Keys to a successful postdoc in mathematics I just finished a PhD in mathematics and am about to start a postdoc in the fall. My question is pretty straightforward (although the answer might not be), namely:

  What should one do to have a successful mathematics postdoc (apart from perhaps doing as much math as humanly possible, or more)?

I expect this will be different depending on one's goals post-postdoc, such as staying in academia vs leaving, research vs teaching focused jobs, etc.

Some possibly related questions:

What is expected of a postdoc?

Transitioning: PhD to Postdoc and Productivity

Aru,
Your question is phrased in rather general terms.  There are different kinds of postdoctoral positions in mathematics, and two mathematical postdocs hired side-by-side in the same department may have different career goals.  So advice which is guaranteed to be applicable must be rather general.  Here goes:

What is the point of a postdoc in mathematics?  I think it is this: the position of "tenure-track assistant professor" at a US math department is really much different from what it used to be.  It used to be an extended apprenticeship combined with an audition for a permanent job.  Now the job market is so competitive that institutions at all levels tenure the vast majority of the assistant professors they hire: I could easily name hundreds of people who have gotten tenure over the last ten years; I'm not sure I could name ten who were denied tenure.  The "apprenticeship" that used to take place at the beginning of these positions is now somewhere between immensely abbreviated and completely absent: in my own department (UGA) we have "graduate faculty" status, which must be conferred separately, but every tenure-track hire in last eight years has been given that status immediately upon arrival.  In my department you cannot tell the assistant professors from the associate professors (and from some of the full professors) without your scorecard: the job is really identical, including supervision of PhD students.

Even most brilliantly talented and competent PhDs need time to perform the laundering process from student to faculty.  In particular, 99% of the time it just doesn't work for your PhD advisor to have just gotten her own PhD a couple of years ago.  This laundering process is what the postdoc is for.

How does a postdoc work towards the goal of tenure-track readiness and marketability? In what follows I will assume that the desired tenure track job has substantial research expectations (keeping in mind that "substantial research expectations" is still a continuum).

To attain your goal of a tenure-track position, you need to concentrate on two things:
2a) Research.

Put out product -- accepted papers.  Both quality and quantity matters.

Many people get a PhD in mathematics before having a single accepted paper (I did), and if they have an eminent advisor who goes to bat for them, having no papers need not be much of a strike against them in the postdoctoral market.  Things change tremendously when you apply for tenure-track jobs: you need to show conversion of your research promise into research success.  With multiplicity.  Publication standards vary significantly among mathematical disciplines (topologists and algebraic geometers publish fewer papers; combinatorialists and applied mathematicians publish more) but I think that at least one publication per year is a reasonable lower bound for almost everyone.
Most math postdocs have not published all the work that appears in their thesis before graduation (my understanding is that this is almost the complete reverse of what happens in most other STEM fields).  There are good reasons for this: mathematics is such a technical, specialized field that you spend 90% of your time as a PhD student attaining mastery of one specific subfield, and the PhD is awarded within a very short time period of that attained mastery (in some cases, it is awarded when the advisor feels confident that such mastery lies in the student's near future).  So many if not most math postdocs spend the majority of their research time in their first year working on the papers that come from their PhD research.  Why does it take so long given that the thesis has already been written?  One reason is that they are usually not just transcribing the work but also significantly improving it: again, this goes in hand with the observation that as soon as you know what you're doing you're out the door with a PhD.  If you compare a PhD thesis and the paper that it results in, you often see stronger results, simpler and better proofs, and so forth.
Spending time in your postdoc working on publishing your thesis can be tricky: you are in a new environment with new distractions, and after you give a talk or two about your thesis work, many of your research conversations will be about the research interests of those around you, who will probably at least want to involve you in seminars and may in fact want to collaborate with you on further projects.  And it's good to do that...but not at the expense of getting your thesis work done.  There is even a bit of a trap here, since as a PhD student you get so much care and attention on every aspect of your work, including someone whose job it is at times to tell you to slow down and be more careful: that you haven't yet fully nailed down what you thought you had.  Most postdoctoral advisors don't work as closely with their postdocs as thesis advisors do with their students, and when they do it is probably not on the topic of their thesis (they may not even have enough expertise on that to work as closely as the thesis advisor did).  So the first priority of any postdoc is to make sure that they actually write up for publication all the work that was "promised" in their thesis, and the second priority is to figure out how to continue this thesis work in a meaningful way.

Acquire a research program -- distinct from your thesis advisor's program.

I think this is really the hardest part.  It is a well-known fact that the most common number of MathSciNet publications for any given author is one.  In some cases this just means that some bright young person passed through mathematics on the way to something else -- e.g. this one-hit wonder turned out fine -- but it is distressingly common to see one strong, cutting-edge publication followed by dead silence.  What this means is that the work was -- in some suitably high-level sense, at least -- really that of the advisor rather than the student.  A lot of postdocs follow the previous bullet point -- i.e., they get their thesis written up -- and then they just can't see their way to a continuing research program.  In some cases this means that they still publish some papers, but they have just switched from being one person's apprentice to a different person's apprentice.  This is still not good enough for a research-intensive academic job nor, increasingly, a job at a nationally reputable liberal arts college.
It is here that I must disagree with another answer to this question, which says:

In my opinion, you are best looking for a postdoc in an area that is as far removed from your PhD areas as you are willing to tolerate.

That really doesn't sound right to me.  It is a relatively easy path to give up on what you've already done and start fresh on something unrelated, for which you can get local supervision.  As above, this is not good enough.  You want your research program to be considerably deeper at the end of your postdoc than it was when you got your PhD.  Sometimes that involves a significant course correction, yes: in my case I spent less than 1/3 of my time as a postdoc working on the subject of my PhD thesis, but the other material that I worked on was material that I had already been interested in and even started writing up for publication as a student.  Moreover the two areas were related because I was interested in both of them, and that allowed me to work towards closer relations.  Finally, by the time I gave job talks I was able to talk about Hasse principle violations for Shimura curves (my thesis was on Shimura curves) alongside Hasse principle violations for torsors under abelian varieties (which is what I spent most of my postdoc working on).  Moving to something "as far removed from your PhD areas as you are willing to tolerate" would have moved me several orders of magnitude farther away, just as I was experiencing a rapid improvement in my understanding of the part of arithmetic geometry in which I did my thesis work.  (Eleven years after my thesis, I am now also exploring parts of mathematics that are considerably farther away but I still do some work on things closely related to my thesis.)
A research program has some breadth to it as well as depth.  But the ideal way to develop breadth is to expand outwards from your current position, not give up and move to a new position chosen for its substantial distance from your current one.

It is good to have done more than one thing, or at least to know more than one trick.

I want to reaffirm that after establishing depth, the next thing hirers look for in a research program is indeed breadth.  If you're working on what looks to all outsiders like exactly the same thing now as you were three years ago, that's less than exciting, and it creates concerns about your future trajectory: mathematics does move on, and long-term colleagues grow together in their research interests and expertise.  However, if you're working in a hot, technical area and doing well with it, then you probably don't want to diversify out of that area as a postdoc, but you do want to take steps to show that the potential for diversity is there.  Often digging deeper in exactly the same spot requires learning new tools, even basic things that early career graduate students in other fields learn.  I think it's important to continue that kind of learning as a postdoc (and beyond) and show that you're doing it: for instance, in any job talk you should showcase the variety of knowledge and techniques that go into your results, especially if the results themselves look narrow and specialized.
2b) Teaching Teaching is challenging for a postdoc because for a certain range of intended careers it is less important than research...but it is still important, and in fact increasingly so.  You have to crank up a different kind of professional vibe to be a successful teacher as a postdoc: whereas for research you are trying to burn the midnight oil to make the transition from excellent to outstanding, what a disaster it would be for you to vow to be the best calculus teacher ever and devote all your time and energy to that.  (Part of the disaster is that vowing to be the best calculus teacher ever and putting three times as much time in as your office-mate will not necessarily result in teaching evaluations that are any better than hers: unfortunately they might even be worse.)  Rather you need to set a more temperate teaching mark and learn to hit it while leaving plenty of time for your research.
Your specific teaching goals will depend upon what kind of tenure-track job you have.  On the other hand, you may be hoping for a job at an elite research institution but may have to settle for a job with higher teaching requirements.  A good all-around plan is to showcase at least competent teaching across a fairly broad range of levels, including: calculus courses / service courses for non-majors; courses for undergraduate math majors; and graduate-level courses.  If you can cover those bases by teaching fewer courses, that is probably better.  In three years of postdoctoral work I taught five semester courses: this was close to ideal, but if I magically had control of my own teaching load, I would have cut it down to four.  Because your overall teaching responsibilities are relatively limited, it is good to start thinking about where your teaching letter(s) will come from right away.  If you feel that a course is going especially well, by all means invite some faculty in to watch you teach it.  That together with good evaluations is sufficient for a strong teaching letter in many cases.

You've written a lot, but actually everything you've said is fully consistent with "doing as much math [including math teaching] as humanly possible".  So I still suspect that doing a tremendous amount of work -- of the right kind -- in a relatively short period is the key to a successful math postdoc.  Am I mistaken??

No, you're quite right.  Being a math postdoc should not stop you from having a satisfying personal life, but professionally speaking it is one of the most intense, work-intensive points of a mathematical career.  There's no secret remedy for that.
One could give a lot more advice for math postdocs, and this has been done.  The Young Mathematicians Network has lots of information on this.  Google searching reveals that several mathematicians have math-specific postdoctoral advice on their webpages, including Sara Billey and Terry Tao.  I tend to think that it is better to talk to people -- lots of people -- and get advice rather than just read about very generalized advice (including this answer, of course).  A lot of times you don't even need to explicitly ask for advice: look for young, successful mathematicians (that includes most people who have recently gotten tenure-track jobs nowadays) and talk to them about their experiences.  By comparing the backgrounds of multiple role-models you can get a sense of what the "market wants".

I'm not sure that your parenthetical comment ("doing as much math as humanly possible") is necessarily correct.  In my opinion, you are best looking for a postdoc in an area that is as far removed from your PhD areas as you are willing to tolerate.  Unless you are an unassailed leader in the field (in which case, skip the postdoc and just get an academic position directly), your postdoc is a good time to:

diversify your interests
set up connections between disparate fields
and, in the words of the great Arnold Ross, "think deeply of simple things"

Believe it or not, after your postdoc it will be a long time before you can actually devote a similar amount of uninterrupted thought to academic interests (possibly not until retirement).


Why do some publication venues add the degree type next to the author name? I've noticed that some publication venues add the degree type links to the author name, like MS, PhD, MBA or  MD. What's the point? (example)

It depends completely on the journal's editorial criteria.  Some journals will expect that the degrees are included (see JAMA) and some will not (see Research in the Teaching of English).  Professional ego will not come into it -- the journal will want to maintain uniformity from article to article.

Academic cultures differ as to whether degrees are typically appended to names.  In the academic culture in which I spent 30 years of my professional life, use of the "Ph.D." was seen as unnecessary -- if one identified oneself as "Associate Professor of English" or "Professor of English," the Ph.D. was assumed.

I cannot generalize, based on your single-document example. There might be various reasons, such as publication outlet's requirements or authors' professional ego (see egocentrism and/or egotism). However, in that particular case, it can be argued that the degree attribution has been done to clarify that some of the authors are not Ph.D. holders. Not that it matters much (or should matter much or at all, that is), but, perhaps, the authors wanted to be more precise in attribution in order to prevent confusion due to implied assumption that all authors are doctoral degree holders.


How can I reference an insight taught in Cousera's Lecture? I took a specialization course at Coursera in which I have learned a lot of insights that would be essentially useful while writing my master's degree dissertation. How can I refer to them?
I've already found a paper that does this for another lecture at Coursera but I'm not sure if that is right:

Tieleman, T. and Hinton, G. Lecture 6.5 - RMSProp, COURSERA: Neural Networks for Machine Learning.
Technical report, 2012.

Could I use this same "model"?

A citation like that would be fine, although I wouldn't include 'Technical Report'.  Some citation styles have formats for lectures or other presentations.

However, the Coursera lecture may not be the best thing to cite.

Does the instructor communicate the insight in writing somewhere? For example, in a paper or in published lecture notes for an in-person course?
Does the instructor provide a source for the insights? In which case you may want to cite that. The source may be indicated in supplementary readings or lecture notes.
Do you need to cite it? When in doubt, you should always cite, but you often don't need to cite things that you would ordinarily learn in a class on the subject. The line for this one is pretty fuzzy and nuanced, though, and it depends on how cutting-edge the insight is.

I would not let the ephemerality of Coursera stop you from citing it, but if you can find a better citation you should use it. It is better to cite something that disappears than to not cite.

You should not cite coursera courses. The purpose of citations (even in an MSc thesis) is twofold:

Acknowledge the inventor. It is unlikely that the inventor is the coursera teacher.
Make is easy for the interested reader to follow the reference and learn more about the subject. It is unlikely that the reader wishes to follow an online course that takes weeks when he can also read a short chapter or research paper.

It is not unlikely that the coursera course will disappear or its URL will change in the (very) near future, making your reference useless.

So your options are to either find the original source of the information and cite that, or not cite the course at all. You don't "cite" your mother or your physical university teachers either, even if they gave you "valuable insights".


My advisor escalated things after not getting a coauthorship he did not deserve I am a 3rd year PhD Student (Computer Science, India). I have two advisors, one internal and one external.

The internal advisor has no knowledge of my area and he doesn’t care what I am doing. He has no contribution to my research so far, but he keeps forcing me to make him co-author (2nd author) of my papers. I am a part-time PhD student (full time faculty in my college) in my college and he is my colleague. He has contributed nothing, did not even know title of my paper.

The external advisor is the one who actually helps me with my research. He wants all authorship to be based on contribution. He is external to my college and lives in a different city.

Recently I refused to make my internal advisor second author of a paper. Due to this, he got upset and he wrote in my progress report that I have attitude problem and I don’t obey my advisor. Now I have to stand in front of the dean, head of department and the entire committee (my advisor will also be there in the meeting with me).

Should I tell the monitoring committee about how my internal advisor unethically tried to manipulate me? Can it worsen the situation in future?

How are 'attitude problem' and not obeying your adviser a 'crime'?  In my university, there is a 'co-authorship policy', which clearly states that any co-authors must have made significant intellectual contributions.  If such a policy exists at your university, I would bring it to support your case.

If you're fronting the committee because of supposedly poor progress, then I would gather as much evidence as possible to support your case. For example, your communication with your external adviser, papers published, etc.

I suggest you change the supervisor. The situation will definitely get worst because it looks like the internal adviser is unethical.  He/she will 'burn you alive'.

Imho, If someone is leading you (i.e. "supervising" you), then he should be a co-author of any your work by definition. In my university, I can not image a situation when student's supervisor would not be his co-author. In a worst case scenario, he is at least supporting your work financially and
organizationally, isn't he?
In general, I am agree that it is a common bad practice, when a supervisor, especially in a big group, is not involve in the particular project too much. But, I am more then sure, that he is at least checking the initial ideas or the selling packages to the journals. Could it be that you know your part very well, but you are misunderstand the complexity of the supervisor's "businesses"?


How do you get a bad transcript past Ph.D. admissions? I have a master's degree in International Studies, and a double major with Computer Science from undergrad.  My transcripts suck.  There's no other way to dress it up.  I have pretty good teaching experience, and my GRE scores are awesome, and I suspect my recommendations are as bland as everyone else's.  Basically, to an admissions committee, I suspect I'm the model of a student who is probably smart enough but didn't work hard enough.

I want to do a Ph.D. in Political Science, but the response from my applications is looking pretty grim.  Am I permanently out of the running, or is there something I can do for the next few years which will help to counterbalance my unfavorable GPA?

Short answer:

Know what area you want to work in and be fluent with it.
Construct an honest, compelling narrative illustrating your strengths, how you've learned from mistakes or pitfalls, and why you're a good candidate for your chosen PhD programs.
Talk to as many professors as you can about their interests and yours, especially those you'd like to work with.

More details:
There is some excellent advice here and here. Basically, Bradley Voytek (who is now a professor in neuroscience at UCSD) managed to get into UCSF (a top school for neuroscience) with an overall GPA that hovered around 2.5. As Bradley Voytek said, your ultimate goal is this:

  Do everything in your power to leave a paper trail of excellence to
  overcome your grades. Your goal is to make those grades look
  meaningless. Your goal is to have your work speak for you so strongly
  that, when people look at your grades, they feel silly for even giving
  them a second thought.

This was precisely why I was willing to give my unofficial transcript to professors at my school who asked for them (when I needed letters of recommendation). They already knew me well enough to know that my GPA doesn't reflect my true ability.

As another suggestion, if you're applying for a school that puts a lot of weight on a subject GRE exam (like the Physics GRE), you can do your utmost to score obscenely high on the test and still get in. As an example, see this guy who managed to get into Harvard with a 3.1 GPA.

For the record, I'm an undergrad with a 3.16 GPA (with 3 grades of 0.0s and 3-4 courses I retook with grades of 3.0-3.1 on the retake because I didn't even bother going to class on either class attempt). Despite all this, I managed to get into both the University of Chicago and Brown University - both with fellowships for being one of the top applicants. I also almost got into Yale in a year that was unusually competitive for them (they paid for me to visit+interview there) - but there were research fit issues involved at the end (actually - what ended up happening was that I had such intensely-defined research interests - exoplanet climate modelling - that it would have been hard for anyone there to take me individually, and everyone felt that I would be going to Chicago anyways). Click here for a rough profile of my "stats".

You should also try schools that do interviews (especially in-person interviews) before they do acceptances, since the interview is where you have the opportunity to shine (and where they can at least give you a chance). Yale is one of those schools.

You should also look into very interdisciplinary graduate programs that are expanding faster than what their textbooks (and courses) can keep up with. Newer fields also tend to be low-consensus fields, which also tend to be more tolerant to those with low GPAs. The geosciences is one of the few areas where plenty of people with sub-3.5 GPAs often do get into top schools. As the geosciences aren't taught in high school, it's often said that the Geosciences is something that you "stumble" into, and it's actually very common for people to enter the geosciences only after finding that they didn't like another major (this is often true for geoscience professors as well).

Biology is another area that's often tolerant of those with low GPAs, from what I've heard. In both Biology and the Geosciences, research fit often matters a lot more than "being one of the top applicants", so if you have a focused interest that you've demonstrated through research (and that matches the interests of faculty members who are willing to take new students), then yes, they can be willing to take you over people with better GPAs and test scores. The thing in common with the two is that they're so broad that it's impossible to put every applicant through a common set of required courses (or through paper-based qualifying exams), so their quals cannot be based on coursework. In that case, performance in prior courses doesn't matter as much. In fact, some geoscience programs (like Berkeley EPS) don't even have admission committees because the interests of faculty members are so diverse that applicants often only have research fit with a single faculty member - so it then often becomes a single faculty member who decides between applicants.

The MIT Media Lab is the perfect example of this, in fact (though most geoscience/biology programs will have more of a committee than the MIT Media Lab). The tips in this link can be quite helpful to anyone with a low GPA who wants to work with a particular adviser.

You should also look for fields with very low people-to-problems ratios. Many of these fields don't offer courses that are part of the core requirements of numerous majors, so there won't be hordes of undergrads who take their courses. Fields like atmospheric science and various areas of biology are particularly known for their low people-to-problem ratios, and the professors in them can be incredibly accessible (and are more willing to closely look at unusual applicants). More here.

Also, just write 2000-word personal statements. I wrote 2000-word personal statements for all the schools I applied for (they were necessary since I had to do some explaining), and they didn't prevent me from getting in. They can annoy some schools, but that's going to be a matter of fact if you're a highly unusual applicant.

Finally, you can always stay somewhat longer. My GPA would never recover from the early mistakes I made, but I managed to recover by staying longer and by taking a huge number of grad-lvl courses in my last 2 years. When writing your personal statement, you should always put in statistics like last-2-year GPA and last-X-year major GPA in whatever field of study you're in (I put in post-(freshman year) physics GPA of 3.77 in). Be careful not to sound like you're cherry-picking though.

If you need some extra inspiration, you should read about Stephen Smale too.

  He entered the University of Michigan in 1948. Initially, Smale was a
  good student, placing into an honors calculus sequence taught by Bob
  Thrall and earning himself A's. However, his sophomore and junior
  years were marred with mediocre grades, mostly Bs, Cs and even an F in
  nuclear physics. However, with some luck, Smale was accepted as a
  graduate student at the University of Michigan's mathematics
  department. Yet again, Smale performed poorly his first years, earning
  a C average as a graduate student. It was only when the department
  chair, Hildebrant, threatened to kick out Smale, that he began to work
  hard. Smale finally earned his Ph.D. in 1957, under Raoul Bott.

One word of caution: Graduate programs have gotten a lot more competitive in the last few years, so what applied 5 years ago (or 40 years ago, for that matter), may not necessarily apply today.

By the way, elite private schools (for whatever reason) tend not to have GPA cutoffs. If you're a student with a low GPA applying for an elite private school, you probably have something else in you that's extremely unusual, since very few students with low GPAs apply to them. In fact, when I emailed professors, those at elite private schools seemed to be more responsive to my emails (low student to faculty ratio could be a reason behind that). That said, they're not necessarily more forgiving of unusual applicants. It's often the programs that have some "weakness" in their applicant pool that tend to be more forgiving of them.

Also - I would definitely look for areas where the department is trying to expand into, but where the department has no reputation for as of yet (visits/contacting professors can help you learn more about that).

Going to academic conferences can also really help as well - but only when you can make sure that you have useful things to say. The same is also true for visiting schools before applying.

Now this might be both my field (computational biology) and/or local culture but I found that my grades were easily ignored during my PhD application.

What I think is the most important part is to tailor your application to the job. If your grades are bad, don't mention them (unless of course they explicitly ask for them) and instead focus on relevant skills. Perhaps you learned relevant (and perhaps uncommon) skills during previous projects/internship/thesis work. You may even have acquired relevant skills through extracurricular activities.

Focus on what makes you the perfect candidate for this job.

Also, for your recommendations; make sure you get your recommendations from people who will actually recommend you. I think a less known researcher who is positive about you is better than a big name that's negative about you.


Who Owns the Publishing Rights of my Ph.D. Thesis? I wrote my Ph.D. thesis without copy/pasting any of my prior published articles. Now that the university library got hold of my Ph.D. thesis; I'm wondering who owns the entire publishing rights of my Ph.D. thesis?

Did you sign an agreement to transfer copyright to someone else?

Does your university policy (example) or employment contract specify that someone else holds the copyright to your thesis?

If the answer to both questions is "no" then you, as the author of the thesis, hold the copyright.

In the US, most university students retain the copyright for their thesis. Often they are required to grant the university and/or ProQuest a non-exclusive license to distribute the thesis, but without giving up copyright.

I copyrighted my Ph.D. dissertation as soon as I was awarded by degree.  I am the only copyright owner. The dissertation was archived through a well known group in Michigan (Dissertation Databases
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses).  I did not sign over or transfer my copyright to them for their archives.  Anyone who wishes to use material from my dissertation must contact me for copyright permission before doing so.  Anyone who publishes work using any of my original data or ideas must also cite my dissertation in their bibliography to avoid copyright infringement or plagiarism claims.

I was disappointed to learn that my thesis advisor who was not a co-author of my dissertation decided to publish my work in a peer reviewed journal without my knowledge or permission.  He named himself author and did not cite my dissertation in the bibliography.  Neither the journal nor NYU cared to intervene on my behalf to correct and restitute me with authorship and citation as I was entitled.

The only recourse a student has against the theft of their dissertation in the absence of granting copyright permission to another person who wishes to publish work from the dissertation is to apply for and obtain the copyright first.  This does grant legal rights to the copyright owner in case of theft or wrong doing on the part of another person who appropriates material without permission.  Graduate students should insure a written agreement or statement from the university,their mentor or their Dept. guaranteeing them authorship rights to their original dissertation research prior to beginning a lengthy Ph.D. program.....otherwise they will become unpaid slaves for five to six years and end up with nothing to show for it in the end if these rights are not secured before they begin. A word to the wise but filing for copyright ownership is a form of security should they require legal protection down the road!


What are "all the rights and privileges pertaining thereto"? It is common language in graduation ceremonies, at least in the United States, to hear a degree conferred with "all the rights and privileges pertaining thereto." How would one discover what the rights and privileges pertaining to a MA or PhD degree actually are?

Each of my diplomas says my degree is awarded "with all of its privileges and obligations" or something close to that.  I know of neither an official codification nor a learned treatment of the privileges and obligations involved.

But, along with Thomas Aquinas, C. S. Lewis, and Mr. Spock, as opposed to David Hume and Cmdr. Data, I hold that values are logical.  So I deduce that:

The "privileges" include putting the degree on your curriculum vitae so you can get jobs requiring a degree;
The obligations include honesty about the subject matter in which you are supposed to have some expertise.

to use the title granted for all your job searches and to receive henceforth the honors to be part of an elite, as a result of the level of education you have achieved by your efforts.
to offer a professional expertise as expected for the conduct of the professional tasks that will be asked to you during your professional career and to respect the code of ethics of the specific profession.


When to retract a submission due to excessive length of peer-review process Recently it happened to me twice that I had a paper which was under review for more than one year (first round) and that all inquiries about the status of the paper went unanswered by the handling editors. Both cases were reputable mathematics journals but not among the very top journals (not the Annals or similar).

Is it reasonable to withdraw the submitted paper in this situation and to submit it to another journal? What is a reasonable waiting time in such a situation, i.e. very long time under review (more than a year) together with an editor who does not respond at all to inquiries on the status?

There can be multiple reasons for lengthy review process.
1) Your work is very novel and its hard to find a reviewer.
2) You submitted your article to a journal who's scope is not fully relevant to your research area. According to my experience this is one of the major reason.
3) The ignorance of handling editor.
 First make your own assessment if your work is very novel or if you have submitted to a journal who's scope is not fully relevant to your research area in both cases you may expect a much longer review process.
if its not the case 1) and 2), then Check the average time of first decision for recently published article, and contact handling editor after passage of average expected time. If Editor don't reply for another extra 25%~30%  of average time, then write a withdraw letter and mention the unexpected delay as a reason for withdrawal to EiC.

Withdraw the paper(s) and send to a better journal.

Its is clear from your description "(...)under review for more than one year (first round) and (...) inquiries about the status of the paper went unanswered(...)" that you're not dealing with a reputable journal.

Reassess your evaluation criteria and aim higher.

Good luck!


Is it appropriate for my professor to include gender offensive material that is unrelated to the class subject matter in the course notes? My accounting professor created a large binder full of notes for us to use instead of an actual textbook. He created it, and since he's the head of the accounting department at my university, he has implemented it into all of the accounting curricula. In this binder, there are news articles and random cartoons which are almost entirely unrelated to accounting. For example, there is a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip on almost every other page and the content of the strips are not in the least related to accounting.

An exam is coming up so I started studying from the beginning of the section and I happened across an unusual piece that was photocopied into the notes. This piece is the Italian telling of "Sleeping Beauty". No explanation or anything saying what it is; I was only able to figure out what it is because I was so offended by it (read further for an explanation of the offense) that I researched what it was, so I could maybe develop an understanding of why my professor would dare to include this in what he is teaching us.

If you are not familiar with the Italian (arguably the original) telling of this fairy tale, it is rather simple, and goes as follows: A young woman is drugged; she appears to be dead to her family so they leave her body in peace in a cabin that they seal up. One day a rich king comes across the cabin and breaks in; he sees the YOUNG woman and assumes she is asleep so he rapes her because she's so beautiful. This young woman eventually gives birth to twins and through a series of events they wake her from her drugged and practically dead state. Skipping some information I don't think is necessary, the young woman considers her rape and rapist blessings and is thankful for said horrific rape.

Now, my question is that I want to know if this is acceptable? I was disgusted when I read it (while studying for an exam, mind you). I consider myself a feminist and as a woman myself, I found the story offensive in the extreme. I also feel that this is helping to perpetuate the belief that women should be thankful for their rapists because it is a compliment. Can my university (a state university) legally, ethically, and morally publish this to their students in a faculty made textbook? I want to take action but I am not sure if this is even allowed and do not want to make a fool of myself.

Update (posted in comments):

I have spoken with the professor who created this book (it is more of a textbook than lecture notes) and he admitted he was in the wrong for including this. He stated that he likes to include things unrelated to accounting in his book just because. There was no explanation about the story, no relating back to accounting or econ or anything.

In economics a "sleeping beauty" is a company primed for takeover, often because it is under-valued. Asset valuation is quite a large topic in accounting, since it can have a huge impact on the final total value of the company.

Some authors are of the opinion that the (European) sovereign debt crisis created a mentality shift in accounting. That is, valuation tended towards more conservative methods, and in so doing, accountants created more sleeping beauties than before the crisis.

It is my guess that your professor did not have time to cover this topic in your course. Or perhaps it is used in another course? Why don't you ask him?

If you feel that there is hostile environment against women, then go right ahead and report it. You should not feel guilty in any way.

However, the professor could simply be trying to grab your attention with a small "shock", as asset valuation is considered by many students (that I have met) to be both mundane and boring.

We do not need more political correctness (PC) or micro aggression within higher education. So please ask yourself if he really ment to promote rape, or if you are simply taking this completely out of context. Again, what is stopping you e-mailing him? Write that you you do not see how it is related to the course, and ask for a clarification. His response should give you a clear indication of how to continue.

There's pleny of arguments that could be made in defense of that prof - most boil down to his freedom to decide the means of his teaching.

But I think that your analysis is right on point - using this tale to illustrate anything in accounting is disempowering to survivors of rape, and it doesn't really matter what the intentions of that prof are. This is a tale that justifies rape by the identyfying with the rapist and by talking about "positive" effects of the rape - isn't it funny that some of the comments and answers focus on the prof's intentions and goals, instead of his effects on survivors? (I'm not comparing him to a rapist, but the defense parallels the tale's rape justification.)

Realistically, since "sleeping beauty" is indeed used for an undervalued company, this isn't so much about your prof's judgement, it's more about an element of rape culture in economice (equating an undervalued company to a "sleeping beauty" that just needs to be raped have worth, and it seems like they don't even realize what they're saying.) Given his position and the fact that this behaviour doesn't seem too far astray from the pack, don't make it too much about him or his intentions.

This isn't appropriate, and it's certainly hostile to survivors. On the other hand he's providing evidence that the sexualisation of economic power exists.


Is offering to work for free a bad idea for an undergrad researcher? I’ve read that PhDs are almost always funded, and being accepted into a PhD program without funding is equivalent to a polite rejection.

Is this also true for undergraduate research? For example, many universities have a fund for undergrads to do one or two semesters of paid research, but students must look for other funding sources after that.

Is it wise for undergrads to offer to do research work for free, or does it devalue the undergrad’s work in the eyes of a PI?

This question assumes the setting as an R1 university in the United States, for a student in a STEM field like computer science, mathematics, or electrical engineering.

If you are a student who is getting something of (educational) value out of your research, and don't need the money, it's not necessarily a bad idea to do undergrad research without getting paid for it. (If you weren't a student, this would probably be a very bad idea, though.)

Personally, however, I will only supervise students who are either getting paid or getting some kind of independent study credit. (I'm not the only supervisor I know with this policy.) I don't want to put time and effort into supervising a student who is only very loosely committed to the research project.

I encourage you to consider that option - independent study or thesis credit - for undergraduate research.

It would have to really be worth it; here are some examples of what I think would be worth doing unpaid research work for a semester / summer / or even longer:

1) if the lab is prestigious and you otherwise couldn't join them because there's no funding for you,

2) the research goals coming from your advisor are clear, and you are really interested in achieving those goals,

3) your advisor's going to steer you in directions that you wouldn't be able to do on your own, and he / she could do that probably better than most other professors at your university, because perhaps you have heard from others that he's great at teaching, research, mentorship, etc

4) he hands you a research paper or two that much of your unpaid work will be based on, and there's little chance you would have known about this paper on your own, and this paper genuinely  excites you and is published in a good journal,

5) you get to join weekly group meetings that would otherwise be private from you, and in these meetings there are superstar researchers that you would likely otherwise never get a chance to even say hello to, let alone discuss research work with in a small, intimate, casual group meeting.

So ... be honest with yourself and do be careful about what you're getting into.  Don't be a monkey coder for a professor.  If much of what I listed above applies to your current R1 research setting, I would say go for it; it could be a life-changing experience, regardless of whether you stay in academia.

A meeting or two with your potential advisor will be a great chance for you to list the pros and cons of working for them for free.  You know what you are offering - free labor - now see what they are offering.

Lastly, you should be aware that the advisor is likely to be just as skeptical as you are; he/she would worry that you will quit in the middle of the project, or not be as committed as they are, and this wastes everyone's time.  It's your job to convince him / her to take you on as a student researcher.

(If you can't afford to do this, disregard all of the above and get something that is funded.)


Re-reviewing a previously rejected article but some authors have changed from the previous submission. Should I mention that to the editor? I recently accepted to review an article for a journal. I actually reviewed the very same article for another journal from where the submission was rejected. This is a rather common occurrence however, as I was looking at my notes from the previous review to see if the authors have addressed the previous issues, I noticed that the new submission has actually different authors. For example:

Initial Submission: Author1, Author2, Author3, Author4, Author5
New Submission: Author1, Author2, Author5, Author6, Author7

I will clearly mention in the review that I have reviewed the article before (actually the submission is in a different journal of the same publisher) but is the change of authors something that I should mention in my review?

It's not particularly unusual for authors to be added during a revision of a paper, but for them to be removed is quite unusual and often linked with something improper going on.

Since this submission is a different publication than the original version that you saw, the editors do not have this history in front of them, and I think that it is indeed a good idea to flag this as a concern to the editors.

Moreover, if the article has not been significantly revised but the set of authors has changed, then that's a major red flag that the authors are doing something improper. If this is the case, then the editors absolutely must know, and should probably investigate wrongdoing.

This seems like plagiarism: the authors of the new submission (namely, Author1, Author2, Author5, Author6 & Author7) are passing-off work from the initial submission as their own, yet that work belongs, in part, to others (namely, Author3 &  Author4).

Personally, I would write to the editor and explain this. I would expect the editor to immediately reject the article and take further action. I don't think there is any need for you to review the paper at this stage.


A few students requesting to cancel lectures due to their personal reasons. What should I do? I give lectures to postgraduate students. The number of students in this batch is very low (< 20). The lectures are foundation lectures for the course. We are only into the basics of the course.

A few (maybe 4) students of this batch are requesting to cancel two lectures as they won't be available for personal reasons. In fact, they are going to attend a workshop. In my university, attending workshops that are not fully recommended by the department is considered 'personal interest'.

One option is to ignore their request and ask them to study the topics covered during the lectures or with the help of students present during the lectures. If they could study these topics themselves or with friends, they wouldn't have requested me to cancel these lectures.

What should I do in this case?

I could ask this question to my head of the department, but, I don't know how this will turn out for students. They should not feel that they were not allowed by the head to attend this workshop.

I do understand that there will be variations of opinions on my question as per the different academic rules of universities but I still want some insights from experienced academicians.

If you do this for a minority, then you will have to do it every time a few students have some excuse.

I suggest that you don’t consider this and make it clear that if they miss lectures then it is up to them to catch up on material.

Providing double or triple repeats of lectures due to a few absences, especially if unpaid, is not a good use of your time.

Some students will want to rationalize their choices and make sure which they attend - some workshops can be valuable. If you think one workshop is very worthwhile then you could consider re-scheduling for all, but that depends on your schedule, and yes, I have done this for similar reasons involving the majority.

Based on a comment>
I always provide the material used in class - notes & worked example on Moodle as well as further practice problems (some 10 to 20 for each topic with solutions) for those who attend as well as those who do not.

Workshops are shorter and therefore can be opened more frequently. Main lectures for a class are more important. I see this as a lack of or correct prioritization and/or time administration; young people tend to be impulsive, comfortable childish and kind of wild, demand that they make sure the workshop is higher priority and can't be opened some other time.
Edit: discuss with them how/why is important that workshop and the lecture, I think a common solution is better than a unilateral one.


How to train students to write high-quality research papers? As someone supervising postgrad students, I wonder what is the best way to train these students to write high-quality research papers?

The best way seems to be through coauthorship but ...

On the one hand I can be hands-off and rather give them feedback as best as I can but let them do most of the work themselves, sort of like a "sink or swim" strategy.

On the other hand I can be hands-on and rewrite the paper (or large parts of it) and hope that they learn from the example I give.

On the one hand I want them to learn to write papers without me some day and I want them to learn as quickly as possible to take load off me.

On the other hand I want us to publish in the best place possible with as little stress as possible.

On the one hand I want them to see the peer review comments from what they themselves have written.

On the other hand I do not want them to be discouraged by the peer review system early on and do not want to submit papers I know we could have written better.

On the one hand I want them to get confidence by being published and presenting work at good venues.

On the other hand I wonder if they need to get there themselves to get that confidence boost.

At the moment I'm very hands on. There's a few factors for this: I don't like submitting papers that are not up to a certain standard, I'm a native English speaker in a non-English speaking country with non-native speaking students, publications are a high priority for me, etc.

But recently a friend/colleague warned me that I should not be so hands-on with the writing of the papers of my students. He pointed to recently graduated researchers in my area that published good work as students but who struggled after leaving their PhD supervisor saying their supervisor did them no favours in the long term ... that by being so hands on, while the students have success getting published and so forth with me, I'm not really doing the most important thing a good supervisor should do: making myself obsolete.

My question is how to train students to write good research papers and in what ways can I balance being hands-on and hands-off?

I'm also interested in methods not directly involving coauthorship.

edit: To clear a misunderstanding that might have arisen (see the answer of Kimball): the papers described here were not solo-papers. Neither me nor my advisor would ever have the idea to write a paper together and then put only one name on it...

My instructor did a really good job with that (and is still doing it), so I'll explain here approach as I experienced it:

For our first paper, we were sitting in her office, she wrote it and asked my opinion from time to time. I was still really new to everything and agreed most of the time, but I also already learned about some questions that should be considered and, of course, I learned the style she was using first-hand.

For the second paper, we started in the same way. At some point, she told me that I should write a part (the proof of a theorem, a short paragraph,...) myself. Of course we discussed the content first, but I was responsible for writing it down. I already had the first part of the paper that we wrote together to use as a starting point, to adjust my style to it, but I was still ultimately responsible for it myself. Once I finished it, she looked over it, gave me comments and asked me to write a new version. And a new one. And a new one,... until it looked just as good as the rest of the paper she wrote. Of course it would have been easier for her to just write it down herself, but doing it this way I learned how to write myself and I had the success of having something I wrote myself in a paper. (Yes, I had to adjust it a few times, but ultimately I did write the final version that we published)

For the third paper, she told me to write it completely myself. Once again we went through a long process of her commenting on things and me correcting it, but in the end I had a paper that I wrote myself, and I felt really proud of it.

After that, she got me some review jobs, so that I could learn what to look for in a paper, how to recognize strong parts and flaws and (I assume) so that I don't just copy her style but also see other authors and learn from them.

All in all, she did a really good job and with only three publications yet I feel like I am now able to write a paper on my own.

Now let's end with some general disclaimers: The approach given above assumes a motivated student that wants to produce good quality papers and is willing to adjust it until it looks really nice. A lazy student who just wants to increase his paper count with the least effort possible is of course still a problem. Also, your students should be able to produce papers in English. If not, point them towards English courses offered (most likely) at the university, help them install spell-checkers on their computers, etc.

I would set a timeline for revisions.  I would pick a format [APA for instance].  I would fail any student who did not follow the format or copied too much.  Create a way to make the students select a topic and 'working' title. Next, and since your main issue is sensitivity.  I would force the students to turn in a rough draft after a couple of weeks.  Then, I would collect all the papers.  I would shuffle them and hand them out for the other students to critique.

After my professor did this for me, I have become a way better writer!


How do people who are not active in the academic community write papers? Is it possible? I've recently finished grad school.  I've written two papers since that time, and I think that I have more good ideas.  However, I find it difficult to write now for two reasons.  First of all, I don't have access to the ACM / IEEE literature databases anymore (they were gratis from my university.)  Second, I have no one to review or even proof-read my papers.

So, how do people who are not active in the academic community write papers?  Is it possible?

It is possible.  After years away from graduate school, I am working on several papers, covering both old and new topics.  However, it is very hard to do it completely alone.

I have the benefit of some contacts acquired through one of the forums on StackExchange.  They are willing to spend a limited amount of time (say half an hour a month, to within two orders of magnitude) in email correspondence with me, to receive drafts from me (but not necessarily referee: just skim for a few minutes and find more egregious aspects which they kindly point out), and most importantly, endorse me for posting on ArXiv.  Before the endorsement, I spent some time convincing them I wouldn't be a drain, that I could help them out, and that I might hope for a favor regarding endorsement, literature search, and so on.  Realize that from their perspective, I could be a potential crank or downside on their career, as I have given them almost no verifiable information on what little credentials I have.  I consider their involvement as a gift, and treat it with care.

With their minimum involvement, I now can post results on the ArXiv, and use that as a stepping stone to loftier research goals.  Since your express purpose is to produce research for others to read, you need three things: the research, the others, and a means to get the research to the others.  Getting to know one or two of the "others" is key.  Getting them by being helpful on this and other fora is one of the easiest routes I know for this step, but there are other methods.  There may be other repositories besides the ArXiv which may help you more, but I don't know of them; ask the "others" for advice, and respect their time.  The research part, that's your problem, again with which "others" might be able to help.

I don't see a problem with either of your concerns if you have a good professional relationship with your former supervisor. Just contact them and ask if they would be interested to coauthor a research paper. Send them a draft paper or a description of your idea and a list of the ACM/IEEE publications you need for the research.


What to do during the first stages of your PhD program? Fresh from undergrad, I will be starting a math PhD program this upcoming fall in the United States. After several conversations with math professors and current PhD students, I noticed that several people advised having a sense of "urgency" right from the very start of your PhD program. Most recommended working to complete preliminary exams as soon as possible, but there was some variance in their opinions about when to jump into your thesis. One professor recommended "courting" potential thesis advisers by doing research projects with a professor or two during the first couple summers.

Do you agree with this call for urgency? If so, how do your recommend attacking those first 2-3 years of a (pure) math PhD program? Is it ever too soon to decide on your thesis topic? Recall that I do not have a master's, although I have taken three graduate-level algebra courses.

I'm a third year, and I have found it immensely helpful to get started with research as quickly as possible.

The thing is, a lot of times you get stuck in mathematical research, especially when you're first starting out. Also, you will have a harder time finding a concrete problem then you'd think. Additionally, you could use your research to guide which classes you take (at least after quals). Lastly, making progress is hard and takes time. This means that the best way to do research is to always have a research problem.

It may not be your main focus, your main focus may be your exams, but if over your first two years you've spent random times thinking about a specific problem (and have geared your studies towards a problem), you can begin to make a lot of headway. So I highly suggest you start the research process. Talk to some advisers. Find something that interests you. Read some papers in your free time. Use this to find an interesting problem. Talk about this with someone who researches the area and now you have an adviser. And just start thinking about it. This is all pretty leisurely and can be done in your "free time" between classes, after classes, etc. Don't worry about the time consuming parts (actually writing down solid proofs), just get your mind churning.

When exams are done, you'll be surprised how ready you are to write what you've come up with. Even if you haven't solved much, you have likely narrowed down a clear path of where you want to go and what you want to prove (and have an intuition as to why you think it's correct). Write down that path as a "homework problem" to yourself, and now you're full-time research.

(Some people will tell you to wait until you can understand your project. Honestly, I didn't understand what I was doing (stochastic dynamics) for about half a year. After finally taking the classes on subjects related to the field, I can say that classes wouldn't've helped much. The only way to get into a research project is to just start doing it, and keep trying different books/resources until you understand all the background. Classes help, but less than you'd think.)

A PhD program may prepare you  for research. Richard Hamming in his talk “You and your research” asked the three following questions:

What are the most important problems in your field?
What are you working on?
Why aren’t they the same?

They can guide you well, whenever you take a step in your first days of a PhD.


How would you write to your in-class team, that you are going to drop the class, leaving no hard feelings? We have a project to do with them but I don't have the time and am not sure if this email is appropriate for them. What do you think? I would greatly appreciate your advice.
Here is what I am thinking of sending them.
Hello guys,
Hope you having a good weekend
I’m writing to you to let you know that unfortunately and for personal reasons, I have to drop this class. I have sent an email to the professor, so he should be aware of it very soon.
I hope you understand, and I wish you guys all the best on the project.
Sincerely,

Your suggestion looks fine.  I would consider making an offer to bring them up to speed on anything you have been working on that could help them out.

That is just fine.  Happens all the time.  At least  you told your team.
Some of my students just disappear.


submission review is taking too long I have submitted an article for a journal in which it was stated that the review time was from 80 to 120 days, that is approximately 4 months at most. The submission of my article was approximately 13 months ago and I did not get any answer in the allotted time they mentioned. I sent an email to the editor after 8 months and I was told that the review process has suffered a delay, but that they soon will fix that issue.

I waited until September and sent another email and again I got another reply of an apology and nothing more. I believe that it has passed too much time, until now it is almost like one year, so I do not what to do.

Would there be any problem if I submit my article to another journal or should I send another email to the editor of this journal? Or rather just wait until I get a response?

It seems like a long time by any standard. Contact them. You can give them a date by which you will formally withdraw your article from consideration. Maybe a couple of weeks. If they don't jump you can submit elsewhere without worry.

The final nudge is just a courtesy. You could actually just inform them that you are withdrawing for submission elsewhere. But if the journal is reputable it might be worth the courtesy.

Any credible and efficiently managed journal should be able to complete the review process and reach a decision in 6-8 weeks. Any period beyond that is usually the fault of Editors and Co-Editors who simply accept the prestige of the title but pay little attention to their duties. The excuse is always that they are volunteers and have other responsibilities. In my view, why accept an editorship if you will be unable to devote sufficient time to the tasks of being an editor.  Some of the fault also lies with the publishers who don't have systems in place in their electronic process to flag submissions for which reviews are missing within a given time period. The way I deal with lengthy reviews is to first contact the editor for an update after 8 weeks has elapsed. If the response is much more than a simple "we are still waiting for reviews", and it appears that some attempt will be made to get the reviews, I allow another 4 weeks at the most. Beyond that, I either withdraw the paper and offer it elsewhere or I offer it elsewhere without withdrawal. In both scenarios, as far as I am concerned, the journal to which the paper was sent to first has lost exclusive rights to my submission. Thereafter, whichever journal comes back first with an acceptance is the journal that will be given the copyright to publish.


If an editor appoints a non-expert reviewer by mistake, is there any way to convey this to the editor? What to do if somebody is suspicious after reading the review report of a research paper that one of the reviewers may be his ex-coworker, who is not an expert in the subject of the paper?

The question seems to be predicated on two assumptions:

1) If the review was not blind and the OP knew that the reviewer was his Former Coworker, he could make a convincing case to the editor that FC was not qualified to review the paper.

2) Thus, because he suspects that the reviewer was FC, he wants to contact the editor to find out if this was the case.

The second assumption is really a mistaken one, I think: according to the principles of blind review, you shouldn't know the identity of the reviewer.  If you think you do, you should nevertheless act as if you don't, and if you have partial information, you should definitely not go around sleuthing to see if you can solve the case.  This is one of the basic cultural assumptions of peer review.  I think that if the author goes down this road, it is very likely that he will be told that his actions are inappropriate and will burn bridges with the editor and the journal.

I find the first assumption problematic too, in a more subtle way.  The reason that reviews are anonymous is that you should not be engaging in an ad hominem discussion of the reviewer.  Just because you know someone's identity doesn't mean that you are an authority on their academic and intellectual qualifications.  Maybe FC didn't know your subject well back when you knew him, in your opinion.  How do you know what he knows now?

Choosing a suitable person to be the referee is the editor's call, not the author's.  Calling attention to someone's identity -- even hypothetically, as in "I don't know who the reviewer was, but if it was FC..." -- as a strike against the referee report will be regarded by many as obnoxious.  If you have anything to say to the editor, it is about the referee report itself.  If the referee report contains a comment that through its specific brand of inexpertise suggests to you that it was made by FC, forget about the FC part and explain why the comment is definitively incorrect.  If you can point out clear errors in the referee report that are in the serious to egregious range -- i.e., a reasonable person would worry that they compromise the integrity of the verdict -- then you have a case for getting the report thrown out and/or getting an additional independent report.  More likely the situation is not so clearcut, and in my opinion you should still compose a polite response to the editor if you feel that a lack of expertise played a factor in the report, but you fully expect to resubmit your paper elsewhere.

Getting a bad (as in, less than skilled) referee report and having to resubmit elsewhere is quite a common feature of peer review.  Luckily there is a lot more than one journal, so you can just start fresh elsewhere, and doing so is usually a much better idea than trying to extract reparations from the editor and/or the referee.

First of all, it is perfectly alright to review a coworker's article, unless they were involved in the research or provided assistance of some sort - in other words, they shouldn't be biased. If, as your question's title suggests, the reviewer is not an expert in the field, and the editor made the mistake of appointing him with this task, you could contact the editor asking why he did so. Mention that he is just your coworker and not an expert in this area. Instead of making quick judgments, wait for the review and go through it to see if it is acceptable by your own standards. It is very unlikely, I believe, that it would be worthless to a point were you might want to ask your editor to reject it, nevertheless you could always make a request to exclude that review from being published.

NOTE: Contact your editor and ask for advice.


Using equipment from research grant funding for both resaerch and personal use I recently received a grant (JSPS Kakenhi) to support research funds. For personal equipment, I will be listing a computer and camera. The computer is for computational parts of my research and the camera is to document fieldwork for professional-level photos that can be used in press releases, presentations, and publications.
I plan to ask the funding source (JSPS Kakenhi) directly. However, I am curious to know, in general, how funding agencies view individuals using equipment for personal projects (in addition to their intended research uses).
Is it in general appropriate or inappropriate (ethical or unethical) to use the camera as well for personal use in a manner that would not render it less useful for its research use? What should become of the camera after the two-year research support concludes? Is it only appropriate/ethical to use the camera for personal uses after the research funding end date?
Thank you for sharing your experience and knowledge.

Generally, the rules will say that the equipment is only to be used for research purposes. In practice, no one is going to mind if you watch a bit of netflix, or send some personal emails on your work laptop. No one will even check. I routinely use my work laptop (purchased on a grant) to edit holiday photos, and even have a couple of games installed. Similarly, no one is going to mind if you use your research camera for a few snaps of the research group's social lunch, but I wouldn't use if for your weekend side hussle of paid wedding photography. Its about being reasonable.
One important consideration is that these piece of equipment are often portable. This means that they can be lost/stolen, and no one is going to be very happy if your research camera is stolen while you are on a bar trip.
In both the last two places I have worked there have been schemes to purchase personal items of equipment like this when you leave the university. The  price is often only nominal because the university writes off the value of small consumer electronics after 3 years.

Is it in general appropriate to use the camera for personal use in a manner that would not render it less useful for its research use?

It is inappropriate because it creates the false impression that the funds were spent for personal purposes instead of research purposes.  Do not do it.  However,
it is not unethical if the funds were really spent for research purposes.

What should become of the camera after the two-year research support concludes?

The owner (usually the university) should continue to use the camera for research purposes until it is disposed of as worthless.  There may be a process for the university to sell the equipment, but usually this process is deemed more effort than it is worth.

Is it only appropriate/ethical to use the camera for personal uses after the research funding end date?

The funding end date does not matter.


Anonymous Student Feedback: Moving forward from abusive comments I'm looking for some guidance from some senior/experienced academics situated in the teaching space.

As a relatively new lecturer (though I have some experience in lecturing in the past) I'm always looking for ways to improve my teaching. After doing a bit of research around how different lecturers etc approach student feedback, a number had stated that using anonymous feedback solicited during the semester can be really helpful.

So following on from that, I put on my learning site an anonymous feedback form for students that could let me know how they think the unit is going and what could be improved. The idea behind this was to get real-time feedback that could be implemented throughout the course, instead of for the following year.

I left this open since week 1, and perhaps that was my mistake. Despite barely being into week 2 (in which week 1 was just a basic introductory lecture to the course) one student has provided some anonymous feedback, which isn't feedback at all. Rather, it is just a string of abusive, sexist and foul language comments.

Due the alarming nature of the feedback, I approached a mentor/supervisor about what I should do. They were conflicted, because on the one hand, the nature of the comments were highly inappropriate, abusive, and raise concerns about the safety of my person in my teaching space. However, no specific threat at this time was made. On the other, having anonymous informal feedback throughout the unit is a good way of getting students to reflect on their own learning experiences without the fear of being reprimanded re assessments, and help me improve my teaching in the process.

I'm caught between continuing to allow anonymous informal feedback, or taking this option away and informing students of the reason. No other student has provided any feedback. Only myself and my teaching assistant have access to the feedback. Only students enrolled in the unit have access to the form.

Experienced lecturers/professors, how would you handle this situation?

This response here has been somewhat useful for future tips:

What is the best way to solicit teaching feedback from students (before the class is over)?

It sounds like you've encountered the well-known downside of online disinhibition effect, more colloquially known as GIFT.  There is simply nothing that can be done to prevent some people from being horrible when offered anonymity.

So, let's parse out two different questions about how you should react: 1) what actions should you take to protect yourself and other students? and 2) should you continue to use the anonymous feedback form?

Let's start with the first question: given that you know there is a horrible person in your class, what should you do to protect yourself and other students?
I see three basic possibilities here, either a) the person is insincere in their statements and is trolling you to try to get a reaction, or b) the person is genuine but not a threat, or c) the person is an actual threat to the safety of yourself or others.  If you are concerned that it might possibility c), then if there is any way for your IT staff to penetrate the anonymity and investigate, it's reasonable to ask them to do so, just as if somebody had made a serious electronic threat through some other channel (your institutions likely will have a process for reporting serious threats of harm, though, which may mean you shouldn't start by going directly to IT).  Otherwise, it's probably best to ignore it and move on, because otherwise you're just giving them the reaction and power over your actions that they are looking for.

Now, turning to the second: should you continue to use the anonymous feedback form?  The one problem with true anonymity is that if you get more nasty comments, you can't tell whether they came from the same person or not. I would recommend looking into whether you can get pseudonymous information from your system, i.e., so that Student X's comments are all collected together and Student Y's comments are all collected together separately.  That way, you can separate out and discard feedback from the horrible person (essentially marking them with a "troll" filter), while still getting meaningful feedback from other students who have more positive disinhibition from the anonymity.

It's a pity that some people are horrible and try to screw things up for everybody else; the rest of us need to try to figure out how to appropriately protect ourselves and our institutions while keeping them from profiting from this behavior.

Since your ego is involved, I think you need to have someone in between you and the comment submitters to do some screening.  One way would be to ask if someone in your department administration would like to be the one to be be checking the comments.  Another way (but this is not an online method) would be to hand out feedback (paper) forms once a month or so in your class.  If it looks sort of official, and if you take class time for this, I doubt people would write silly things.


Is it acceptable for a professor to ask post-doc student to babysit for free? Like the title says, I have a friend who is a post-doc and her professor is asking her and another post-doc to baby-sit for him.  He does not pay them, he simply expects them to baby-sit for free because they work for him.  It is not clear whether this happens during the day or in the evening, though by my understanding it makes little difference in academia.  It is also not clear just how common it is for him to ask, but apparently it is at least semi-regular.  To me this seems like an abuse of power and there should be rules against it.  Is this kind of thing normal?

Your friend's advisor has made a very unethical request because, as a supervisor, it makes it harder for the postdocs to feel like they can say no. And they should feel free to say no, since the request is not normally part of any university employment contract I've seen.

Now, if the request were at the workplace, incidental and of brief duration (something like "Could you watch her while I take this call from the doctor's office?", for instance), then it wouldn't be so problematic (although still less than ideal). But anything more than that—anything that involved a regular arrangement, or was of extended duration—should be handled as a separate business transaction, so as to avoid exactly the coercion problem that you've raised.

It could be normal because some people abuse other people because they think they are more superior than them. However, it is not fair. At least he could have properly asked in where he shows that a 'no' could also be an answer. Moreover, if this is to be more than once, then he is to offer some kind of compensation.


Dipl. Math requirements I would like to know what are the (academic) requirements (in general) of a Dipl. Math.?

What Dipl. math. Is good for (in math Academia)? More general what is a Dipl. Math.?

(Some reference for cover letters for Dipl. Math.)

Dipl.-Math. stands for Diplom-Mathematiker. It is a German academic degree and equivalent to a master’s degree.
Before Germany adopted the bachelor/master system, a Diplom (diploma) was awarded to students after finishing about five years of study and writing a thesis.
Almost all German universities now award bachelor’s and master’s degrees, but at some universities, students can choose to have their degree called Diplom after completing a master’s program.

A diploma of mathematics is about equivalent to a Master in mathematics. It permits you to write a dissertation in mathematics.


Should I persist with article that keeps getting rejected? My paper has been rejected four times in last two years. I have tried two journals. They don't even have good rankings but it was rejected repeatedly. I improved the article by taking reviewers comments into consideration but still it comes back with rejections.

What frustrates me is the fact that I can see some articles which I followed getting published in same journals. They explore country context, whereas my article investigates the same problem in another country context (a developing country) which indicates there is a contribution.

It's been a long time that I have worked on this article. The data that I used is getting outdated since the business environment keeps changing rapidly.

So my question is, what course of action I should take given my current situation? Should I dump this article and move on with something new? Or just keep sending it to other journals?

It depends. That is my answer.
If you really believe that your paper offers an interesting contribution, then:

Try to improve your manuscript by doing this:

Extend and update the state of the art (maybe adding those related papers you mentioned in your question).
Be honest, be thorough, be critical: What are the weak parts of your manuscript? (Are the introduction, the theoretical aspects, the conclusions... bad written? Is your contribution not clearly highlighted and/or explained? Could you add some numerical examples to your manuscript (if this applies)?) Identify them, and go and try to improve them.
Try to add an explanatory chart of the process/method/solution you are describing or proposing. (Relevant) drawings can help people to understand your article and can make it more appealing to referees.
Get your manuscript reviewed by a colleague you trust. This is a must-do. Maybe you are not seeing something that is obvious to other people.
Of course, double-check the language usage. Ask some expert to review grammar, vocabulary, etc., if necessary.

Maybe the problem is not with your paper. Try to look for the right scientific journal. Some hints:

Look for articles related to your research topic in the Web of Knowledge (WoK, https://webofknowledge.com/) or Google Scholar (GS, https://scholar.google.com/) and see in which journal they were published (for instance, you can use some keywords related with your paper).
Similar to the previous one: If you are interested in sending your manuscript to a certain journal, look for articles related with your manuscript that have been published in that journal (using advanced search in WoK or GS). If you don't find any match, probably it is not the right journal.

If you already tried all the above suggestions and they did not work, then consider to publish your research as a technical report before quitting, at least.
EDIT:
I also recommend you to read these two articles:

https://www.elsevier.com/connect/8-reasons-i-rejected-your-article
https://www.elsevier.com/connect/8-reasons-i-accepted-your-article

There is a well know technique called "Skyscraper". Although it is more related to SEO but you can implement it in your article too.

Detect the reason why your article gets rejected.
Try to rectify that problem.
Come up with a better article.
Re-submit article.
Hopefully get selected this time.


How should I address other people in languages with a tu/vous distinction? For some context:

  In sociolinguistics, a T–V distinction (from the Latin pronouns tu and vos) is a contrast, within one language, between second-person pronouns that are specialized for varying levels of politeness, social distance, courtesy, familiarity, age or insult toward the addressee.

So for example in French there is "tu" and "vous", in Spanish there is "tú" and "usted", etc.

In general one uses "tu" (I'm going to use French as an example throughout) for peers or friends, and "vous" for strictly less or more senior people (so for example a professor would use "vous" with their students and vice versa). As a general rule of thumb, if you would call someone "madam/sir", you would use "vous".

In academia however, interactions are usually more relaxed: it's not unusual to call everyone by their first names, even as a PhD student addressing a professor. Similarly, I would expect that use of "tu" would be more prevalent in academia.

But as a new PhD student, it would have been unthinkable to use "tu" with a senior professor just three months ago, for example. And using someone's first name doesn't necessarily imply that I should use "tu" with them.

Should I use "tu" or "vous" to address more senior people? I guess it's probably safe to use "tu" with other grad students, postdocs or young faculty, but what about other people?
Does the answer change depending on if you see the person face-to-face or if you write them a letter/email?

PS: This is all probably language-dependent. I'm mostly interested for the answer in French, if it can prevent this question as being closed for being "too broad", but if it's possible to answer it in generality that would be great too.

Unfortunately, there is no general rule covering every situation (or every language).

However, a good rule of thumb is to just use the "vous" when you are not sure which one to use and then imitate the other person.

If you are more senior you probably can also offer using "tu", especially at the university, but with the rule from above you can be sure that you are not being considered rude.

The generally accepted way to address professors unfortunately differs from university to university (in my experience more than from country to country), so I suggest you use the rule from above.

With fellow graduate students and postdocs, you are right, you can in general use "tu".

  Does the answer change depending on if you see the person face-to-face
  or if you write them a letter/email?

No.

(This might be specific to Germany and France, but I guess at least in Spain this behavior would also be fine.)

Addition: If you are on a first-name basis that usually means that you are allowed to use "tu" (at least in Germany this is generally accepted and from my observations this is also true in France).

Even when addressing professors by their first name you should use "vous". That is not uncommon. I'm not that familiar with French (I had it in high school), but in German that is described as "Hamburger Sie". In my experience, it is considered quite rude to address older unfamiliar people, let alone your supervisor with "tu". So, go with "vous"  regardless whether you are on first-name basis with the person. There is of course the exception when they insist on being addressed with "tu", but that is in the case of professors quite rare in my experience.

As for postdocs, students and young faculty I would consider it safe to use "tu", but would opt for the more "safe" option by addressing them with whatever they're addressing me. The once established addressing routine shouldn't wary when communicating face-to-face or via e-mail, unless for specific circumstances (e.g. the e-mail is very formal and is sent to many senior people)


Researching with someone as a stopgap I am currently an undergrad student looking to research with one particular professor. On talking with his colleagues, it was suggested that I first get some research experience under my belt; the professor in question is a high level professor who is currently not looking for students and it would significantly help my cause when he opens up if I have research experience already.

There are other professors that I'm not particularly interested (interesting, but not amazingly interesting to me) in working with, but are open and would be willing to take me in currently. Is it ok to use these professors as experience builders on the premise that I would switch as soon as the professor I would like to work with opens up? If so, should I tell the stopgap professor that I intend on switching as soon as the other group opens up?

Just to be clear, I would put in the time required for the stopgap work - I would not just blow it off. I am just concerned about using someone as a stopgap and potentially leaving them high and dry if they expect me to be there for the next 3 years of undergrad.

If you came to me and said upfront that you wanted to get research experience and wanted to work with a variety of professors rather than making a full commitment to only one, I would try to find a way to accommodate you.

Or at least I would let you know what my expectations are. But, in any case, we have an honest relationship.

Now there would be no question of an ethical bind if you later decide to work with a more prestigious professor.

But the honest relationship is very valuable given that the professors know one another and you don't want to get caught in a bind between two professors.

I haven't been in this situation, and I don't know which field this is in, but it sounds like the original professor told you he wasn't currently taking on new student as a way of politely declining you. Even if he's really not currently taking on new students, it sounds like he either doesn't take on undergrads, or at the very least, only ones with extensive and exceptional research experience (which is hard to get during undergrad). This doesn't reflect your abilities as a student, but it's unlikely that he would take you on after just one or two semesters working with another professor.

Even if I'm wrong, however, I wouldn't tell the other professor that you're using them as a "stop gap" before working with their colleague, as they'll be less likely to take you on that way. It's analogous to telling an employer that you're going to leave them as soon as a better opportunity arises.

You might be better off working with them long-term anyway. It sounds like even if your preferred professor hired you/took you on, he'd have higher expectations, which creates more pressure for you. The other professors seem willing to give you an opportunity and understand that this is your first attempt at research. Thus, they may be more patient/forgiving of mistakes, which is something to consider as well.

The decision, of course, is yours. Good luck!


"Electronics and Communications Engineering" equivalent in the U.S.A I graduated from a European University with a Bachelor of Science Degree (Engineering Degree) and I'm about to move in the United States.
My specialization/ major would be Telecommunications Engineering.

What is the US equivalent of this ? I've noticed US colleges usually have EE(Electrical Engineering programs), which is the closest I've found.

Electrical engineering and (when it exists) electronics engineering usually cover telecommunications, as well as many other topics. Undergraduate degrees in NA are usually broader in scope than those in Europe.

But it wouldn't try to change the terminology of your own major: keep it as telecommunications engineering if that's what it is, and everyone will understand.

Electrical and Electronic Engineering usually refers to building electrical devices like computers, or cellphone networks.

Computer Science usually refers to using computers, especially programming.

I hope this helps clarify some terminology.


Can I force my professor to give me a copy of his powerpoint presentation? In a class, students asked the professor to give us a copy of his powerpoint presentations, but he refused and claimed this is personal property.

Students need the presentations to review the topics presented throughout the semester.

Is the course presentation personal property of the professor or part of the educational materials which must be delivered to the students?

  Edit:  Related question, but from the perspective of the faculty member:
  Is it common to provide digital notes (slides or handwritten) for students?

You wrote:

  Students need the presentations to review

Back when I was your age (of course I have no idea of your age but I am guessing you are a traditional undergraduate student), we had to take notes using these two antique tools called pen and paper.

I don't think even one of my professors gave me anything, other than pausing so I had time to write down the important points.

You have to take some responsibility for your education - don't just blame the professor for not handing you what you want.

There is teaching research showing that students who take notes retain much more information than those who do not. It could very well be that the professor is trying to take advantage of this knowledge to force you to learn more.

dmckee's answer is also great. The prof might be using this as leverage but in the end, you did not create the slides, they are not yours to demand. While many profs do freely give out their slides, it is actually unreasonable for you to demand them.

You could always explain to your professor, about the situation (ie. You needing it for review), telling him you might understand his reasons for not wanting to give it out. Also you could suggest that he give you key points in text books so you could make your own slides (you'd understand it better).


Is verbatim copying of short technical phrases without quotes but with citation considered plagiarism? My question is similar to Is verbatim copying several paragraphs of text with citation considered plagiarism?, but
I want to ask about very short, concise wordings. As an example, I read a paper in which the author uses the following sentence:

  While in the above description we have specified a local algorithm as
  a function that maps local neighbourhoods to local outputs, we could
  equally well […]

Now, instead of copying the exact sentence with its grammatical structure, I
want to point the reader to this paper and briefly mention one of the
conclusions made in this paper. Consider the sentence

  author et al. [citation] show that a local algorithm is a function that maps local neighborhoods to local outputs.

The wording "function that maps local neighborhoods to local
outputs" is a verbatim copy from the original source. Of course, I could
replace this wording with something else that expresses the same, but I find the original citation very concise and I could not come up with a completely
different and equally concise sentence.

I always use quotes in addition to a citation to tell the reader that not only
the conveyed ideas and concepts, but also the wording, is not my own
intellectual achievement. But in this case, one might argue that a person that
has understood the ideas described in the original paper might come up with the exact same wording, hence the wording is not a result of the original author's linguistic style, but rather a direct conclusion of the idea he wants to explain.

Is it acceptable to use this wording with a citation and no quotations, or
should you always use quotes for verbatim-copies?

I disagree with the two existing answers (gerrit and Patric).

In mathematical writing, it is not necessary to put quotation marks around very short fragments of descriptive text where that text is the obvious and natural way to express the idea.  For example, if Smith has written a paper whose main result is

  Theorem. Every even number is divisible by two.

then it is perfectly acceptable to write

  Smith [cite] shows that every even number is divisible by two.

without quotation marks and without clumsy rephrasings such as

  Smith [cite] shows that all even numbers have two as a factor.

The significant intellectual contribution of the work you're citing is the theorem itself, not the obvious wording that they used to express it. As you say, anybody who understood the concept would probably choose to phrase it in that way, even if they'd never seen the paper you're citing. Mathematical writing would be completely unreadable if every phrase that had ever appeared before was put in quotation marks.  After all, Smith was hardly the first author to talk about even numbers – are we going to accuse him of plagiarism for not acknowledging that the phrase "even number" is a quotation from somebody else?

While in the above description we have specified a local algorithm as a function that maps local neighbourhoods to local outputs, we could equally well […]

You can quote like this:

author et al. [citation] show that "a local algorithm is a function that maps local neighborhoods to local outputs".

If you do changes to the wording due to grammatical necessities, mark them with  within the quote and if you leave out parts of their wording, mark it with [...]