds later...

  Me: "OK volunteers can you share what they were talking about and why
  it was important?"

  And this is the fun.  You will get some stupid reasons.  But the
  funnest part is that the two stories hardly ever are the same.  Which
  leads to...

  Me: "Mike/Dan given that you guys can't remember what you were talking
  about 3 minutes before I would suggest taking good notes."

This takes 5 minutes, it is entertaining, and I have never had to do it more than twice for one class.


How to react when encountering students who have previously failed my course? Context: I am an assistant professor of mathematics at a small liberal-arts college in the US.

I did my graduate work at a large public university, and there I rarely encountered students who had previously taken a class from me, let alone ones who had failed one of my courses.  Now that I'm at a much smaller institution it happens somewhat frequently, and I've only finished one semester here!

At this time I have no idea how I should react to these encounters.  Generally former students and I exchange a pleasant greeting, but I find myself instinctively trying to avoid students who've failed because I'm afraid that they are still angry at me, I don't want them to feel bad, etc.

The title of my question says it all: How should I react when encountering students who have failed one of my courses?  I could simply treat them like any other student, but I'm concerned about reinforcing the stereotype of "the tone-deaf mathematician with poor social skills."

Perhaps this question is a better fit for the interpersonal stack exchange, but I figured I'd start here.

Since you are at a small liberal arts college, I think you should not underestimate how much your own actions contribute to the culture of the college community. The notion of "avoiding" students is not something that you or your college wants to be known for (I imagine)! I think it is always best happily greet students that you know, perhaps ask them how things are going, etc. On some level, this kind of pleasant behavior is a professional obligation.

I don't think you should act any differently towards students who have failed your course (vs. students who did not fail, or haven't taken a course from you, etc.). Be cordial, and if the student wants to avoid you, then let them.

I will add that, while it's possible the student is mad at you, they may also be some combination of embarrassed and mad at themselves for failing. If they are embarrassed, then you avoiding them might make them feel worse, and you engaging with them might help them to get over the embarrassment.

At this time I have no idea how I should react to these encounters. Generally former students and I exchange a pleasant greeting, but I find myself instinctively trying to avoid students who've failed because I'm afraid that they are still angry at me, I don't want them to feel bad, etc.

I'm not a professor, so take this for what it is.  The reason you're asking already establishes that you care, which is a great thing.  You care for your success in being a teacher as well as the success of your pupil.

If it were me, I would ask the student if they would mind meeting with you after class.  There, I would have a conversation.  Acknowledge that they were previously enrolled in your course and were not able to perform to the satisfaction that you think they are capable of — it's important to express you think they are capable of succeeding (otherwise you would be having a different conversation) because it communicates to them that they have potential and you aren't discouraged by their past performance.

Over the course of the conversation I wouldn't focus on their inability to perform, but express that you would like them to succeed.  In order to do so, you would like to identify what did and did not work for them last time (perhaps it had little to do with your course and there were external factors affecting their performance) and determine if there are any steps you both could take to ensure success.  Perhaps leading to a plan for them (or possibly you) to follow through on.

In any case, don't act like you have never met the student or their previous time in your course did not happen.  Don't shy from events that occurred or let them influence your behavior.  You formed a student/teacher relationship last time, this time will be building on it.


Have I embarassed my supervisors by solving a problem that a PhD student in my group was working on without success? I'm a bachelor student in mathematics writing my thesis at a small university in the US. A PhD student that has the same supervisor has spent a very significant amount of time working exclusively on a theorem which he hasn't been able to prove, so the supervisor offered me a thesis on the topic. No one was really expecting me to make any real progress, but everyone was very nice and enthusiastic.

It turned out that I was able to prove the theorem essentially straight away using a different approach to what they've tried. After this happened I've felt a distinct change in attitude towards me. There is no excitement, there is no discussion on how to strengthen or generalize the result and I generally get the feeling that they are pretty embarrassed about the whole situation.

The PhD student has a severe lack of publications and is probably feeling quite stressed because further progress on this problem seems unlikely. So what is my best plan of action here? Keep in mind that stepping on toes is the last thing I want to do given that I was hoping to pursue a PhD in this very department. How do I act diplomatically while at the same time making sure I get due credit for my achievements? Is it possible they will try to bully me out of first-authorship to protect the reputation of the PhD student?

First, if you haven't already, I suggest you have a discussion with your advisor about what to do with the result.  Is it worth writing up?  Is it worth trying to publish or try to go further?  If so, you should write it up and make sure there are no errors, and hopefully your advisor will be willing to help check over this.

  Is it possible they will try to bully me out of first-authorship to protect the reputation of the PhD student?

Anything it possible, but nothing you have said gives any indication anyone else thinks they should be a co-author for this result, assuming it is publishable.  It's common in math that a problem seems difficult from one perspective, but is easy from another.  This can always be a little embarrassing, but usually it's no big deal if you're dealing with reasonable mathematicians.  However, it may mean (for a variety of possible reasons) that the problem is less interesting to them than originally thought, and this could be part of what you're sensing.  I've often gotten excited about discovering things, only to realize later that they weren't so novel, or been interested in problems because I thought my methods could solve them then lost interest when I found out other methods are much better.

Anyway, hopefully an open chat with your advisor about this will clear things up.  I would not mention the PhD student in this discussion, just focus on the questions in my first paragraph.

Edit: I forgot to say, your situation may indicate that this department might not be your best option for a PhD (there may be a trend of weak grad students or not-on-the-ball advisors).

If you ever need to defend yourself against a charge of plagiarism you will want evidence/proof of originality. Before you do anything else I would create what is called a "Poor Man's Copyright" as such evidence. NOTICE: I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice (this is just what I would do based on my experience) so use at your own risk:

Do the following but make every effort not to use campus-owned supplies (paper, blank DVDs, etc) or equipment (computers, copiers, etc) unless you have no choice (mainframe screen-grabs). Do not give anyone an excuse to say you were misusing University resources:

Write this up as quickly as you can, even if it is not perfect ... probably what you have already written is sufficient. Date it now if it does not already have a date on it.
Print a copy of the writeup and put it in a simple long envelope.
Take that long envelope mail it FROM a post office to your home address. Send it via "registered mail, signature required, and return receipt requested". Be sure the envelope is well sealed.
DO THIS TODAY!

The above is the essence of a poor-man's copyright and is the very least you can do (see the very last bullet paragraph below for how it is used) but you can expand on this by ALSO doing the following:

Print another copy of the write-up and all the supporting documentation that can be printed. If there is software code or data for documentation either make some screen-grabs (cell phones pics are ok) or burn it to a CD-ROM / DVD disc (or disc sets). Make 4 of these discs (or disc sets). WARNING: Do not copy any software code/data you did not create yourself.
Photocopy three sets of everything (use a copystore away from campus if you have a choice and get a receipt). Use a black & white copier except for any specific pages that would make no sense without color.
Copiers malfunction so double-check before you leave the store that all FOUR sets (including the original set) are complete AND legible. Did you get everything back on your originals? Do your three copy sets all have the same pages as the original set? In the same order?
Have four envelopes/folders/boxes (whatever you need for carrying each set in a single container). Once you have verified all is complete put each set in its own container then go home.
From this point on do not write anything on those originals or change that set in any way. Keep the original documents in their container and leave it alone. Hands off!
At home count the number of pages (count twice, double-check) then on the copies ONLY with a RED pen number every sheet with "X/Y" (or "X of Y" if you prefer). Also put "Copy A" or "Copy B" or "Copy C" as appropriate. Work slowly and carefully as all three sets must have matching sequence numbers. If you make a mistake put a line through it, initial it, and correct it. It is okay to write over the photocopied text if you must, that is why you are using a red pen.
Next type up a simple letter telling your story as you did here (but with all the names, dates, and problem description included) and closing the narrative with a declaration that you are the sole creator of the proof and also personally created "the attached documents".
In the header of the letter put "AFFIDAVIT OF EVENTS" centered across the top of each page and also be sure the letter formatting includes "page X of Y" in the footer.
On the same letter, immediately after your narrative, include an attachments inventory summarizing one set of everything you copied ("Item 001: 2 pages describing the proof", "Item 002: 14 pages of data representing XYZ", "Item 003: 1 screen grab from the department mainframe terminal", etc.). If you have any discs include them on the list last ("Item 29: 2 CD's containing R code used to demonstrate the proof.").
At the bottom of the letter include a statement that declares everything above to be true and affirm that you are the sole author of the letter.
Include a space for your signature but do not sign it yet. Also leave at least a half-page of space on the same page after your signature. Reformat/resize the text/font/margins/etc if you have to but that half-page space is important.
Take ONLY the original set of documents and the unsigned letter and go to a (NON-campus) notary public (ask your bank manager if you don't know where to find one). Be sure you have your official photo id (driver's license or passport) with you. Also note a "notary public" is NOT the same thing as a "notario publico" -- a sort of specialized lawyer from some Spanish speaking countries -- so don't confuse the two).
Tell the NP you have created a "personal affidavit" of events and wish to have it notarized. Take out your letter and IMMEDIATELY sign it in front of the notary THEN hand it over to them to read. Be sure you sign the letter's signature space in the presence of the notary using a BLUE ink pen, NOT a black one. That is important because most notaries use black ink for the areas they have you sign but when the letter is photocopied it is hard to decide which is the original if everything is black.
The notary is only going to glance at the letter to be sure it is in fact what you have described (an affidavit). It is unlikely they will spend more than about 30 seconds doing this. They may also ask about the attachments (since they are referenced in the letter) but it is unlikely, but if they do show them the originals. Again, their primary concern is that the document is what it says it is, not the contents per-Se.
They will have a form or imprint of some sort to attach to that letter (which is what the half-page space is for). Depending on what state you are in you may be asked to "swear or affirm an oath" that what you have written is true. There will be a little paperwork and some sort of thumbprint will be taken. You will be charged about $10 (ten dollars) for each signature required (which should be only one).
Take the notarized letter and go get at least FOUR additional copies made, but a couple extra above 4 is a good idea. Put the original letter in with the original documentation and close the container. With luck you will never open this container again.
Go home. Put the container with the originals somewhere safe. Next get the other 3 documentation containers and put one copy of the letter into each container. Put "Copy A" aside, that will become the one you show folks in general, if you need to.
Take one copy of the letter and put it in a simple long envelope.
Take that long envelope and also the "Copy B" container (with its own copy of the letter inside) and mail each of them (one letter by itself, one container with a letter & docs inside) FROM a post office to your home address. Send them both via "registered mail, signature required, and return receipt requested". Be sure and tell the Post Office if you have included any CD/DVD discs in the package as these may affect their security scanners.
Take the "Copy C" container with a letter inside and ship it FROM a Federal Express office (Kinko's copystores usually) to your home address. You may need to put it in one of their official envelopes/boxes. Send it "signature required". Be sure and tell FedEx if there are any CD/DVD discs in the package.
NOW THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP OF ALL: When the letters and containers arrive at your home, put them aside somewhere safe and NEVER OPEN them. Put the 3 packages (the Originals, Copy A and Copy B) in three different places so they are safe from fire/water damage/theft). These letters/packages should only be opened in a courtroom (with your lawyer present) since once the seal is broken the proof of the date of their contents is lost.

Hopefully this all resolves without any accusations or legal evidence required but at least you will have this if you need it. Good luck and be proud of the proof work you did.


Choice of personal pronoun in single-author papers Which personal pronoun is appropriate in single-author papers - 'I' or 'we'? Could the use of 'I' be considered egotistical? Or will the use of 'we' be considered to be grammatically incorrect?

Very rarely is 'I' used in scholarly writing (at least in math and the sciences).  A much more common choice is 'we', as in "the author and the reader".  For example: "We examine the case when..."
One exception to this rule is if you're writing a memoir or some other sort of "personal piece" for which the identity of the author is particularly relevant.
Now let me quote Paul Halmos (Section 12 of "How to Write Mathematics"):

One aspect of expository style that frequently bothers beginning authors is the use of the editorial "we", as opposed to the singular "I", or the neutral "one". It is in matters like this that common sense is most important.  For what it's worth, I present here my recommendation.
Since the best expository style is the least obtrusive one, I tend nowadays to prefer the neutral approach.  That does not mean using "one" often, or ever; sentences like "one has thus proved that..." are awful. It does mean the complete avoidance of the first person pronouns in either singular or plural. "Since p, it follows that q." "This implies p." "An application of p to q yields r." Most (all ?) mathematical writing is (should be ?) factual; simple declarative statements are the best for communicating facts.
A frequently effective time-saving device is the use of the imperative. "To find p, multiply q by r." "Given p, put q equal to r."...
There is nothing wrong with the editorial "we", but if you like it, do not misuse it.  Let "we" mean "the author and the reader" (or "the lecturer and the audience").  Thus, it is fine to say "Using Lemma 2 we can generalize Theorem 1", or "Lemma 3 gives us a technique for proving Theorem 4".  It is not good to say "Our work on this result was done in 1969" (unless the voice is that of two authors, or more, speaking in unison), and "We thank our wife for her help with the typing" is always bad.
The use of "I", and especially its overuse, sometimes has a repellent effect, as arrogance or ex-cathedra preaching, and, for that reason, I like to avoid it whenever possible.  In short notes, obviously in personal historical remarks, and perhaps, in essays such as this, it has its place.

You can download the pdf of Halmos' complete essay.

The "royal we" works
The "royal we" suggests a hypothetical population of peers who hold some position.  This hypothetical population may-or-may-not include the reader, at the reader's option.  And since it's a hypothetical population with a subjective number of members, "we" is appropriate.
Even if you're talking about a real-world action that you did to perform a specific experimental step, it's still accurate to describe the hypothetical population as having performed that action.
This approach has a few advantages:

It's easier for readers to put themselves into your shoes as a member of the population engaging in the study.

It avoids distracting the reader with inconsistent pronouns for the authors across papers.


What do mathematics researchers do if they aren't good? I am a high school student so I don't know much about academia, but I would like to clear up some confusion I have over research in mathematics. Please excuse my naivite/ignorance on this topic.

I get the impression that mathematics research at the graduate and post-doc level is hard. It could take months of getting nowhere before you make some progress on a problem, and depending on how good you are and the difficulty level of the problem, you could go an entire year without publishing any papers. I get the impression that proving interesting or important results is even harder and is really only for the best - the real mathematicians. By important I mean results that will be noticeably useful to other researchers in the field.

I am guessing that not every person who gets a PhD and goes into research is good enough to prove interesting or important results, and I'm guessing that the percentage of PhD's who go into research and who will become successful mathematicians is less than 50%. I'm wondering what do these people do? If they can't publish enough papers and they aren't successful in solving any problems, they can't continue like this forever right? I mean at some point the university they are employed by will reject them? Do these people leave academia entirely and go into industry, or switch fields into physics or something like that?

Please let me know if my understanding is correct.

Many people who complete PhD's in mathematics end up leaving academia within a few years after completing the degree.  Many others settle into teaching oriented positions at community colleges, four year colleges and regional comprehensive universities where they typically end up publishing little or no research.  A small percentage of all PhD's in mathematics end up as tenured faculty in research universities (much less than 20%) and even among these mathematicians at research universities there is huge variability in research productivity (e.g. as measured by papers published per year) and impact (e.g. as measured by citations of these papers.)

in the past, a lot of maths phds who found that academia wasn't for them went into banking and became quantitative analysts or "quants". They then got paid several multiples of an academic salary.


Government Shutdown - application deadlines for fellowships and grants Will application deadlines for federally-funded fellowships and grants be extended, due to the ongoing government shutdown here in the States?  Is there even anyone to contact (and get a response from) at this time, regarding application deadlines?

For the National Science Foundation (NSF)

If your grant or fellowship is funded by the NSF, then the deadline remains the same.

From the NSF page, https://www.nsf.gov/shutdown/grantees.jsp, Information About the Government Shutdown for NSF Proposers and Grantees:

  Impact on Existing Deadlines

  During a lapse in appropriations, NSF will continue to accept proposal
  submissions pursuant to existing deadlines.

You should read this as "they will accept your proposal, will not process it, and the dead-line remains unchanged" during the shutdown.

You will not get any answer to your email during the shutdown.
Quoting the same page:

  Responses to any inquiries received regarding upcoming deadlines, including proposal preparation, will be deferred until normal operations resume.

Update

https://www.nsf.gov/ says:

  With the enactment of continuing appropriations through February 15, 2019, NSF is working to resume operations. Employees should report to work on their next scheduled work day.  For most staff, that will be Monday, January 28, 2019. NSF headquarters will be open to all staff starting at 6:00 a.m. Monday, January 28, 2019.

NDSEG deadline for 2019 is already over.  It looks like their 2020 deadline is unchanged.  Their funding may not be impacted (I can't keep track of which agencies are shutdown and which aren't).  I know EIA is still funded so I imaging all of DOE is.  But I really don't know for sure.  In any case, I would just treat it as same deadline.

When I did stuff like this you had to actually mail off for paper applications.  But I imagine this stuff is all on the net.   So really nothing stopping you from doing applications.


Conference presenting: stick to initial paper submission or include recent improvements? I submitted a paper for a conference. While the paper got submitted for publication in the proceedings, the feedback seemed quite negative. The main criticism was that the model I have designed uses too many simplifications.

I am giving a presentation at the conference in about a week and a half. Since I submitted the original paper I have achieved a significant amount, and have been able to improve my model and deal with a number of the simplifications.

My question is: for the presentation content, do I have to stick with the work that is going to be published, or can I also present some of the more interesting, newer work?

For reference, my field is engineering (renewable energy)

do I have to stick with the work that is going to be published, or can I also present some of the more interesting, newer work?

Absolutely present the improved model.

Conference submissions photograph the state of the work at the time of the submission. But from the submission deadline to the conference, many months can pass and usually people continue to work on their projects. Frequently, by the time of the conference, new results have been obtained, and these surely deserve to be presented.

It depends on the conference and how strict the rules are. My approach would be to use a quarter of the poster space to describe how you have made progress on the model, and how you are planning to further improve it. The rest would describe the model you have submitted.