My PhD supervisor cannot promise me a date to defend my dissertation before my visa expires. Should I just quit my PhD and start over? I am doing my PhD in Germany and I’m under a three year DFG grant, which ends in September, and with it my visa. Although I can get an 18-month visa to find a job after my PhD, this won’t be granted until after my defense (when I get my certificate).

My supervisor had no idea that my residence in Germany depends on my employment contract/grant with the university.
I asked him if I could submit my dissertation at the end of July and be guaranteed a defense date in September. He told me cannot guarantee this and that I’ll just have to submit my defense earlier.

I don’t want to rush my writing (I’m technically submitting my PhD early already) so finishing earlier than July is out of the question. But if I don’t get a defense date in September, I will have to leave Germany and come back to defend it. I come from a country that requires a Schengen visa, so coming back won’t be as easy as hopping on a plane.

Right now I am seriously considering submitting my thesis in July and then flying back at the end of September with or without a defense date.  If I don’t get a defense date then I effectively quit my PhD.

What should I do? Any advice would be appreciated.

EDIT 1: Thanks for all of your advice. I'm slowly going through it.

I asked my supervisor if I can do it remotely and he said that Skype-ing for dissertation panels is not allowed. So he won't even consider a virtual presentation.

EDIT 2: My supervisor and I had a meeting and we discussed a few options. Since we are inviting a professor in the US to the panel, it is in everyone's best interest to have a tough timeline in mind. The timeline we selected is within the validity period of my current permit. Still no guarantees as anything could go wrong, but it's better than nothing.

Thanks again for those of you who gave thoughtful responses. To those of you who thought my question "makes no sense", I apologize deeply for my profound ignorance and I'm sorry that you didn't find my question relevant, unlike many people here. (Ironically my thesis is about online communities and how some more established members treat less active ones.)

You should talk immediately with the International Office (or equivalent) at your university, as well as any student-coordinated offices at your university. This is by no means the first time that they will have dealt with such a situation. Usually there are workarounds available—for instance, you could be extended on a part-time contract for a few months while waiting for the defense to be completed. You certainly do not need to be employed full-time to qualify for a visa—you just have to be able to show sufficient income, which even a 50% contract would be enough to satisfy.

However, I should point out that, depending on the university, there is no way to guarantee that you can turn in your thesis in July and be able to defend it in September. For instance, in the faculty where I used to work, reviewers were given three months to review a thesis. So if you turned in your thesis in July, you probably would not be able to have a defense before the beginning of November. You'll need to check the regulations for your program to see when the defense can be scheduled relative to the thesis being handed in.

Moreover, the "art" of scheduling a thesis defense requires getting enough examiners together at the same time, never an easy task in the German system.

However, to answer your main question, don't you think that quitting and starting over is counterproductive? If you're already writing a thesis, that shows you're relatively near to completion, and that your advisor thinks you're ready to move on. Giving that up because of the logistics of scheduling a PhD defense seems very shortsighted. Why would you not think that the same thing couldn't happen if you started over and worked somewhere else? Since you're so close to finishing, get it done!

First of all, you should change your mind from QUIT to COMPLETE your PhD.

So once you decide to complete your PhD, then you will definitely find a number of favorable ways how to do it. I can understand your situation at this moment, but never feel alone to take a right decision.

So as suggested by aeismail and others, there must be a division in your University who takes care of the International students.

So PLEASE visit that division in your university and ask them that how can you extend your VISA and can work somewhere part-time to support your staying.


Could not get along with any advisor, is it ego? During my academic studies, I have always been ambitious in pursuing academic research with no luck. I have not gotten along with any of the professors whom I attempted to set up an advisor-advisee relationship with. This was not due to my lack of knowledge or incapability because they acknowledged my competency many times.

I have started to think that they were too lazy to adjust to my eagerness and wanted to take it easy. Maybe they thought that I will be a burden for them. Also, I get the impression that they hate me, because of the disgust they seem to exhibit when I talk about the work of leading researchers in the field. If I do not follow or discuss the leading researchers work how can I contribute to the field?

Please give me some advice on ego problems of academics, and how to politely show them that their research is inferior without making them hate me.

I am very respectful. But my former professor asked me if I do not like his work. I criticized the professor's work, and professor could not tolerate to it. If I was wrong prof could have told me the true value of the work, instead he stayed quiet and took revenge on me. I always choose wrong persons - I can't recognize good and bad people in my relationships. My love life is also a disaster. Always credit bad ones in every aspect of life.

I am in a 3rd world country in the Middle East. Here, finding someone with an inferior work is like finding a water in a desert. My intention is using them for future Ph.D admissions in the western world. I am interested in their connections and network. But, they hide it from me, they want me to stay with them forever, and then they hate me. They are usually western educated PhDs - from the ones that return back and usually produce low-quality papers.

Back when I was in grad school and everybody I knew lived with roommates due to housing costs, some sets of roommates got along well and some had serious problems sharing space with one another.  Over time, I noticed that while most people had mostly decent experiences, there were certain people who I knew who always seemed to end up with nightmarish roommates.  The same way, while most people seemed to have their share of ups and downs in their love life, certain people always seemed to end up with nightmarish relationships.

Was it just bad luck or a bad environment?  Generally not: when a person has an unusually long string of failed relationships, usually that person is somehow involved in creating their luck.

I tell this by way of suggesting that you may want to reflect on your own choices here.  Are you poisoning the relationships with your professors by holding a contemptuous attitude towards them?  Is your ambition somehow leading you toward selecting professors who are incompatible with you?  Is it something else entirely?

It's impossible for we strangers on the internet to tell what's really going on for you.  It is certain, however, that every failed advisor/advisee relationship that you have been involved with has at least one thing in common: you.  It's worth reflecting on that and seeing if you can figure out something that you can change in your own attitudes that might make it easier for the next one to be better.

What you have to remember is that professors have a LOT of students to deal with. So if you demand something from them, then that will probably be met with rejection.

From my own personal experience, I didn't really build a rapport with professors at first. I just sort of hung around some of the nicer ones and talked about subject matters, etc that went on in the class. Pretty soon they just came to me with opportunities or at least hinted at something they had going on.

My thought is build a relationship this way. Don't go to a professor demanding something just go there and talk about something in the class. Try to go to ones who are polite and open to discussions.


Feeling pressured to publish thesis results by advisor I don't want to work with anymore A couple of months ago I finished my masters in computer science. A few days a go the following happened.

My main supervisor wrote an abstract of results from my thesis. He put me as the first author along with the two others, and himself.Then he sent a group email informing that the abstract is going to be submitted to a conference. In the email he refers to a previous agreement to submit a paper to this conference.

I have three issues.

I don't remember agreeing to submitting the results anywhere. We did talk about trying to publish the results and I was, at the time, very positive to the idea, but I always understood that we were going to "get back to it" at some point.
I don't want to work on this any more (Nor do I want want my name put on any thing.). There is a reason I didn't apply for any phd position, despite encouragement. Academia stresses me out. I have a job now and am very pleased with that.
His first draft of the abstract was either written to be misleading (over-emphasising a connection to a much cooler subject), or he doesn't understand the context of the results, which makes me feel uncomfortable.

I feel pressured to let them write a paper about the results and put my name on it.. but I'm worried they will misrepresent things and do a bad job. I don't want my name on something I didn't actually write.. even if the results are mine.

Am I making a big deal out of nothing? Or should/can I put the breaks on the process?

You may be overreacting -- there aren't enough details to say that you aren't. In particular, suggestions that your supervisor is acting unethically are very much not grounded, at least in what you've said. Slinging around such accusations carelessly will only hurt your reputation. (You probably shouldn't care much about that reputation if you really have left the field, but given that you worry about your name being attached to something not up to your standards, I guess you really do care about it.)

I would suggest analyzing this from your supervisor's side. He had a student in whom he probably invested a fair amount of resources, including grant money and time spent training that student. The student ended up producing good research, novel enough to be worthy of publication.

Now the supervisor is certainly aware that the student left the field, but he has an interest in getting the results published. He offers to do (or delegate) the remaining housekeeping in putting together a final manuscript, but wants to give credit where it's due. Unexpectedly, the student comes back with "I'm too busy, and I don't trust anyone else to publish my results."

Sure, you can prohibit a manuscript from being submitted with your name on it, and you can also prohibit having your name removed from something where you were undeniably an author-worthy contributor. But now that means the field is permanently deprived of your research. What was it all for, now that you refuse to let it be shared? Being uncooperative to the point where you censor your research can itself be unethical.

  We did talk about trying to publish the results and I was, at the time, very positive to the idea, but I always understood that we were going to "get back to it" at some point.

Well, you never did, so your supervisor is stepping up and doing what needs to be done.

  I don't want to work on this any more

Then don't.

  His first draft of the abstract was either written to be misleading (over-emphasizing a connection to a much cooler subject), or he doesn't understand the context of the results, which makes me feel uncomfortable.

Dressing things up to get attention is not unusual in academia, nor is it unethical. At worst, if one goes too far, one gets a reputation for having too large an ego. If no lies are being told, then don't worry. If you want to micromanage every sentence of the manuscript, then you have to write it yourself and forbid anyone else from contributing.

  I feel pressured to let them write a paper about the results and put my name on it ... I don't want my name on something I didn't actually write

I've seen a lot of papers published by more than one author. In a majority of cases, only one person ever did write all those sentences. (Where this isn't true, there tends to be a disruptive change of writing style.) The other authors contributed in other ways. If you were key to getting the results, your name should be on the paper, whether or not the manuscript was drafted by you personally.

  I'm worried they will misrepresent things and do a bad job

In which case is the world a better place: (1) this research never sees the light of day, or (2) this research is written up in a more grandiose way than your modesty is comfortable with? Those are your only options, and unless this paper is going to be so misrepresentative as to be harmful (and how can you know that given that you've only seen an abstract?), you should probably go with (2). Be wary of making the comparison to (3) the paper is magically written the way you would like without any effort on your part. (2) might be worse than (3), but (3) isn't on the table.

There really is an easy negotiation here. Ask that whoever writes the manuscript be made first author. That way the research gets published, but everyone understands that the style and tone and other such soft features of the writing are probably not yours. If your name is on the paper you will be held accountable for its factual correctness, but no one is going to ambush the second author and say "I think you personally could have given a better account of how your paper connects with that cool subject."

Edit: refer to Chris White's answer before this one. Use this only as a last resort only when you are confirmed when the intentions of your supervisor is to exploit you.

It is up your your wish to publish your research findings. That right does not belong to anyone else. As you are the first author of the manuscript, you would be the first to be blamed for anything misinterpreted or flawed in it.  I'm not in favor of having your name in any other order other than the first either.

If you are sure that you are not going to work with the same supervisor/ institution in future, you could actively oppose this act. Try to convince your former advisor that you don't want this to be done. It would be also better to leave a note to the head of the respective department with respect to this regard. If he still persists and if you are aware of the conference to which the paper is submitted, send a formal mail to the conference committee about your refusal to submit your paper.

I don't think your former advisor and his associates would try to publish your work again in future after you show how serious you are about not publishing it. This would risk damaging their reputation. If they try to publish it without your name and knowledge, then you could claim against them for act of plagiarism, noting the fact that your thesis is already published in your university.


Can a lecturer force you to learn a specific programming syntax / language? My class is currently further learning our relational database / SQL as part of the course.

The lecturer we have currently is restricting us to learning specifically Oracle SQL syntax rather than allowing us an option to using PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, etc.

When we brought up our preference in the use of alternative systems due to working with those mentioned above in work placements or academic study from the year prior, we were talked down to for even discussing the matter.

Is this permissible within the UK to restrict students from using a preferred database syntax / software environment?

Edit to add: thank you for your insights and feedback. The post was made on behalf of myself and half a dozen class members who did not know the best route to address the matter, but now have a clearer understanding thanks to this community. For what it's worth, I can confidently say myself and my fellow students are confident with Oracle, MySQL and other SQL Basics from prior education, projects or employment and don't have an issue learning something new to keep progressing.

No, they can't. But they can make you fail the class.

Lecturers usually have free rein over the specifics of the material taught. Therefore they are free to choose any technology or dialect as long as it is within the area of the course.

Nobody can force you to study anything but if you want to pass his exam or the course by e.g. submitting lab problems, you have to play by their rules.

They might not know any other dialect and therefore be only able to teach (and grade) Oracle SQL. Or they might consider it the best dialect, e.g., because of wide industry use.

Finally, although I would be annoyed by this as well, sometimes you have to suck it up and just pass the course. Lecturers that teach the same (obsolete) material for 20 years are unfortunately a reality in academia. At least you might learn what to avoid in the future.

I agree with all the other answers: of course the lecturer can do this, and is likely to be using Oracle to grade your work.

I write to add: I think you should avoid Oracle extensions to or deviations from SQL, unless they greatly simplify the answer into something elegant. The specific difference I have in mind is Use standard SQL JOIN syntax, not Oracle's old WHERE based syntax. The former can express relations that the latter can not, the latter is not accepted by other RDBMSes, and I can't believe your lecturer would be using a version of Oracle so old it didn't also take the SQL standard syntax.


Why is plagiarism so harshly punished? I realize why plagiarism is morally wrong and punishable.  This is not a question about why it is wrong.

This question is about why plagiarism is dealt with so harshly compared to other violations.  This might be because I'm uninformed but as per this question and what I've often read plagiarism can easily mean being expelled or suspended.

Here's a short list of offenses that typically get lighter penalties:

Stealing from another student
Doing illicit drugs
At my university (NYU, where discipline is handled through the housing staff), physically hitting someone would result in a combination of warnings/sanctions/being moved with the harshest outcome being kicked out of housing.  This is definitely an odd system, but I wouldn't be surprised if other universities had a similar imbalance between the punishments for violence vs. plagiarism.

I'm sure you could add a lot more to this list.

Plagiarism is essentially fraud + stealing, but I've always found it strange that the gut reaction many people have towards it seems to be worse than for getting punched in the face.  We definitely don't expel people the first, second, or even third time they get in a fight.

One key difference between plagiarism and violence is that plagiarism is a specifically academic offense, while violence is already handled by the legal system.  If a violent incident is sufficiently serious, it can and should be dealt with in court.  This means university rules only need to deal with cases in which the people involved prefer not to take legal action, and they can leave more serious cases to the legal system.  In particular, the university rules are typically geared towards the less serious end, since those are the only cases they expect to handle.  (If a student or colleague punched me in the face, I would press charges in court, rather than relying on the university to administer justice.  By contrast, if two athletes got worked up and started fighting during a high-stakes game, it's possible that neither one would consider the incident worthy of legal action.)

Plagiarism is not always punished severely: a first offense or minor case may be treated leniently.  However, the rules allow severe punishments because there are no courts to fall back on.  By contrast, universities don't need to have special rules for how to punish a truly dangerous student.

As colleges and universities are often considered institutions of "higher education", where the mind is meant to flourish and whatnot, it shouldn't come as much as a surprise.

As someone has mentioned, a legal system is already in place to deal with things such as physical violence and theft. These crimes are usually passed forward to local law enforcement, assuming the deed was indeed enough to fall outside of the boundaries of the law. It's simply out of the scope of the institution to focus on these matters. However, that is not to say that they should ignore them and action should definitely be taken if it becomes a problem.

Ultimately, as the law is meant to protect those in society from physical violence, these institutions are meant to protect academic integrity. An offence such as breaking and entering frequently causes jail-time. Plagiarism could be viewed as the breaking and entering of the academic world, which should cause the suspension/expulsion to be reasonable.

It's like cheating in a video game. You can get to the top very easily by cheating, but once you get there, everyone likely knows you've been cheating. If not, they will soon find out. Your skill level(s) will obviously not match what your previous work has displayed.


Should a student use the email account provided by the university to communicate with professors? I am an undergraduate and I do not know much about the rules of writing an email.
The email system used by our university is not convenient at all: it responds slowly, often crashes, and its common to miss important emails.

I need to email profs in our school and other universities.  Is it necessary for me to use the email account of the school? Can I use my personal gmail account? Is it informal or impolite?

In the cases I'm familiar with (U.S. universities), using your own e-mail account should be completely fine, subject to some obvious caveats.  One is that it's best to have an e-mail address that doesn't look foolish or offensive.  People sometimes choose very strange usernames, and you don't want that to reflect poorly on you; furthermore, you should make sure your e-mails include the name your professor knows you under.  Another issue is that if you are asking for sensitive information such as grades, your professor will likely be unwilling to send this information to an outside account without some verification that it belongs to you.  Finally, you should make things simple for anyone you correspond with.  For example, if you use several accounts, you should check them frequently or forward one to the other, so that there are no delays if someone sends something to an account you didn't expect.

One common solution is to set up your university account to forward to your private account, and to set up that account so you can send e-mail listing your university account as the sender/return address when necessary.

Use of University's Email Address or Personal Email varies on content being communicated in the email.

If you are communicating about your assignments or discussing something in the capacity of being a student, e.g., discussing topic or classes schedule, you should prefer your University's Email address to communicate.
If you are inquiring something general, e.g., Admissions information, fee structure, etc., you can use your Email. However it would be better to use your University's Email.


Is it bad for one's future career prospects if the PhD thesis topic is broad? As a graduate student in the PhD program (I will be graduating in about 2 months), my research has covered a wide range of topics rather than nailing down one specific topic (super-specialized). In fact, my thesis is broad enough that my current working title is something along the lines of "Toward the Application of Electronic Structure Theory to Solve Relevant Chemical Problems." (Can it get any more general?) There is nothing informative from that title as it completely leaves out details. The problem is, each paper I've published is its own research focus without any connection to the next outside of the fact that computational chemistry was used for each.

I've read in other places that a thesis topic is critical because it is the basis on which you launch your career. Is it bad to look like a 'jack-of-all-trades' person? There must be a better way to handle this.

Coming from a somewhat different field (mathematics), I have seen some theses that were essentially bundles of not-strongly-related papers, each good enough to get published, and considered (by the advisor and the department) good enough to earn a PhD. Ok.

But this is indeed different from "getting a job". From what I have seen, job applicants don't succeed so much with "broad appeal" alone, but also must have strong appeal to a particular research group/interest. Thus, a too-diffuse body of work, especially if described in a fashion that makes it appear diffuse _and_unfocused_, will not get up to the thresh-hold of having a good chance at job opportunities.

To my mind, the point is how one portrays such work. If (in contrast to the situation of the question) the papers really are completely disjoint and unrelated, it is not easy to describe them as fitting together into a coherent research program. If, indeed, as apparently is the case in the questioner's situation, there is a coherence to the body of work, it is very important to re-describe things to emphasized that. "Novel computational methods whose potential is illustrated by making progress in several important problems"? That sort of thing?

After all, presumably/often the author of several papers does have some underlying theme/principle/concept/whatever that is merely manifest in various way ... that may superficially appear very different.

So, in summary, the description of the body of work would best emphasize the common thread(s) underlying the several instances. Although often labels are simplistic, hiring committees do use them, so figuring out how to position oneself among those labels is probably smart. (In effect denying the relevance of admittedly simplistic labels and categorizations is most likely just self-sabotage.)

One's advisor's approval of the body of work as meriting the PhD is a different issue from getting the advisor's recommendations about an appealing coherent description of the whole of the work.

A PhD thesis is all about focus and depth, more than any other degree I know of. It is the antithesis of the jack-of-all-trades.

You say that you are two months from completion.

But you do not have a specific research question.

Nor do you have a very focused thesis, just unrelated papers in the same field: your words were: "each paper I've published is its own research focus without any connection to the next outside of the fact that computational chemistry was used for each".

It will depend on the institution, but at the institution I work, you would not be two months from completion. You'd be two years from completion.

If your supervisors are happy with your work as it is, then they've either completely screwed up, or your institution is happy to offer PhDs for theses which do not meet the standard that I and others expect: that they study a very specific question, deeper than anyone else has. I think you need to work out which of those two is the case, before you submit.

Not that there's anything wrong with being a jack-of-all-trades. But that really is the polar opposite to a PhD, which should be providing novelty, rigour and depth.

This does look bad for your future career, because it looks like you've spent several years being a jack-of-all-trades across a field, when you should have been very focused on a specific research question: at many institutions, that would mean that you simply would not be getting your doctorate; and having spent the time, and coming away at best with an MPhil, will look like a fail.


Changing careers to teach Mathematics I am currently trying to change careers after doing postdoc physics research for many years and not being able to obtain a research faculty position. I really enjoyed my university teaching experiences and want to focus on teaching as a career.  But I haven't been successful in finding a nonresearch teaching position with an EECS PhD.

My goal now is to teach Mathematics at either the community college or liberal arts college level. Is it impossible to achieve this goal with only a BS in Mathematics plus EECS PhD? It seems like I need at a minimum a MS in Mathematics.

There was a related question here. There was a suggestion for that person to look into getting a DA degree in Mathematics as a way to get a doctorate with an emphasis on teaching. I've never heard of it, but based on descriptions of the DA program I've found online, it seems to match my teaching goals perfectly. (There were also suggestions to consider the PhD in Mathematics Education, but I don't think it would be a good fit for me.)

My questions:

Am I wasting my time applying to college-level math teaching jobs with only a BS Math + grad engineering degrees?
Is a Master's degree good enough or even preferable to a DA if I only want to teach?
I am interested in the DA, but I'm worried that the commenter in the link above says "It's a bad idea".  Is it true that most Math departments don't even know what a DA degree is? Will having a DA put me at a disadvantage compared to others having a PhD if I apply for a teaching position requiring a doctorate degree?
Since it's been a long time since my BS Math degree, would getting a MS Math degree first be a good idea before thinking about getting a doctoral degree?
I'm not sure if getting another degree is a reasonable way of planning my second career. It's been 10 years since my PhD and if I decide to do this I will be over 40 by the time I finish another degree. Is it a bad idea to go back to school as an older student just so I can teach college math?

I attended a junior college before finishing my BS Math at university. My University Physics II instructor at the junior college had a BS Physics and a Master in Church Music. I see no reason why you shouldn't be able to find a job teaching mathematics at a junior college with your doctorate.

I think you would be especially qualified to teach an applied mathematics course – I would say go for it now not later


After the passing of my supervisor, the department forces me to start again from zero. How to respond? I have had a very rocky PhD candidacy. My first supervisor left academia half way through my candidacy; the replacing supervisor passed away a year after that. So two and a half years through a three-years PhD candidacy, the head of the department gives me two choices: Either I have to change my topic of research and start over from zero again and somehow finish "in time" (how this will be done is unclear, and I am supposed to hash it out myself with one of the available supervisors), or I have to withdraw from the program.

Their justification is that no one in the department understands the content of my works. Is this a proper/normal justification? I cannot believe that an academic department belonging to a top university can seriously use “we fail to understand the candidate’s work“ as a justification to force me to do something that I deem to be completely infeasible.

So, assuming I cannot dispute this decision, given the fact that I have to start over from zero again anyway, with a department that readily admits that its people do not have the competence to understand and therefore will throw away wantonly what I have produced after two and a half years of working nine hours every single day without a single day off, should I just leave and apply for another PhD program? Whatever that will be coming out from this attempt to salvage my PhD will probably lead me nowhere except a piece of paper anyway. If I withdraw for this reason, how will this be seen by other universities? How will this be seen by people in the industry?

My goal is a career in academia. I am someone who has severe social anxiety and so I find it impossible to survive in the industry. I have always thought I might have a chance to be accepted in the academic world instead, but I have now realized that someone like me probably belongs nowhere.

Maybe someone else in the department can supervise your work and maybe they can't--the fact is that they won't, and that's what you have to work with. My (pessimistic) gut feeling is that the department head has essentially written you off as collateral damage. He's willing to push you through for a completion because that's good for the department, but he doesn't care that you want an academic career.

On the off chance that this isn't the case, you might try approaching the possible available supervisors and get a clear timeline from them about how you can finish with work that can launch an academic career. If they tell you it will take longer than the one year that the department head seems willing to allow, you can try going over his head to pressure him to agree to your new supervisor's timeline. But this is a rather delicate situation and you are probably better off shopping your work around at another school and explaining that you lost two supervisors through no fault of your own.

My first response was going to be that you could say the following: "No!"
One key to this is not to follow up with any reasoning, as in fact you do not need to give reasoning--the reasoning is clearly implied by the situation. If you do give reasoning be careful they do not force you to eat away your own position of argument.  Since they have the lower stance, they may use such a strategy.    You have much more right to carry on with what you have started (started under the mutual agreement between you and the department) then they have for forcing you to drop all your work.

The above still stands, however, considering your personal situation, if you have concerns about communicating this strongly enough, then you may want to hire someone to represent you either formally or informally. You might consider the graduate student union, but the problem is are they good enough at your university? And are you ok approaching them?, if not then that is why getting your own representation is also possible.

By the way, there are definitely places where you belong, and university is one of them.

Also I'd like to address your question about their current justification. No it is not a valid argument.  For one if someone needs to know the stuff, they can go learn it just as you have learned it.  Learning is common and fundamental to professorial life. The other point is that the situation is not much different from when you had an advisor, as the advisor can not single-handedly give you a Phd, correct?


application to be a reviewer Can anybody post a template letter on how to ask a science journal to serve as a reviewer. Here's what I have..
I would like to serve as a peer reviewer for manuscripts submitted to your esteemed journal, XXX. My areas of expertise are XYZ. I have published n articles in this field and have reviewed manuscripts pertaining to these subjects before.
My CV is enclosed for your perusal

The best way I've discovered to become a reviewer for a journal is to submit a paper there. In my experience this is almost always followed a few days later by a request to review a relevant article.

Edited to add: I did my first reviews while a graduate student because my PhD supervisor was the editor of a journal. He would send me things occasionally because he considered it part of my training. So, another way to become a reviewer is to know an editor.

I've seen several such emails before and I personally don't see why not accept - it's not hard to register reviewers into the editorial management system, and reviewers only offer recommendations anyway. The editor can always invite a couple of other "regular" reviewers as well, and if the new reviewer writes a good review, upgrade him to a regular reviewer. If the review is poor, one does not have to forward it to the authors.

If you do send such an email to the publisher, you'll want to provide:

Your areas of expertise. Try to match these to the keywords the journal uses (e.g. when you submit to the journal, do they ask you to identify which subspecialty your manuscript is in, and if so what are those subspecialties?)
Some example publications
A few details about yourself, such as what your job title is, your institution, your qualifications, your website (if you have one)

Don't expect to be invited to review immediately. In fact there's a chance that you never receive anything because the publisher will only register you, and the editors need to be searching the database to see you.

You can also write to the editors. Pick the members of the editorial board whose interests most closely match yours. This makes them aware that they can invite you; however the failure rate will be higher, and there's a good chance they don't act on your email.


What to do if a referee plagiarises the result after rejecting a paper? I find myself in an awkward situation. Nearly two years ago I submitted a paper to a reputable mathematics journal. After 15 months it was rejected with the rationale that there had been papers published (most since the submission date) that contained results that I should have referenced. I found that a little spurious, but moved on and put my work together with some colleagues and got our new paper accepted (pending some language issues) by a different journal.

However, one of my co-authors has found that my exact result (barring some small notational changes, but with the exact same language; I can recognise it as mine, I slaved over finding just the right words!) from my original paper has had the proof published in a book by one author of the references that caused the paper to get originally rejected!

My assumption is thus that the paper was sent to this person to referee and they liked the result so much that they kept it for themselves, which also explains the delay in refereeing... I believe that this author has also presented this result at a conference as their own work. They have a number of papers published on the topic in question from their doctoral thesis.

My question is what steps can I take now to re-assert my authorship?

I believe that it would have been simpler if I had also submitted it to the arXiv, but I wasn't sure (at that time) how that would be seen by the journal. I did give a presentation of my results at a local conference, so I would be able to produce credible witnesses to back up my claim, if necessary. The book published containing my work is largely the doctoral thesis of the author, so I am attempting to find a copy of the thesis since it was deposited before I submitted my paper to the journal. Can anyone suggest any other recourse?

My co-authors would prefer to err on the side of caution and include a reference to the result in our revised paper, but I would really like to reclaim my work...

I suggest that you write a formal letter to the journal editor who handled your submission.  (Make sure it is the same editor.)  Give all the relevant details, including dated copies of all correspondence (whether electronic or printed).

The editor should know who refereed your paper, and although the editor will not reveal their names to you (I assume that blind refereeing was done), he or she would be in the best position to act on the matter.

Perhaps the best thing that could happen is the editor agrees that some unethical behavior occurred, the editor helps you file a case against the erring referee, the erring referee gets penalized, and proper attribution is given to you.

Perhaps the worst thing that could happen is the editor does not believe your story, thinks you are just looking for trouble, and tells other editors and referees that you are a "bad, crazy person."  Or the editor does believe your story but is a close friend of the erring referee and so acts as if he or she does not believe your story.

Either way, at least they know that you are aware of this unethical behavior and this will perhaps discourage the erring referee to continue with the unethical behavior in the future.

This is just a layman's perspective, but  here's what you can do:

1) Keep copies of all official correspondence.
2) If you have not touched the file at all, take a screenshot of the file explorer displaying the file name and the "last modified" date.
3) Get a signed statement attesting to your character and to the fact that you spent long hours putting your essay together.

The key is to gather enough evidence to conclude that the editor probably plagiarized. If you were to sue the author, all you'd to do is prove that there is a > 50% chance that the guy plagiarized your work.


FAFSA eligibility for international students I am Indian citizen, applying for Fall season graduate studies in the USA.

Are international students like me eligible to apply for Federal aid (FAFSA)?

No. You must be "a U.S. citizen or eligible noncitizen" (i.e., a permanent resident with a green card) to get federal student aid.

NO , Federal aid is only for U.S citizens.

Even when it comes to job international can apply for only college roll positions but not work study ..

Federal aid and work study run through are like funding offered by the federal government or the countries central government thus these funds would directly allocated or redeemed by the students who are citizens .So if you are under F-1 or J-1 visa if you would want to have scholarships in u.s either your college or your department should sponsor you or if you are under grant the organisation would sponsor you.


Chair Offers COVID-19 Compensation... But Asks ME to Put Out a Number The chair of my department has very generously offered to try and secure funding for some of the part-time and adjunct professors working in the department as compensation for adapting our originally in-person courses to an online format (this is in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic).  I currently am an adjunct only teaching one upper-division class at this institution.  The catch here is that my chair has asked me and the other part-timers to throw out numbers that we feel are appropriate.  I really have no intuition about what to ask for, or to simply respond (graciously) saying that I trust my chair's judgement and allow them to come up with a number for me/us.  I don't want to come off as greedy and pick a number they might claim to be inappropriate, but at the same time I feel that it's rather passive to blindly let my chair pick.

For reference, I'm a fairly new hire in this department and not really clear about my future there.  The chair and the other faculty are very friendly and inviting, so I'm not particularly worried about setting off any personality conflicts.  Just not sure what the appropriate response is here.

There are really two parts to the Chair's question:

How much additional work have you had to do so far? What additional work do you anticipate going forward? Are there any time savings that should also go into the calculation?
What is the appropriate renumeration for that work?

You should be able to estimate the answer to (1), and explain where the number comes from. You should certainly include this information in your response to the chair. Then, as in the answer by @Allure, you can propose that they pay you for the additional time at (broadly) the same rate as you usually expect to get. For example,

  Hello,

  I estimate that I've had to spend 80 hours preparing new material, and
  there will be an additional 4 hours work each week going forward.
  However, I'm saving an hour on travelling between campuses. Assuming
  this continues for the next 12 weeks, we're looking at something like
  120 hours additional work. I think my usual salary works out at around
  $30/hour.

  Thanks,
  Mndifldz

Note that all you have done here is state facts, so there is nothing anyone can criticise you for. You leave it up to the chair to do the maths, and decide what they can afford to offer. However, you lead them towards a number that (hopefully) you think is fair.

I actually am in a similar situation from time to time when an online class I was offered and set up gets canceled, usually due to enrollment issue.  The compensation is usually in the neighborhood of $100.  Since you're doing this from scratch and in a rush, I would ask as high as $300.


Submit manuscript to tier A conference or wait and submit to A* conference? Suppose you have a manuscript and you have just missed the deadline for an A* conference. Should I submit to the next tier A conference or wait until for the A* conference to come around again?

I am in the computer science field, hence the emphasis on conferences, rather than journals.

Suppose you have a manuscript and you have just missed the deadline for an A* conference. Should I submit to the next tier A conference or wait until for the A* conference to come around again?

This depends on a number of factors:

How likely do you think your paper is to be accepted in the A* conference? If this is your absolute best, cream-of-the-crop paper and you are confident it will go through, then submitting to a weaker conference just because you did not want to wait will feel like waste down the road. If the A* conference felt like a long shot anyway, go ahead and submit now.
How likely are you to get scooped? If you are doing cutting-edge research in a trending topic, you may want to go for the A conference simply because you are afraid that somebody else may publish before you if you don't.
How important is timely publishing for your content? Many great research papers are in essence timeless, but occasionally one has produced a paper that is of value to the community right now, but which may be much less interesting in a year (e.g., some empirical studies in fast-moving fields are like that). In that case you should submit to the A conference now, because there is a very real danger that the paper will not be good enough for the A* paper in a year anyway.
How important is having the paper out soon for your career progression? E.g., if you are handing in your PhD in a year, or plan to be on the job market in a year, or plan to hand in this selective personal grant in the next year, then having another published A paper may be better than a potential A* paper that comes "too late".
How much value is (in your field and your circles) placed on the "esteem" of the venue? That is, what do you estimate how much more valuable the same paper will be for your career if published in an A* venue rather than an A venue? In a perfect world, it would not matter. In the real world, as for instance in my field, the venue a publication appeared in is ultimately more important in career decisions on all levels than the actual content.

I would submit just to get feedback.  If it is an accept, then re-read the answers here and decide whether you want withdraw and submit it to the A* conference if the comments are very positive.  Otherwise, if it is lukewarm, and an accept, then you at least have a conf paper.  If it is a reject maybe a self reflection is in order.  If there are bugs then you can fix them so you have a better paper for the A* conf.


How to come up with research ideas? As a very new researcher who is exploring the best way to generate ideas, some guidance on this question would be very helpful. I have found that this is NOT easy. Ideas seem to pop out of my Professor every day and I wonder how he does it. This question is broad;

How do you tend to come up with initial/seed ideas? What is your search method (if you have one)?
What proportion of your ideas for past papers come from; (i) colleagues, (ii) intentionally browsing the literature for ideas, (iii) on the spot inspiration, (iv) conferences, (v) other?
How do you prioritize research ideas?
Is there any special, generalizable method that you've discovered to sift out those ideas that are likely to be unrealistic early on in the process of idea generation?

Based on small amounts of anecdotal evidence I have reason to believe that there is vast heterogeneity among professors regarding the above questions. For example, economist Steven Levitt says he works on 22 papers at once. A professor I know will have maybe 25% of this at any one time.

Related but not duplicate: Is there any software or tools for managing developing research ideas?

Okay, as you say, this is very broad, and possibly argumentative. So, I'll try to section off my answer for your various sub-questions, and talk not so much about how I do come up (and organize) research ideas, but how I see it done by everyone (including me).

Coming up with ideas

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not “Eureka!” but rather, “hmm... that's funny...” — Isaac Asimov

It's probably very akin to asking a large number of artists “how do you come up with inspiration?”, i.e. you can probably get one thousand different answers, and yet not useful answer at the same time. However, there are some elements that I think are common to all. You can't “trigger” new ideas to come into your mind, but you can put your mind into the right disposition to host these new ideas: recognize them and welcome them. Below is a list, certainly partial and limited, trying to detail my perspective in this matter:

Be challenged! Nothing sparks ideas more than being confronted with contradiction, healthy criticism, a spirited debate, maybe a bit of competition. Some people manage to do that by themselves, arguing against their ideas and improving them. I myself (and most of the colleagues and students I have seen) need an echo chamber, someone to discuss things with. If they're not exactly from your field, all the better, as they may have unusual/naïve/silly questions or expectations.
To give an example, some of the most “successful” ideas I have had came while answering questions, for example from a PhD student or colleague, and replying by “no, it doesn't work like that… in fact, it's probably always guaranteed to be false, because… see, it's linked to X… or maybe it's not? hum…”

Be curious! Ideas come from problems. Identifying worthy problems in your field of research, and dissecting larger issues into of specific problems of manageable scope, is at least as hard as coming up with new ideas. In the end my feeling is that, especially for a researcher, all ideas are the result of one’s curiosity.

Manage to get some free time for thinking (and not: teaching, supervising, tutoring, reviewing, writing, sleeping, …). Body and mind. Sure, an idea can pop into your head any time, but it's probably less likely to happen when you teach basic calculus all day that when you get some time to really think.

Know your field, know where a new development need to occur, what is currently missing. Read review papers, search for such ideas through people's articles or blog posts, discuss with senior colleagues who have a comprehensive view of the field, …
One of the ways you can come with ideas is by analyzing how different groups work in your fields, seeing what has been addressed and avoided, what big questions are still open, and how you can link between different works to build a coherent global picture… This is not always successful, but it usually generates some good ideas along the way!

Explore more or less closely related fields, and see if there is something from your background that you could apply to their problems, or ways you could build something together. Such ideas tend to be very strong, because you can oftentimes apply an entire branch of knowledge (ideas, methods, algorithms, etc.) to a very different problem. In that case, the added value comes from your different perspective, as you might try things that others would not think of.

Ways have been devised to come up with new ideas on a given topic, either alone or in group sessions. Brainstorming is probably the best know such method (and might be the most popular, in one form or another), but a really large number of creativity techniques have been developed. They can be applied both to enhance creativity or to boost problem solving efficiency.

Organizing ideas
A quote often attributed to Kant: “someone’s intelligence can be measured by the quantity of uncertainties that he can bear”. If that true, that has serious consequences for research. Accepting that your mind can only efficiently support a finite number of ongoing research ideas, you have to come up with ways to write them down, organize them, prioritize them, come back to them later, etc. Just as you cannot juggle with as many balls as you'd like, such “external” tools will help your brain focus on the ones that you assign high priority (or the ones to which it gives high priority; the brain works in funny ways).
Most people use very low-tech tools for that:

Notebooks, either sorted chronologically or thematically; in the later case, open a series of blanks pages for each new project/idea, and flip through the book whenever you want to check on them. I use a Moleskine (WP) for that purpose; having a nice, leather-bound notebook somehow helps me “value” it more and treat it with care (always have it with me, actually use it).

Post-it’s scattered through one’s (real or virtual) desktop. Downsides are obvious.

More people than I thought actually don't use any tools, and just keep all in their mind. Apparently it can be done, but I don't advise it.

But more complicated methodologies have been devised, that are supposed to help you with it:

Mind mapping, either on paper or software-based.
Using todo-list flat or two-dimensional todo-list software, or more complex task-tracking software (see, e.g. Trello).
The software side of this question is already covered (though possibly not extensively) here on this very Q&A site.

Finally, don't underestimate the possibilities opened by delegating: people in charge of a specific project or sub-project (PhD students or post-docs) can be tasked with maintaining a list of ideas by all contributors of the project, to come to later on.

Answers to your miscellaneous smaller questions:

What proportion of your ideas for past papers come from; (i) colleagues, (ii) intentionally browsing the literature for ideas, (iii) on the spot inspiration, (iv) conferences, (v) other?

Most ideas are hardly “traceable” to one source or another. A given idea might have formed in my head during a conference, seeing how people were failing to address a certain issue, then crystallized during a discussion with colleagues, but would never have occurred to me if not for a literature review I had performed a few months before.

I'll come back a bit later and continue working on this answer :)

I would recommend Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware by Andy Hunt.  This book has some very good tips for coming up with ideas, research or otherwise.


Exam design: give maximum score per question or not? When designing an exam, would you mention the maximum score per question or not? Is it common practice?

In my view this promotes cherry-picking. This could be seen as a way to  prioritize or to satisfice  (leaving questions open since "they are not worth it").

Is there any scientific proof/pedagogical insight this is a "must", "nice for students " or "making it easier for students"?

Any thoughts on this (from professors and students)?

Examinations are time-limited, so time is a scarce resource that students need to economise.  Stipulating the marks allocated to exam questions has three main purposes:

Objectivity: The stipulated marks creates a more objective assessment, insofar as the weightings on the questions are fixed by the stipulated marks.  This prevents students from being unfairly penalised by subjective re-allocation of marks.
Time allocation: The stipulated marks allows students to economise their time by allocating it in a manner that gives appropriate levels of time relative to the marks available for the question.
Implicit expectation of detail: Ideally, marks should be allocated roughly commensurately with the time the question will take to complete if done properly.  This gives the students an understanding of the proportion of time that each question should take, and so it allows them to diagnose whether they are taking too long on a question.  This also means that the allocated marks gives the student an implicit hint as to how much detail they are expected to give in a question --- low mark questions usually do not require large amounts of detail.

In your question, you seem to be taking the view that it is bad for students to economise their limited time, and that this incentivises students to eschew answering entire questions.  So long as there is sufficient time available in the exam, this should not be the case.  (A useful rule-of-thumb I heard for exams was that the course lecturer should be able to complete the exam in 1/3 of the time limit for an undergraduate exam, or 1/2 of the time limit for a postgraduate exam.  This should be done under conditions where the course lecturer first "forgets" the answers to the exam, and has to figure them out in the time limit.)

Failing to provide the mark value of questions sabotages both your students and yourself.

Exams are provided to determine how well a student understands the course work, with questions weighted by the import of their subject matter. If the value of the questions is hidden, it...

prevents students from prioritizing questions on higher-priority matter; Time management is a valuable skill - "cherry-picking" the most important tasks in a time-constrained situation is essential for students to learn, and not to be discouraged.
adds randomness to (potentially critical) exam results; It is unreasonable to expect students to reliably guess your thought processes on question valuation, and will inevitably require some degree of guessing. This disproportionately harms students who are slower test-takers, as well as reduces their autonomy. Note that this can easily lead to resentment.
reduces the information you gain from the exam; Did Alice skip Important Question A because she didn't know how to solve it, or because Worthless Question B was easier, and she had no way of knowing which was more valuable? Does Bob intuitively understand what concepts are crucial, or was he just lucky?

There are very few, if any, situations in which the benefits of hiding question values outweigh the numerous costs.


How to write a proper subject line for a follow up email I emailed a professor about a postdoc position three weeks ago. He replied me on Friday that week and showed his interest. I answered his question about partial funding in the new email but have not heard from him since then. It's been two weeks and I think it's time to send a followup email. I'm not sure how to write the subject line. Should I forward the previous email and write subject like this: Follow-up about postdoc position?
Thanks a lot. I'm a little nervous about the position and hope I can get it.

You can reply to the email again and change the email body to "Gentle Reminder " with a smiley and you can insert [Reminder] before your previous subject


Do I own the copyright to my Master's thesis? or does it belong to my university? I am just done with my Masters degree in one of the universities in Germany.  I am wondering if I can make my Master's thesis open for public to download and read.

I am not talking about submitting it to a journal or a conference, I am just asking if I can put the PDF file I submitted to my professor on my website. My question is that if I do put on my website, will I run into copyright issues and stuff of that kind?

In Germany, the student is typically owner of the copyright (including Verwertungsrechte) their thesis.
These theses are parts of exams (Prüfungsleistung). Such work must be solely produced by the student, and the thesis typically also contains a declaration specifying this. This implies that the work is owned by the student.

You can read through the forms you signed and the exam regulations (Prüfungsordnung): if no exclusive transfer of rights is mentioned, they are yours for sure. If an exclusive transfer is mentioned it is probably void according to the source I link below.

Exam regulations forbid that the professor (who's considered a public official person for the exams) or the university accept anything from the student that is not specified by the exam regulations. IP rights are not in that list. The university can and does ask for a certain number of copies of the thesis (in paper and/or electronically), this comes with a license to use these copies, e.g. to put then into their archive and to make them available in the university library (the same kind of license you get when buying a book). However, I have not yet seen an exclusive transfer of rights in that context. AFAIK the Prüfungsordnung can also specify that the thesis has to be published, though I have met that requirement only for PhD theses.

Students are typically not employees at the university. Often the exam rules explicitly forbid that students can be paid/hired by the university for the thesis. Thus, IP rights could only be transferred to the university by an explicit contract. However, contracts saying that "all transferable rights on the thesis go to university otherwise you cannot do your thesis here" are void because they are considered to be established under undue pressure to the student, and are considered acceptance of benefits by a public official (Vorteilsannahme). There seem to be ways of having a valid contract before the exam that transfers the IP to university, but I gather this is rather complicated to get right.
After the exam is finished and the student has  grades and certificates, valid contracts to transfer rights to the university can be negotiated.

Source and highly relevant reading (in German) Helmut Messer: Rechtsgrundsäte zu Diplomarbeiten.

Any project done for an academic certificate is owned by the university, but as for public sharing under the right license (for academic usage) it will be accepted to be release, but its better for you to get an approval from the university.


How can I politely reply and educate students with unreasonable requests? I am a professor at uni, and I have been experiencing a number of unreasonable requests from students on these days, some of them arguing that they need a special treatment due to the current Covid-19 situation, such as students asking for:

additional exam papers with full solutions (there are already three past exam papers with solutions available).
a list of the exact topics that will be examined in each of the exam exercises (this is, if the exam contains five questions, then I should provide the corresponding five topics).
providing the exact structure of the exam, such as one question about definitions, two questions about chapter 1 of the lecture notes, one question about chapter 2, ...
labeling slides and clearly specifying if they cover a topic that will appear in the exam or not (not just if it contains examinable material, but if the exam contains a question about the topic in the corresponding slide).

I want to reply to these requests indicating that they are just asking for too much (I may as well send them the exam with full solutions), and to teach them that the point of the exam is not to regurgitate memorized solutions (i.e., life does not work like that).

What is some advice on potential ways of replying and covering both aims: being polite, but also educating them about how unreasonable/entitled those requests are?

Let's assume your teaching practices are the best possible.  Students want you to change your teaching practices.  You should respond by explaining to students why your practices are effective (do this even if they don't ask).

Examples:

  additional exam papers with full solutions (there are already three
  past exam papers with solutions available).

Studying the three past exams will help you learn what you need to learn from this class.  Additional past exams will not provide additional help.  If you have extra time, I suggest you ...

  a list of the exact topics that will be examined in each of the exam
  exercises (this is, if the exam contains 5 questions, then I should
  provide the corresponding 5 topics).

All the topics listed on the course syllabus are important things for you to know.  Therefore, any of them might be on the exam and you should study all of them.  If it was not important enough to be on the exam, then I did not teach it.

If these types of responses are not true, then I suggest changing your teaching until they are true.

Maybe your course puts too much emphasis on exams, especially high stakes exams. All your examples are just about testing. If I were evaluating your course, I'd look at that if you are getting a lot of such questions.

Students need to do a lot of things to learn, but exams are a poor way to measure what they have learned, rather than memorized. Most exams, anyway. They need practice, reinforcement, and feedback.

One way to both quiet the questions and give them a bit of practice is to ask them to answer their own questions themselves in writing. Tell them if they submit written answers to their questions then you will comment on them. A comment needn't be extensive. Even "close, but not quite" may be enough.

Yes, this is a directed way to say "go away and do your homework" but it is actually what they need to do to actually learn. If it seems a bit harsh, maybe you can come up with something milder but with the same goals.


Using the author's reasoning of experimental observations in literature review I am writing a review paper and I came across many research articles in which the author tries to explain the cause of the experimental observation, where the observation was the aim and main output of the paper.

Can I include those yet-to-be-verified hypothesis about their observations in my review paper? And is it necessary to cite those authors while including those hypotheses regarding the experimental observations in my review paper?

When writing either a review section of a paper or an entire review paper, it is extremely important to be clear about which contributions came from which paper, and which form of evidence they are: does that paper have direct evidence on that point, rely on other papers/rely on an assumption, or develop the point as speculation/theory/explanation?
Obviously, you should cite any of these that you use, but you should cite them differently. For instance, if you have an article by author X, X might condense the results of previous literature (possibly citing authors Y and Z), present their own experiment, and discuss the theory and possible implications of their own experiment and interpret it in light of the literature. You would want to distinguish the three.

X emphasizes that the previous literature finds a strong relationship between concept 1 and concept 2, and considers the work of Y and Z to be "extremely strong evidence that causality runs both ways" (X, p. 876).
X finds [shows, provides evidence] that [experiment results] [in context].
X argues [concludes, suggests, wonders, hypothesizes...] that [explanation put forth].

I'm guessing you were already thinking about a certain hypothesis, and then you saw X's paper and realized that they had thrown in that hypothesis at the end. Definitely cite them. Even if you had been looking at X's paper for the experimental results, you should also re-read what their discussion/conclusion says, and if those are relevant to the discussion, you should acknowledge the ideas in some way. (When would their discussion or conclusions not be relevant? Perhaps if you're interested in something that they had to account for on the way to their focus.) It could even be a simple mention just to acknowledge that they said it, too.

Many scholars consider concept 1 to be a likely explanation (cf. X, Y and Z, Q).

It's OK if you conclude your review with an interpretation that's similar to what X suggested, as long as you have reviewed articles suggesting other possibilities and you reference as you're concluding that it's similar to X.

Overall, there is mounting evidence that, as X suggested, [explanation].

Your contribution is a consideration of additional material, synthesis of ideas, and your own opinion/emphasis on what's important. For the purposes of publishing, if X has already covered similar area, your review paper may not be extremely interesting or important unless you can show why the overall question/field matters or that people are still working under alternative assumptions or not yet convinced.

Yes, in a review paper, you can't make a single statement without citing someone for it. Except perhaps (that might vary between fields) to point out a missing point in some other work, or a rather vague hypothesis.

Otherwise, you are not writing a review, but an original research article.


Postdoc overwhelmed by incomplete work I take on more than I can handle and everything is left incomplete. Constant reminders from my previous supervisor, my current advisor, and colleagues, increases my anxiety level and sometimes I end up entirely avoiding work. I haven’t completed a paper as first author in the last two years, although I have two papers ready for submission for the last two months and two more I could complete with a week of uninterrupted work on each paper. These papers have been dragged so much that now I am losing interest in making any more changes. I will appreciate any suggestion for dealing with anxiety regarding works that I should have completed more than a year ago.

This is a well known problem - and depending on your personal situation you should consider getting professional help by a psychologist. It's not a shame and it might prevent further harm. They could assist as well in creating a step-by-step program.

If you are willing to handle the situation by yourself, you'll have to do "a few" things (which are a lot to do!):

Learn to say "no" to specific tasks. Do not accept any new assignments unless your papers are done.
Figure out, why you are procrastinating - your mind has a reason for it and you should figure out what it is.
If the overall workload is too high, cancel some things forever. Eg. decide not to submit one of the "old" papers. How does this thought feel? Better or worse then the actual situation?
Go on step-by-step. Focus on finishing one of the old papers. Submit it. Take a break! Choose the next step of work.
If needed, be disruptive.

Take a longer break (e.g. 4 weeks of vacation)
Move your whole inbox to a subfolder "old" and never ever look at it - important mails will be re-sent.
...

If you are having a good relation with your supervisor(s), involve them in the process.

Although a psychologist should help you with the emotional part of the problem, I think you should get a coach to help you create a plan and stick to it until you objectives are accomplished. It is a more pragmatic way to solve the productivity part of the problem.


My math students consider me a harsh grader. Is my teaching attitude wrong? I am a math major grad student at a big public school, and we need to do TA every semester.

I got assigned to lower level classes last couple semesters, and it's been quite difficult for me.  Even though I am a pretty nice person in general, I have so much trouble tolerating my students' sloppiness, arguing for more points when they don't deserve, and just explaining very simple things to students again and again in general (for example, why log(a + b) is not equal to log(a) + log(b)).

I am sure many will think my attitude is wrong, and probably I need to hear that.  I am also a "harsh grader", as my students would probably call me.  The way I was raised, it's very hard to accept people not working hard, but feeling entitled to good grades.  I have students coming to me asking how they can get extra points without doing any actual work.  I feel offended by that.

Let me know what you think about teaching in general.  I enjoy doing research in mathematics and want to be in academia in the future.  However, I feel this could be a problem for me if I hate teaching so much.  Should I think more positively about this?

Yes, you do seem to have a bad attitude toward it, but I suspect you knew that.  I would suggest trying as hard as you can to put yourself in their shoes:

Not everyone enjoys the same things you do.  What's a subject you had to take in school but didn't enjoy?  Can you imagine not putting as much effort or showing as much respect to it as someone going to grad school for it?
It's totally rational for someone to try to maximize their grades. I think everyone finds it annoying when students push for every last point they can, especially when you don't feel they've earned it.  I like to remind myself that it makes perfect sense to try to get the best grade you can for the least amount of effort.  That doesn't mean you give in to their exhortations, of course, but if you understand where they're coming from then that's not incompatible with both helping them and keeping your sanity.
Everyone is busy.  A lot of undergrads are adjusting to life away from home for the first time, are taking on responsibilities for the first time, and are probably swimming in social and extracurricular activities.  That's what they're supposed to do; just keep in mind your class isn't the only thing on their plate.
The things you find easy, others find hard.  You specifically gave some logarithmic rules as an example.  To you, that's trivial.  You can't understand how it's not trivial to someone else - I mean, you probably even just told them it was trivial!  But I bet you can think of a field where you struggle with things an expert finds trivial.  Foreign languages are a good example for me - I can hear how to say something in a new language repeatedly, and it just goes right out of my head a minute later.

That said, you suggested you "hate" teaching.  If you really do, maybe it's not for you.  On the other hand, you're here asking about it, so maybe you're interested in changing.  To do that, try hard to put yourself in the shoes of your students, and remember that they're just trying to get by.  Some will fail, and that's okay.  But you can help all of them, even those who won't ever get your subject, without resenting them.

Teaching in general:
I do feel like you need to focus on the students more, - having to explain things "again and again" just means you didn't explain clearly a process -
Complaining about this - is complaining about doing your job (To teach)

You need to make math accessible to them through language and logic in a way THEY understand, giving them the math tools to break problems down.
You haven't achieved this if they don't get it (so stop punishing them for this with your attitude) roll up your sleeves and find a new way to explain

Math can be interesting for everyone when the steps are clear enough and the teaching versatile enough to be able to communicate the same process to appeal in many ways

People love to learn - You have a skill at math.
But the genius of being a teacher its to find many ways to impart the same skill, requiring a great depth of knowledge and versatility in communication skills.

I would suggest to maybe look into Micheal Thomas, a really great teacher - his advice to students, and I believe it to be true -

There are no bad students only bad teachers This is a very important part of the Michel Thomas Method. Full responsibility for learning lies with the teacher, not with the pupil. This helps to ensure they can relax, and feel confident, so allowing them to learn effectively. (His course deals in teaching french) but the same is true for any skill - when something is well explained - then it is learnt. (If a student cant remember it - it wasn't learnt or understood as a concept)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8jhy7ZQC38

On grading - grade for what they have achieved, it is to show what concepts they are having trouble with and what the need you work on with them)


How should one advertise a program if it doesn't lead to jobs? (Asking this since similar themes have come up in a conversation with a friend)

So-and-so physics department has decided to start teaching more astrophysics classes, because they need more students. Astronomy with all its pretty pictures is supposed to attract students - certainly the general education classes that cater to students fulfilling their breadth requirements are very popular. The idea is to add several more astrophysics courses and offer undergraduates who take all of them a "concentration in Astrophysics", so their degrees say "Bachelor of Physics with concentration in Astrophysics".

The problem: in that particular city - or country, even - nobody is looking for astrophysics graduates. In fact after being subscribed to "astronomy" and "astrophysics" job advertisements for more than a year, I've only seen like two jobs with those keywords, and one of them had nothing to do with astronomy or astrophysics. One could still get a job leveraging the fact that astrophysics is "sort of" physics which is a quantitative discipline that teaches its graduates to think logically yada yada blah blah. But at that point, the astrophysics concentration seems pretty pointless.

How do you advertise a program knowing that its graduates will not be able to find jobs in that topic? What is a good response to "what do your graduates do after graduating?"

If the basic degree is still Physics with a bit of astro tacked on I don't see the problem. Even pure Astrophysics degrees usually follow all the core physics classes before specialising.

For example, my Astrophysics degree is probably about 75% identical to my pure Physics counterparts, so as long as students make potential employers aware of this, they should be just as employable as a Physics graduate.

As a side note, perhaps students should be encouraged to study what they actually find interesting, not what will get them a job. They are likely to perform better if they enjoy the material, and with better grades and an enthusiasm for their degree, the jobs will come.

Given the variety of some of the jobs that graduates land, the benefit of a science-based degree is the structured thinking/maths skills/theoretical knowledge that are useful to the employer, not necessarily the exact topic studied.

Many of the disciplines have core parts that overlap.


I'm feeling discouraged after getting tenure; should I quit? A few months ago, and seven years after I obtained my PhD, I finally got tenure.  Hence I have a permanent position in academia.

After a few months in this new position, I find myself thinking of quitting academia. I do not know if this is because of my new status but I am quite discouraged and not motivated to do research. Meanwhile, it seems that I now face even more teaching, more administration and more research pressure than before.

Have you passed through a similar phase, and if so could you describe your experience?  I wonder if all these thoughts are caused by the transition from being a postdoc/assistant professor to being an associate professor, but I do not know.

Many faculty get post-tenure blues. There are several causes:

Burnout: You've been running at full speed for almost 30 years (k-12; college; grad school; post-docs; tenure track). Your brain needs a rest. It's perfectly acceptable for you to take a break. Many faculty have post-tenure slumps.
Survivor's guilt: Many of your grad peers didn't get jobs, you might have seen other faculty not make tenure. The tenuring process can seem capricious. You've just been through the sausage machine and you didn't like what you saw.
Imposter syndrome: Related to the above, you can't quite believe that you made it and you're doubting yourself. Were you really qualified to make it? Maybe there was a mistake in your file that they might catch?
Fear of commitment: You look at the other tenured faculty and are deathly afraid that you're now committed to be with them for the next 30 years. Oh god, what have you done. Your dreams of leaving academia and opening a bookstore-cafe by the waters of Lake Michigan are maybe just that, dreams.
Fresh fish: At many places, newly tenured faculty are fresh fish for burdensome committee assignments. e.g.: No one really wants to be the MA grad advisor but it has to be filled by a senior faculty member, thus the 'new guy' gets it. Some senior colleagues may actually tell you that you "owe" them because they "gave" you tenure. Bollycocks. You earned your tenure. You owe no one. Just try to remember the 'just say no' skills that you had as junior faculty and wriggle out of any and all commitments until you can figure out which ones you can tolerate.
Peter Principle: The Peter Principle ("people rise to their level of incompetence") is often misunderstood. It's not that you are incompetent, it's that you've been competent in one domain but promoted to a higher domain than where you've shown competence. Associate and full professors often have to do much more administrative work and intrauniversity politics than assistant/untenured faculty. When you're tenured, work becomes less fun and more bureaucratic.  And you wondered why your senior faculty were all sourpusses. Key to your sanity here is to remain in domains that you're passionate about (teaching, basic research, etc.) and enter into new domains only on your own terms. For example, if the provost wants you to be chair of XYZ onerous committee, then you need $x research funds or to go to y conference or get z course relief (h/t to J and Captain Emacs).
Paradise Syndrome also known as the dog who actually caught the car syndrome. You've been working so hard for so many years for something you finally achieved and suddenly you don't know what to do with it. You have to come up with new life goals and purpose for living (thx Pharap).

The most important thing to remember is that they can't fire you without serious cause. Take a break, say no, piss some people off by not taking on work. Let your brain stretch. Go kayaking. Work on your bucket list. And then after that, try to remember what made you so passionate about your field.

Finally, if you really, really, really want to quit and you can't take sabbatical or get a grant to buy you out for a semester then: take an unpaid leave. The provost should be willing to work with you - if not, you can use FMLA or sick leave if you can get your doctor to agree you need time off. It's better than quitting as it leaves you with your Plan A when you recover.

Just my two cents (I need to find a new introductory statement):  I think it would be best to not necessarily quit, but reevaluate what it is that you are interested in doing at this point in your life.

Be it more research, being a more hands on/helpful professor, or heck, even shaking up the status quo at your institution (as there are a lot of aspects of campus structure that could use some shaking up, no matter the institution :P)

Find a new goal, now that you have attained one that takes a LOT of effort, time, and struggle.


During peer-review, should I comment on the authors' messy code? I'm reviewing a paper in pure mathematics. A lot of results in the paper depend heavily on computer computations, and the authors have provided in the article a link to the Magma code they used for most of these computations. However, this code is almost impossible to understand due to the messy way it is written. For example, it does not use any indentation, and all variables are given names like 'aaa' or 'X' that do not give any information about their purpose in the program.

On the one hand, the mathematics underlying these computations is explained sufficiently well that it is possible to reproduce the results without using the authors' code (this is what I ended up doing). Also, the paper contains only a link to the code and not the actual code itself, so I'm not sure if the code is really in scope for the review. Moreover, hard-to-read code seems to not be uncommon in academia, and most people don't seem to mind. On the other hand, I think a small amount of work from the authors (who presumably do understand the code) would make this code a lot more usable for others, just by replacing some of the variable names with names that actually convey some meaning.

My question is, is it reasonable for me to tell the authors that their code is needlessly difficult to understand and should be improved?

If the authors have provided a link to their code as a reference, then it is appropriate to offer commentary, particularly if the article is based on the code.

However, I would recommend making the critique constructive: offer concrete suggestions for how to improve it rather than just saying it’s “messy” or “sloppy” and needs to be “cleaned up.”

My understanding is the authors do not submit the code for publication, so the code does not seem to be subject to your review. The authors just give a link to their code. This begs a question: if they just had provided a reference to their work published elsewhere, would you have considered telling them that that work should be improved? One may argue that validity of their results hinges on the correctness of their code, but they could choose not to provide access to the code at all, as "the mathematics underlying these computations is explained sufficiently well that it is possible to reproduce the results without using the authors' code". You, as a reviewer, took the trouble to verify the results of their computation, thus going beyond and above your duty, but that means that their results are indeed reproducible.

So I would think that you may mention that their code is lousy (while apparently correct), but that should not affect your recommendation on publishing / not publishing the paper.


Research on pedagogical benefit of lab reports at the graduate level? In science and engineering classes involving a "practical" lab, students are often required to write some kind of "lab report," typically describing the procedure and results of the lab experiment.

Is there any research on the pedagogical benefit of having students at the graduate level write lab reports?

(I've seen some on K-12 education and a little bit about undergraduate education, but couldn't find anything relevant to graduate students.)

I am especially interested in research that describes how students learn by writing lab reports, and what parts of this exercise benefit them most. For example, what is the benefit of having students write a full lab report vs. just reporting their results? I read this paper which asserts (tangentially) that "very little is learned by rephrasing the written procedure," and I am wondering if anybody has formally studied this.

This is a reference-request question: I am looking for a citation+brief summary of a research study, not personal opinions.

There is research to graduate student's teaching skill:

Graduate Students’ Teaching Experiences Improve Their Methodological
Research Skills (link)

And research to lab reports, evaluating the reports and how reports are viewed:

Using the Science Writing Heuristic in the General Chemistry Laboratory To Improve Students' Academic Performance (link)
Development of a ‘universal’ rubric for assessing undergraduates’ scientific reasoning skills using scientific writing (link)
“As You're Writing, You Have these Epiphanies” - What College Students Say about Writing and Learning in their Majors (link)
The Laboratory Report: A Pedagogical Tool in College Science Courses (link)
Writing-To-Teach: A New Pedagogical Approach To Elicit Explanative Writing from Undergraduate Chemistry Students (link)

If a paper you found is interesting, use Google Scholar to search for that title and click 'Cited by' to see other papers that refer that paper. Then you might find more interesting papers. For example, for papers that cite item 3 probably use this rubric or relate to the use of lab reports: (link).

I'm not in this area of research, so it's hard for me to find the right papers and I'm not 100% sure what you look for. Some of the links above require university access to read the full paper.

http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED286205.pdf
There was too much to cite, but I think this addresses the issue.
If not, I'm sorry.


I'm an invited speaker. Can I send a coauthor in my place? I was invited to give a talk at an upcoming conference. The abstract has myself and two other authors listed. Is it unreasonable for me to back out of the presentation (they were only paying for the hotel, food and conference registration fees and not flight) and have a co-author do it? The reason for me backing out would be over extending myself due to a combination of poor planning on my part and some luck on grant pre-proposals.

One question is whether your coauthor will do as good a job of speaking or otherwise contributing to the conference.  If you are well known as an excellent speaker and your coauthor is not, or if you are a much better known researcher, then the organizers may be unhappy with the substitution.  Another potential issue may be if your name has been used to advertise the conference, on posters or the web.  However, if you and your coauthor are more or less on an equal footing, then I doubt the organizers will object.

I'd recommend apologizing for being unable to make it due to reasons beyond your control (without going into detail), and offering your coauthor as a potential substitute, while still giving them the chance to decline and just cancel your talk or replace you with someone else entirely.  I'd make it clear that you are suggesting the coauthor as a possibility without having asked the coauthor yet, so that they don't feel trapped by not wanting to insult a substitute you have already lined up.

I'll assume "Can I send a coauthor in my place?" doesn't mean "is this legal or possible?" (obviously yes) but rather "is this an ethical or collegial thing to do?" for which the answer, I'll claim, is "no." The organizers invited you, not your co-authors, for some real reason -- maybe they expect you to speak well, or you're the leader of the work and can comment best on its future directions. And more importantly you agreed to speak. Barring personal or medical emergencies, this means you should do what you agreed to do, and what you were invited to do. Your time management skills are irrelevant. (And frankly, I find the complaint weird -- so what if you have to work on grant proposals? If it's so urgent, do this during the N-1 hours of the meeting that aren't occupied by your talk.)

Having organized symposium sessions, I'd be annoyed if an invited speaker flaked out because they were "busy," and it would not leave me with a good impression of their abilities.


Ethics of staying in PhD program with no intention of being an academic, and misleading my advisor about this My field is extremely competitive for tenure track jobs that I:

will most likely be unable to land after graduation
don't even really desire anymore.

In comparison to my classmates, my research productivity is absolutely pitiful. It is stymied by an apathy for my subfield and academia in general that has developed over my 2 year tenure in the program.

Problem is, I can't get the industry jobs I want right now due to underdeveloped programming skills and inadequate networking. My best bet is to stick around and beef these up until I see an opportunity to leave.

If I drop out now with my master's, I will have to start out at square one and get entry level work that uses none of the skills I have developed (we're talking competition w/ HS grads).

However, I have already told my advisor about my doubts for a future in academia. They approved an academic leave request due to some issues in my personal life. At the end of my leave period, I have to tell my advisor that I wish to complete the program and stay in academia.

On one hand, my situation is not so different from any other PhD student forced to go alt-ac due to disinterest or poor performance, but on the other hand, I will have to mislead my advisor to return.

I only want to continue at this point for job prospects, and my advisor won't be inclined to take me back if I tell them this.

I am willing to pick up the pace with my research and get the PhD, so it won't be a complete waste for my advisor, but it will still be largely a waste of their resources.

A similar question by another PhD student can be found here - When is the right time to tell my advisor that I plan on leaving my PhD program?

As a PhD student, you don't have to want an academic career. It's not unethical to pursue a PhD with no intention of staying in academia afterward.

But lying about your plans and deliberately misleading is wrong and unfair to your advisor.

You wrote:

  However, my advisor seems to be especially invested in making me a viable academic researcher because I am their first student and have used a lot of their startup funds. My field is also not typically industry-bound like, for example, engineering, so any reputation boost my advisor could hope to get from me is nil.

If your advisor is a new professor whose own career success really depends on graduating PhD students who go on to academic careers, letting them invest everything in you under false pretenses is obviously wrong and unethical.

It sounds like you don't really want to finish your PhD (I infer this from your "apathy for my subfield and academia in general"), and you think your advisor wouldn't want you to stick around for a few more years under the circumstances, either. On the other hand, finishing out the academic year - giving you time to look for a job, and giving your advisor time to find another PhD student in this application cycle, while you wrap up and publish your current work - sounds like a win-win. But you should tell your advisor right away, so that the two of you can make informed plans for the future.

I suggest you come up with a plan for preparing yourself for the job market during this academic year, then have that talk with your advisor, and make the most of your remaining time.

On the other hand, if you really do want to finish your PhD, tell your advisor that you're not interested in academia, but are interested in finishing your PhD and getting a job that takes advantage of your PhD-level research skills. (Many of the skills acquired by successful PhD students are fairly transferable.) Your advisor may be more willing to support you than you think - successfully graduating PhD students is important for new professors, even if the student isn't interested in academia in the end. But you need to let your advisor make that choice: lying to someone so that they will give you multiple years of research support just so that you can buy time to train yourself for an unrelated career, is wrong.

I will try to make this short. I was in your shoes 2 years ago. I was passionate about my field when I entered the program, but my interest had waned within 2 years into the program. It was impossible for me land a job in my research area because of security clearance issue as I was an international student, which was one of the reason why I lost interest, and I didn't consider myself smart enough to have successful career in academia. Let's say I was one of those average student and being average in academia is equivalent to be a failure.I told my PI that I am not interested pursuing my Phd and wanted to leave with my masters. He reduced my stipend for final semester and let me walk away.

Looks like you've drained yourself out mentally as I had once done to myself. I'd suggest that you should put your well-being first and foremost, have an exit strategy, don't think too much about being ethical (nobody knows about your struggle), get your shit together, and leave if you have to. Also, be prepared for the struggle of landing a job once you leave school.


Journal editor made bad edits to my (accepted) paper - how do I respond? Earlier this year I had a paper accepted to a well-recognized journal in a particular (humanities) subfield. I finally received proofs of the article, and was (more than a bit) upset at the edits. A lot of the changes were at the sentence level: phrasing, punctuation, word choice.

These edits often 1) obscured my intended meaning (e.g. turned ONE grammatically correct sentence into TWO sentences that, because of the addition of a weird transition phrase, no longer says what I intended), and/or 2) over-simplified or diminished the prose (e.g. adding "to be" constructions, adding awkward and unnecessary "ultimately"s, "for example," etc.).

So, how should I respond? Ultimately, I'd like to have 95% of the changes reversed. I would be mortified to publish the piece in its current state.

I've published several times and never had this issue - usually edits are small (more proofreading than anything). Because I was sent PDFs, the process of sending back my "corrections" will be arduous (on some pages every sentence now needs fixing). I don't want to alienate the journal or the staff member who made the edits.

I finally received proofs of the article, and was (more than a bit) upset at the edits.

How to respond?  Do not respond while upset.  Wait until you can respond in a calm way.

This is a perfectly normal occurrence.  Remember the journal relies on getting your work for free in order to get subscription fees to pay its expenses.  They need you more than you need them.  Do not hesitate to ask for anything that will help your publication improve.

Unless the editor made a provably incorrect statement with their changes I do not do anything.  Do not like it but the editor gets the last say.  Push too hard and they may decide not to print what you submitted at all.