I got a paper to review from a journal that had rejected my earlier works, how to respond? Recently, I got a paper to review for a journal (Elsevier) which is very reputed. The fact is that this journal had rejected two of my earlier works after keeping it under review for more than a year approximately.

I understand that in science, it is good to forget the past; however, it still keeps me haunted when I think that my works became obsolete because of unnecessary delay in the review process that resulted in no satisfactory comment on rejection.

Is it weird that the journal is now thinking that I am capable of reviewing a manuscript?

Anyway, past apart, how should I respond? Should I accept the review invitation? Or, should I just say that I can't do the review, which will be like Tit-For-Tat. I don't know, I am confused.

These two issues are separate: if they reject your paper without comments, that's where you have to complain. They did not do a good job, reputable or not, and you are entitled to an explanatory review, especially since they wasted your time.

But you should not link the issues. If you think the journal is not as good as it used to be, you can decide not to review. If you think it is good, then, depending on how much time you have, you can offer to do the review. And if you do, do it with as much goodwill as you would for a journal that gave your astounding reviews.

But you should not link your rejection and your review - it is tempting to do so, but it is not a professional attitude. And you want to be just that: a professional.

How to proceed:  Review the paper honestly and objectively, just as you would hope someone would review yours.  This really should not be a question that needs to be asked in my opinion, as the ethical way to proceed is crystal clear.


Do EPSRC-like Centres for Doctoral Training exist outside the UK? I'm looking into starting a doctorate next Autumn and am currently exploring my options. I really like the program style of EPSRC Centres for Doctoral Training which started sprouting around British Universities a couple of years ago. I'm wondering if any other places in Europe (or outside) have programmes which a similar in structure.

Here's some key qualities of such a Centre:

the course is a four-year studentship
first year consists of taught electives and small project. It gives one the time to find their footing in an institution and the field and decide on the subject of their further research that would suit them the most.
years 2-4 are when the actual research + thesis writing happens
all throughout, the course is complemented by courses in general transferable skills (business, management, entrepreneurship, communication, public speaking etc.)

I know American Universities tend to have their grad programmes start with a bunch of requirements in taught courses followed by the actual research. Do I have any alternatives?

If it helps at all the field I'm interested in is robotics and their applications in environmental sciences / preservation.

That's very country and scientific domain specific and based on policy of government which may change every election cycle.

e.g. in UK the established UKRI encapsulates research councils STFC,EPSRC,MRC, ... and fulfils UK specific policy.
AFAIK in Germany there are 4 major non-university institutions doing research and PhD training - Max Planck Institute, Leibnitz Institute, Fraunhofer Institute, Helmholtz centres and many others - some of them multidisciplinary.
As I'm currently in Czechia (Czech Rep.) there is Academy of Sciences and it's centres some of them connected to relevant universities with doctoral training program. But most are based on individual labs and mostly individual training with courses available in multiple institutions.

Based on my personal experience in UK, in Czechia and little in Germany I cannot generalize. Thus you should do your own research in your domain of interest, find rather individual lab which may fit your scientific domain in a country you'd like to study.


Are employments in universities affiliated (or named) with a specific religion restricted to people with the same religion? I just saw an ad in mathjobs.org about an opening in a Catholic university, see here. I am not christian. So I was wondering to be eligible for employment in a university or college affiliated with a specific religion, should the applicant  have the same religion, or other people from other religions (or even non-religious people) are eligible to apply as well?

In my experience, the answer is usually no but occasionally yes.
Note: This answer is specific to the United States.
Most employers in the US are forbidden by law from discriminating on the basis of religion; they have to give equal consideration to candidates of any religion or no religion, and generally they will avoid asking about religion at all.  This includes non-denominational academic employers.
However, religiously affiliated employers (such as churches, religious charities etc), are exempt from this rule, and may use religion as a criterion for employment if they so choose.  This includes religiously affiliated academic institutions.  Each such institution will have its own policy on whether they consider religion and what the criteria are.  These policies will usually be mentioned in job postings.
In my experience, most intentionally choose to not consider religion as a factor, usually giving the justification of creating an inclusive community.  These may be institutions that were founded by a church and may still receive funding from them, but operate mainly as a secular institution, accepting students and faculty without regard to religion.  Job postings will often indicate this with phrases like "equal opportunity employer".  They may have a "mission statement" with religious wording, and a tradition of religious activities on campus (such as regular church services), but nobody is obligated to participate.
There are others which choose to be more overtly religious.  They may accept students and faculty only if their religious beliefs align with those of the institution.  These are more likely to have formal religious activities on campus, and sometimes strict moral conduct codes.  Their job postings often ask explicitly about the applicant's spiritual beliefs.
The institution's name is not always a good indicator of where they fall in this spectrum.
As one example, Nebraska Wesleyan University describes itself as:

an academic community dedicated to intellectual and personal growth within the context of a liberal arts education and in an environment of Christian concern.

However, they also say:

Nebraska Wesleyan University provides equal educational opportunities to all qualified persons in all areas of university operation, including education and decisions regarding faculty appointment, promotion or tenure, without regard to race, religion, age, sex, creed, color, disability, marital status, national or ethnic origin or sexual orientation.

At the other extreme, Dordt College included this wording in a recent job posting:

The Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science department at Dordt College has a history of preparing students for graduate school, industry and K-12 education. This preparation is infused with an unashamedly Reformed Christian worldview, in order to prepare students to be global citizens in God’s service.  [...]
We look forward to receiving applications from candidates who wish to join us in [...] teaching mathematics from a Christian perspective in the context of educating the whole person.
Qualified persons committed to a Reformed, Biblical perspective and educational philosophy are encouraged to send a letter of interest and curriculum vitae/resume [...]

Generally, institutions that will only consider applicants of a certain religion will make this clear at the outset.  However, even if not, you will have to decide if the religious environment (or lack thereof) on a particular institution's campus will be comfortable for you.  This is an appropriate  topic to ask about during an interview.

Yes.  You can get a job there even if you're of different faith or are not religious.  See page 14 of http://history.siam.org/pdfs2/Gonnet_final.pdf.


Should you keep a notebook of example problems while going through science and engineering courses? I find myself constantly being told I should not intentionally jot down example problems but understand the core logic of a topic. But some of my high level math classes tend to have very few examples and mainly definitions, i.e. words. Is it sound to keep a notebook of example problems related to the topic so you have a more practical understanding of the subject?

I find myself constantly being told I should not intentionally jog down example problems but to understand the core logic of a topic.

You're offering a false dichotomy.  If you can't generate concrete working examples, you don't really understand the definitions; conversely, if you can't prove things from the definitions, you don't really understand the examples.  You should both work through examples and understand the definitions; the two approaches strongly reinforce each other.  In particular:

If you are given only examples, you should figure out appropriate formal definitions and core logic yourself.  Aim for both simplicity and generality.  Look for weird corner cases.  Work out new examples that stress-test your definitions.
If you are given only formal definitions and few or no examples, you should work out several new examples yourself.  Aim for examples that both illustrate and stress-test the definitions.  Together your examples should exercise every case, every word, and every symbol in the definitions.  Failure to cover the definitions completely may mean that the definitions can be simplified; success may mean that the definitions can be generalized.

Write everything down.  Fail, revise, repeat.

I think it's important to know questions and how they might be asked so you won't be blown away during tests. I normally find myself better prepared if I know HOW questions are going to be asked since each test and teacher/professor might ask it in a different way.

But if you are recording the question to memorize the answer, then yes that would fall into the pattern of not understanding the fundamentals.


Is it ethical for a journal to cancel an accepted review request when they have obtained sufficient number of reviews to make a decision? Is it ethical for a journal to cancel an accepted review request when they have obtained sufficient number of reviews to make a decision?

This happened to me recently and I think this is not the first time. They set a deadline for submitting the review, and sent a reminder. I did not reply, as I felt that I should be able to meet the deadline and even if I couldn't, it should not be a problem to submit my review slightly later. I am in the midst of reviewing this paper, and have spent some time on it, when suddenly they told me that my review is no longer needed.

I cannot know for sure if the way they work is as I described above, but that seems to be the case.

Edit:
Sorry my mistake, they had actually sent only one reminder, not a few reminders, as I stated earlier.

Update:
This is from the cancellation email I received earlier (note that I had accepted their request to review the paper less than a month ago):

  We have now received sufficient peer-review reports from other
  referees and would like to cancel our request for you to review the
  following manuscript:

  ...

  However, if you have already started your report, please forward any
  valuable comments you have as soon as possible. We apologize for any
  inconvenience this may cause and hope that we will be able to call on
  you to review for ... in the future.

Since I have started reviewing the paper, I wrote to them saying that I would like to send my review as soon as possible. The journal agreed to accept my review. In their reply, they say

  Since we have received enough review reports and have processed this
  manuscript further, the link to submit your review report was closed
  automatically. We have reopened the link for you.

I finished my review today and just submitted it to them. I could see from their system that there are two other reviewers, and both of them recommended minor revision.

I know that I should have informed them if I missed the deadline, but other journals seem to be OK with this. I think a 2-3 week deadline that this particular publisher gave is a bit short. In my field, 3 months from submission to acceptance is really fast. The average is more like half a year. Some can take more than a year.

Additional point:
In this journal/publisher, communication with reviewers are not handled by the editor.

I think that in this particular case, the journal behaved ethically. A deadline is a contract, and if one of the involved parties breaks that contract (notably, without seeking communication), it's up to the other party to decide how to deal with that.

I think this journal's behavior is indeed unethical. Mostly, in its complete disregard for the effort you and potentially other academics voluntarily put into critically assessing their submissions. It would have been courteous of you to let them know that your review would be a few days late, but I can't imagine the review to be such a pressing issue that it can't wait a few days.

The most likely reason for this haste in completing the review has its origin in the information you gave in the comments: the journal is pay-for-publish.

In such a setting where authors are the customers of the journal - as opposed to readers for a subscription journal - pay-for-publish (sometimes called "gold" open access) journals have two main selling arguments:

the impact factor.
the speed of review turnover.

Of course, a very strong tacit argument is a high acceptance rate but that is not the subject of this thread.

By gearing the publishing process towards satisfying authors in order to encourage them spending grant money on "article-processing charges", it's not a surprise that absurd situations like the one you describe start to appear.

On a similar topic, I have heard from the staff of a very fashionable gold OA publisher, that they had an automatic spamming system to urge authors to complete the additional work requested by the reviewers (sometimes including tedious experimental work) quicker. This, I imagine, in an attempt to keep the average review turnover marketable.

After having myself given a go at gold OA journals, I now refuse to have any kind of interaction with them. That includes reviewing.


How to judge the reputation of a potential advisor or research group for good quality research for PhD? I am planning my PhD and am applying to various labs and professors.

I am getting positive responses, but I am having trouble making a decision as to which lab to go for. How can I judge the quality of research of a group? What parameters shall be kept in mind while making a decision? I usually look for relevant research interests.

How can I judge the quality of research of a group?

This is the wrong question.

What you should be asking is "How can I judge which research group will best support my educational and career goals?"  And yes, this is a very different question.  And while lab productivity may be correlated with the future career prospects of its members, the two are not identical.  Some great researchers are terrible advisors.

Are the lab's students happy?
Do the lab's students have a consistent strong track record of publishing new results?
Are the lab's students strongly represented at conferences, workshops, and the like?  In particular: Are the lab's students given ample opportunity to present their research outside their home department?
Are the lab's students given ample mentoring and support, both in developing their own research agendas and in applying for external fellowships, lab exchanges, internships, postdoctoral positions, faculty positions, and so on?
Are the lab's students given ample opportunity for substantial intellectual contributions to the lab's published research, or are they just lab/code monkeys?
Does the lab's research agenda closely match your own research interests and abilities?
Most importantly: Where do the lab's former students work now?  (The worst possible answer is "We don't know.")

Almost none of these questions can be answered accurately without physically visiting the lab and talking directly to the students without the PI present.  If travel is impractical, use Skype / Google hangout / Facetime / whatever.  Or telephone.  Or, if all else fails, email.

The H index truly is the measure you're asking for.   Other considerations I'd throw in before you make such a key decision:

professor's background/age/culture
is the prof a hypomanic, and to what extreme
how well you identify with the other students
how expediently are they finishing PhDs compared to your plans for life


Why do most U.S. Ph.D. programs accept fewer students with masters degrees? In the US, most Ph.D. programs accept far fewer students with master degrees compared to students who just graduate from college with a bachelor. Why is that the case since master students are supposed to have more background and maybe more research experience than students who just graduated from college?

I'm not sure that your basic premise holds. What you've stated is not common knowledge, and you don't give any particular source for your numbers.  More importantly, you haven't answered @NateEldedge's question about total numbers vs. acceptance rates.

Based on my own anecdotal experiences, however, my guess would be that the actual circumstances are this:

Students with a Masters are more likely to get into a U.S. Ph.D. program than students without a Masters, for exactly the reasons that you suspect.
Most students interested in a Ph.D. program, however, apply directly without bothering to get a Masters first. As a result, it may well be the case that most U.S. Ph.D. students do not have a Masters.

The underlying reason that would cause such an apparently counter-intuitive situation is that in the U.S., it is typically the case that a Ph.D. and a Masters are both terminal degrees that serve different purposes. A Masters is frequently a focused collection of coursework in support of one's profession, whereas a Ph.D. is an apprenticeship into the world of research.  As such, most U.S. Ph.D. programs do not require or expect applicants to have a Masters, and there is often little incentive for students inclined toward a Ph.D. to delay and acquire one, unless they have some particular reason (e.g., they aiming to shift fields, improve on a past poor record, or escape the effects of a poor undergraduate institution).

Note however, that in other parts of the world, like Europe, Ph.D. programs are organized to assume that students have already acquired a Masters, and in such programs it is the case that nearly every Ph.D. student will have a Masters.

Most of the students in the US who are in Master's programs in the arts and sciences are only in these programs because they failed to be admitted to PhD programs with their Bachelor's degree.  Generally speaking, being in a US Master's program is by itself a sign of weakness.

While some students do become significantly stronger over the course of their Master's programs, generally speaking, students with a Master's degree have less innate ability than students who are admitted directly after a Bachelor's degree.  They may have more knowledge and experience(*), but this is usually easily made up for in a year or two of study.  (There are exceptions, and it's quite easy to spot them from letters of recommendation, but you're asking a statistical question about numbers overall, not about specific individuals.)

Foreign students who might not have had the opportunity to be directly admitted to PhD programs immediately after a Bachelor's are evaluated differently.

(*) Actually, someone with a Master's from my department usually knows about as much as someone with a Bachelor's from a top university, and is significantly less capable.


Should I tell my advisor that our paper is full of mistakes? Okay, I'm in a nasty situation. I'm about to receive my master's degree in two months. Also, I am a third author on my advisor's paper, and the paper is completely awful and full of mistakes. Contradicting results not reported etc., it has it all. The thing is, my advisor will take it personally if I give comments that would put him to a bad light in front of the other co-authors. Very probably, he would let his anger to be seen in the evaluation of my master's thesis.

Really, I have no idea what to do. Should I be quiet, hope the paper gets rejected, and then RUN FAST, or just write a long email about every error there is? Which one is less harmful? I really don't want my name on that paper, nor a biased evaluation of my master's thesis.

(For background, my previous advisor left the university about 6 months ago, and then I got this new one. So, I could probably get a letter of recommendation from the previous advisor.)

Your name is on the paper; you should be able to take a look at the draft, and suggest improvements.

  The paper is completely awful and full of mistakes. The thing is, my advisor will take it personally if I give comments that would put him to a bad light in front of the other co-authors.

Okay, there are two ways to address this. You can pubically say, "This paper is awful and full of mistakes," paint your advisor in a bad light, and face his ire.

Or, you can take each of the mistakes, and tactfully offer an improvement. That is, you could privately say, "I think the paper might have a better chance of acceptance if we made these changes."

In other words, don't edit as a critic; rather, put some work into the paper as a co-author.

There's a fine art to editing work in a way that isn't off-putting for the primary author. People tend to get defensive when their writing is critiqued – it's a very natural reaction. However, if each of your suggested changes is offered constructively, as an improvement to an initial draft, rather than an indictment of it, you stand a better chance of incurring thanks instead of wrath.

On the other hand, if the paper is so bad that it's not salvagable, then I'd suggest requesting that your name simply be removed from the author list.

You wouldn’t be asking this question if, instead of errors on a document, your dilemma involved a source of personal injury, such as a hole outside the front entrance folks could fall in and never crawl out of!   (Facetious I know, please accept my apology.)

Aren’t you asking “At what point should I point out errors?"  Below that arbitrary point I find errors acceptable, above that point, prohibited.    Unfortunately, our conscience doesn’t come with a warning lamp.  :)


Is it common to have a personal copy of one’s own PhD thesis? I worked very hard on my PhD thesis, and I think it would be cool to have a nicely bound physical copy of it. I’m simply wondering if obtaining one is a common thing to do.

Absolutely! I had 5 copies bound - Me, my supervisor, my parents and two for the library (these last two were a requirement).

By the time I got around to defending, my university and program only required electronic submission (this had changed in the final year or two of my program). I was a lazy and cheap grad student who was already working a full-time job, and so I never got around to having hardbound copies produced. I was rude, so nobody got a hardbound version. Everybody got a review copy on paper that I bound myself using that plastic comb binding system, which I could do because my job had one of the machines and the supplies and was happy to supply them if it meant I graduated sooner. I still feel a bit guilty about not doing it whenever the subject comes up. Not even my advisor got a properly bound one.
UMI/ProQuest should have a copy of my dissertation online if somebody wants it, and I can still build it from LaTeX and image sources if someone asks me directly. I'd be happy to just give someone a copy if they asked since I think the build procedure Just Works™. It's also, supposedly, in the Library of Congress, because UMI put a copy on file there as part of the copyright registration. I don't know if you can get a copy from the LoC.


How do you respectfully give a teacher feedback about their teaching? My teacher's teaching style isn't working for me, and he asked for feedback about the class and how he could teach it better.  He teaches with powerpoint and gives quizzes that are all about rote memorization of the slides.  Most of the class finds these quizzes to be of little help in understanding the information, but nobody knows what to say to the teacher about it.

Basically, I agree that what xLeitix said is the gist of if: as long as you are respectful, you should be fine.

To elaborate a little, my only experience with giving feedback back to the professor is a bit specific: a fairly young professor, that just got the course for the first time and was trying to improve it. Like in your case, he also said that he would appreciate feedback.

I'll try to give some specific advice, with a specific example of my situation:

again, be very respectful

(In my situation, this meant that I didn't start loudly complaining in class as the reading material quality (made by the prof) steadily degraded during the year. Rather, when I found enough time, I passed by the professors office during the office hours and asked him if he would be interested in my feedback on his reading materials.)
be as informed as you can about the coursework for which you disagree with the teaching approach

(Basically, why would I take your advice on how to teach X if you don't even have a rudimentary understanding of X?)
be specific, and give argumented reasons

(For me, this meant, when he agreed to listen to my feedback -- he actually scheduled a meeting outside of his office hours for that class suspecting it will take some time -- I didn't just come and said the materials were getting worse. I had specific examples of pages and exercises that I had trouble solving, marked in the script. I also offered information like "it took me X hours to finish and understand the first script (good quality), while it took me 4*X hours to finish the second one (worse quality), and they are supposed to cover approximately the same amount of coursework". For you, it might mean explaining how and why you don't think the feedback you're getting from quizzes is not helpful.)
make specific recommendations or suggestion (but don't demand anything)

(Again, in my case, alongside some of the things I marked, like exercises and definitions I had trouble with, sometimes I had my own versions of definitions, or I would re-phrase the examples in a way that made it easier for me to understand. It also help pointing out the ambiguities in the original and saying why you think your formulation resolves it.)
be committed. The bigger the change you want to make, the more committed your will need to be.

(As you can see form the above, making a substantial change, at least according to me, will probably require you do to a substantial amount of work on your own -- without the professor's help -- to be able to give suggestions well supported by arguments. Of course, you don't have to take all the points super-seriously if you just opt for a short 5-minute chat giving some suggestions and examples.

On the other hand, in my case, where I loved the course, I thought it was important, I thought the prof was great and trying really hard, and I had a (young and naive) wish to make a change for future generations, I took a few days to prepare my notes, I came to Uni a few days after the summer break has started in order to have time to give all my comments in as much detail as the professor wanted, and it did help that the prof actually knew and remembered me from the courses and valued my opinion at least a little.)

Send him a respectful email that you are having trouble understanding the concept and if he could please change the style a bit to what you want. That way, it "feels" like you are the one doing something wrong and are asking him of a favor, and you are less likely to offend him.


Is graduating early from college or transferring to another college fine if I took all the upper level courses? I'm currently a sophomore at a small liberal arts college. I want to get into one of physics PhD programs with faculties renowned for quantum gravity. I'm majoring in math and physics, and since both departments in my college are small, I will have taken all the upper-level courses in math and physics until the next semester. My major GPA in physics is 4.0, and my GRE physics score is 990, but I will have no math or physics course to take after the next semester. There aren't much research opportunities here. The only research opportunity is available during summer (which is experimental physics, but I'm mainly interested in hep-th). All REUs are not available for international students. (However, there are a few programs available for int'l students, such as Caltech SURF.)

Which of the following choices would be the best?

Graduating early (3 yrs), going to physics PhD program, and saving $>60k. If I don't get into programs of my choice, I will either stay in the college, in the program until the end, or (hopefully) transferring to them after getting non-terminal Master's degree if I will have a compelling reason.
Transferring to a high ranked research university for advanced/grad-level physics courses and for more research opportunities
Staying for 4 yrs in the current institution

Only in exceptional situations should an undergraduate consider "getting out early" from their undergraduate education to pursue graduate study.  Your situation is rather exceptional and is one of the better cases for doing this that I have seen.

My honest assessment is that you sound like an outstanding student who didn't make the best choice of undergraduate institution.  Liberal arts colleges can be great for a wide range of clientele, but someone who maxed out the subject exam in their intended field of graduate study in their freshman year is probably not in that range.  If you know you want to go to graduate school in physics, you want to be taking physics courses over the next three years: independent study is okay, but it is probably not good enough.

I recommend that you apply both to PhD programs in physics and to undergraduate programs at top tier research universities.  For the latter, you are looking for more than just being able to transfer in: you want substantial scholarship opportunities (I would aim for a "full ride") and specific access to faculty and their research.

It is of course likely that you will get admitted to better undergraduate programs than PhD programs.  In my opinion if you get into an absolutely top undergraduate program with a substantial scholarship, then that's the way to go. Most of the students who are at the very top PhD programs started out their undergraduate career with a roughly similar trajectory to yours and then built on that substantially through four years of a superb undergraduate program.  I  would be a bit surprised if you got admitted to one of the top ten programs without an undergraduate degree.

If I may throw out one specific option: the college at the University of Chicago is a lovely opportunity to get a liberal arts education in the midst of an absolutely world class research university.  You can read Plato and Kant and Dostoevsky while taking graduate courses to your heart's content.  Moreover they have full ride scholarships available for exceptional students.  (I went to the University of Chicago on a full ride scholarship, read all of the above authors, took many graduate courses in my subject of interest -- mathematics -- and then got into all the graduate programs to which I applied, including the top three.  I am more satisfied with my education at the UofC and my decision to go there than almost anything else in my life.  Seriously.)

In support of your third option, staying at your LAC for four years:

There are plenty of interesting things to study at a liberal arts college that you might not have the time or opportunity to study once you’re in graduate school. Some of them might enrich your life and career as a physicist, like philosophy or computer science or chemistry or writing, and some of them might be fascinating and fulfilling on their own, like art history or a new foreign language.

You should also be able to study more mathematics and physics without transferring or graduating early. I’m sure your LAC offers independent study or special project courses for students who’ve exhausted the catalog curriculum. Ask your academic advisor or one of your favorite professors about that possibility.


How to read papers without falling into a rabbit hole? Often while reading a paper, I will see a citation that that seems more relevant than my current one. I'll switch to the new paper, only to experience a similar feeling. Or maybe I need to look something up on Wikipedia. An hour later, I'll still feel as if I didn't really digest anything. I will have skimmed 2-4 papers' introductions and conclusions, scratched some notes on the side, and generally feel overwhelmed.

Is this a bad habit? An abnormal feeling? How have others dealt with this to become more productive readers?

I'm fairly new to research, if that matters.

Your problem is quite common among researchers. Actually it's not really a problem, being overwhelmed like this is just natural. Me and all my friends and colleagues face it.

How I overcame this issue: I try to focus on one paper at a time. Try starting reading the latest research paper on a particular subject and go back chronologically. Print the research paper in hard copy, leave your computer and cell phone (if possible) behind and start reading the paper. The point here is to avoid internet access. No matter what question you have, do not search it right away. Write it on the side notes and keep reading. Most of the time the answer will be in the later sections of the same article. Even if you do not get the answers, once you finish reading the paper, you can go online and find all the answers. That's how I read literature without falling in a rabbit hole.

Also, reading the Abstract first, then the conclusion, and then the rest of the paper is also effective.

For me, changing place of study also helps to focus and good instrumental music is always a plus.

As Mirza Awais Ahmad already said, if you know that there is one paper you need to focus on, a good solution is to print out the paper, turn your phone off, leave the office, and go read it in a cafe/park/at home/on holiday/in the library without the ability to download another paper. Bring a notebook with you and make notes on paper or in the margins. If there's a reference that seems important, just make a note of it for later, when you're back at your computer. Setting aside time like this can be a greatly enjoyable experience, especially if your normal mode is skimming.

If the issue is that you don't know which papers you need to focus on, an excellent solution is to join a reading group. Or, if there isn't an appropriate one in existence, start one yourself. Find some likeminded people with an interest in a similar area, decide collectively which paper to read next, and set a date to discuss it. This not only provides a great motivation for sticking to the target paper, but you also get the help of other people in deciding what's important, and the subsequent discussion can be an enormous help in understanding both technical details and the broader context. You'll almost certainly be doing your colleagues a favour as well by starting a reading group, and it will also give you experience organising groups of people, which is invaluable for a future research career.


PhD without previous academic degree: truth or myth? Is it possible at all to do a PhD without a Master or a Bachelor's degree?

Every now and then I meet someone who claims he knows someone who knows someone who was able to do a PhD without previous degrees (maybe only with high-school).

Is that true, was it true in some specific cases?

My (former) thesis advisor, Barry Mazur, has only a PhD.  In fact, according to Stephen Krantz's Mathematical Apocrypha Redux, he does not have a high school diploma either, having left Bronx High School of Science after his junior year to attend MIT.

The story is that he had not completed an ROTC requirement at MIT but had already been accepted for graduate school at Princeton.  Princeton was not insistent that this requirement be completed, so Barry did not take it seriously.  (I have heard more colorful stories about this, but not from him, so I won't repeat them here.)

You might say that this is a technicality.  I would agree with that but still claim it to be an interesting (even slightly inspirational, in some weird way) case.  Moreover, Barry was 22 when he attained his PhD, so some actual schooling must have been skipped (or highly abridged).

I have a BA and a PhD, but no MA/MSc. More common than this are people who get into graduate school with an undergraduate degree in a completely different area of study. Just in my household, my wife's did Information Technology as her undergrad degree, and then got into a Chinese History graduate program.

Really, all it takes to get into grad school is convincing the admissions committee that you are a good enough student of their field. Completing a lower degree in the appropriate area of study is typically the easiest way to convince them, but if you have the necessary background knowledge and a lot of potential, nobody is going to turn you down just because you lack a diploma.


Advisor has stopped giving me research projects I’m a fourth-year PhD student. For a while my advisor has been complaining that I don’t take enough ownership of my projects and I just do what he tells me to do, and that I don’t have any critical thinking skills.  He told me that if he left me in a room for six months by myself, I would not be able to produce a paper.

After our last project finished, he just never gave me a new project, and I haven’t had a research project for several months now.

I asked him why he did not give me a new project, and he said that he shouldn’t have to give me projects, because I am the graduate student and I should be coming up with my own projects.  This is very different from all of our previous projects where he came up with the whole idea and I mostly just followed instructions.

Is this a polite way of firing me?

Your advisor is right: a PhD student needs to take more and more ownership as the PhD progresses, as one of the main goals of attaining a PhD degree is to become an independent researcher. Taking ownership includes that a PhD student should develop the ability to formulate research hypotheses and a matching research plan (main milestones, methodology of investigation, time plan) on his/her own, and your supervisor should merely provide feedback on your plan, but not have to write it in main parts anymore. For a "normal" PhD project I would expect that after about half to two-thirds of the allocated time the student has shown strong signs of taking ownership.

As Captain Emacs said in one of the comments, it is indeed high time for you to do your own stocktake of your PhD project and develop your precise research questions / main hypotheses for the remaining PhD, including a draft of the research plan (as above: main steps / milestones, indicative time budget, being clear on the research question addressed in each step, and defining a methodology that can indeed answer the research question, make an analysis of the risks involved [do you have all the equipment / data / source code / ... you need]). Ask your supervisor for feedback, but do not ask for his/her "approval". You are the lead on your PhD project and have all the responsibility for it, and you merely ask your supervisor for expert advice, not for any decisions or his/her blessing.

And if you still find that you do not get a handle on taking ownership, and if you were my PhD student, I would ask you to seriously consider the question whether a PhD is the right thing for you and whether other options (e.g. exiting with a master degree) would make sense.

Whilst I fully agree with your advisor, I understand your feelings.

In my opinion you have now the opportunity of working with a better supervisor than your previous ones. Perhaps you have moved to a far place to take your PhD and now essentially you face a cultural shock. In some cultures (e.g. China) most academic advisors and professors expect students to obey without questioning. In other cultures however (e.g. Central Europe) academics believe more in the importance of independent and critical thinking. I am of the latter opinion.

My suggestion is that you study your field of research deeply, discuss the state of art with your peers and best specialists you can reach, and then identify the areas where you believe you'd be able and willing to contribute with. Then you write 2-3 short proposals in such directions, ask your peers for advice, and then present them to your supervisor.

If you're unable to do that independently, or if you find yourself merely copying/following others on everything, I suggest you think again whether a PhD is truly what you need and why. If you're better off following orders perhaps others fields are the best fit for you, and your advisor would benefit from a different sort of advisee.

Personal hints: (i) Give special preference to a project style you're most intimately passionate about, as that will keep you going in your lonely ride; (ii) sending indirect implied messages is actually misguiding others, and thus can never be a truly professional, efficient way of advising a student. Take this message home, regardless of what is considered "polite" there.


I used a solution that I happened to already have on my laptop on an exam. Did I cheat? In a programming in-class test, one of the problems was to write up a certain famous program in Maple. However, I had already written up this program prior to the test just as a hobby, and it was in a folder on my desktop [we were using our own laptops, no internet access]. I just copied that code into a new file, cleaned it up, and uploaded this file to the course website. I left an hour before anybody else [the exam lasted 2 hours, and I sat around pretending to be busy for 45 minutes before I left the class and went to the canteen].

Question: Is this cheating? Self-plagiarism? Have I done anything wrong here?
Should I admit this to my TA?

I would say no, unless this was explicitly prohibited beforehand. Look, what's the purpose of a test?  To gauge the extent to which one has comprehended the material. The fact that you did the work indicates you do. Hell, the fact you did it on your own for fun deserves recognition.

What's the point of re-doing the work while sitting in class during a test?  Worse yet, suppose you did and made a mistake due to nerves/time pressure.  You still did and comprehended the material, thus you pass.

Others will disagree, but in my mind, I just want to know if you do or do not understand the material.

It depends on what type of test you were in.
if your test result depends on how much time toke to achieve result , obviously you cheated.
but if time not matters and test was made to evaluate your programming skills you done your best.
You 've made it with Reusability feature of your code.

Reusability is one of the most important subjects in programming context.


Is it plagiarism to use another person's unpublished thesis? Consider a research work that is present in another person's thesis, submitted two years before at the university, but not published online anywhere. Can someone extend that work and submit it to a journal?

You can work on anything you want. If you publish you must:

cite the thesis;
give an accurate account of what work was already contained in the thesis, and what you added;
if you use passages of text or images taken directly from the thesis, identify them as such (as a quotation or similar). Extensive use of such quotations or images may also require permission from the original author and/or their university, depending on who holds the copyright.

A work is published if it is given to anyone other than the author. So the mere fact it has not been published online is not to say it has not been published. So the thesis should be considered as a published work - in that sense your question is poorly framed.

You are, of course, able to cite another's work but you should not seek to pass it off as your own. You can extend it and seek publication for the extended work, but whether it will be worthy of publication will likely depend on the nature of the extension.

But an unpublished paper is a better outcome than being accused for all time of being a plagarist.


File naming conventions when sending file back and forth via email? I often edit a manuscript draft with co-authors by sending drafts of a document back and forth via email. Depending on who I am working with, cloud-based solutions to working collaboratively are not always an option.

After some back and forth a lot of interim drafts begin floating around, so a lot of my co-authors either initial, date, or number a working document when we send it back and forth for edits. Some do none of this at all. I am wondering if there is a correct way to "name" a document when collaborating via email. Is there a consensus on best practices for file-naming conventions when collaboratively editing via email?

Not using version control is bad.

  Depending on who I am working with, cloud-based[, version controlled] solutions to working collaboratively are not always an option.

You can use cloud-based solutions even when some collaborators are against them. All you need to do is: Download and email the cloud version to collaborators that refuse to use the cloud, and upload whatever they send back.

I would take a stab at semantic versioning, as suggested by the people who run Github.

In short: append a series of three digits to the end of the filename. For example: myfile-1.0.0.txt. When someone sends it back to you, whatever they respond with, you can tick up your next version to some identifier in that format which clearly counts as numerically greater.


How many professors should I contact before applying to Graduate School? I'm in the process of developing my academic profile and am starting to create a shortlist of programs to apply for. I plan on applying to 8 Grad schools (although I do not know which they will be yet.) From what I've read so far many of you recommend undergrads seeking to attend post graduate programs first contact a professor to see if they are taking on any new students. Now I obviously won't go with the buckshot approach and submit an email to everyone. However, I've also read most professors do not apply. If I plan on applying to 8 programs, and most professors don't reply,or are not available to take on students. How many professors should I contact? Like I said I won't just randomly send emails,  I will get to know them and their work first,  to see if I would be a good fit. I'm currently down to 40 possible programs of which I'm certain I can find at least 20-30 individual professors who would fit well with me. Would it be wise to find, assess,  and contact as many as 30, in the hopes that maybe 10 or so reply? Thank you.

I didn’t contact any faculty, and I got into the programs where I was an obvious fit. I didn’t get into any others. Honestly, it did not even occur to me to contact professors. I am not sure this is particularly common in the social sciences and humanities in the US. In my program, only the international students pre-contacted professors.

To check, I would recommend reading “The Professor is In” to lean more about the graduate admissions and hiring process for the humanities.

How many professors should I contact?

Do it sequentially until you have the responses you want.  Quality is more important than quantity.

Nobody can predict the response rate.


Reject a paper based on relevant but pointless research direction Disclaimer: this is a hypothetical question, not (immediately) related to any concrete past, present or future reviewed paper.
My context is the no-fly zone between Computer Science and Applied Mathematics. In my opinion, there are some research directions within this field that are pointless. Roughly speaking, papers can be either theoretical or applicative. The former provide insight on formal concepts, model interesting physical phenomena, analyze significant properties of an algorithm, and so on. The latter build algorithms to solve real-world applications, or at least provide preliminary results on contrived problems that promise future performance enhancements. In summary, I am very tolerant as to which is my field of research, and I find interesting results almost everywhere.
However, I observe that there appear more and more papers that suffer from the syndrome of the "parameter change": a model—typically an algorithm—is built that can solve toy problems, but no large-scale application is proved or foreseen; there are no fundamental theoretical problems in either Mathematics or Computer Science (or Physics, Biology, or other fields) involved; then, a second paper changes a minor parameter or adds a light generalization, but still no real applicability is shown; then a third paper. Note that I am not talking about marginal papers, I estimate that half the papers of a top journal (ISI indexed, impact factor, serious publisher...) fall within this description.
Now, my particular problem: I am assigned a paper for review. I am a bit prejudiced by the title and the abstract, but nonetheless I bite the bullet and go through pages and pages of equations, crowned by some computer simulations that allegedly prove the superiority of the algorithm (marginal superiority in an uninteresting toy problem). I am unable to point out any particular error, which is hardly surprising, since what is proved is rather obvious, usually some disguised version of the Stone-Weierstrass theorem or the Lyapunov Stability criterion.
What do you think should be my stance? Some possibilities:

Next time, think better and decline the review because you are prejudiced and unable to produce a fair review.

Well, the paper is correct, isn't it? Judge exclusively by the content.

The editor has asked for your opinion and you think that the paper should not be published. Say so: "It is correct but this line of research is pointless. Yes, I know that there are hundreds of papers within this line, but those are not my business and I am currently reviewing this paper".

What about consequences of the somewhat quixotic answer 3? It looks like my opinion is minority and probably not shared with editors themselves. Could I be berated or blacklisted by the editor?

Generally, as a reviewer, you are being asked for your opinion of the paper's correctness and its significance (importance, level of interest, etc).  Evidently in this case you think the results are not significant or interesting enough to publish in this journal, so you should say so in your review.  If possible, you should explain why you think so: the authors don't give any compelling applications, the results are only a marginal improvement on what's known, etc.

This isn't reason to decline the review.  Thinking the paper is uninteresting isn't "prejudice".

If the editors don't agree with your assessment, they are free to disregard it and publish the paper anyway.  But you do have a responsibility to give your honest opinion.

In fact, I would suggest that you evaluate the paper's interest before you start to carefully check its correctness.  If you believe it's not significant enough to publish, even if correct, then you can so inform the editors and save yourself the time.

There are some exceptions, where the editors may only be interested in whether you believe the paper is correct.  Perhaps they are already convinced it is sufficiently important (from their own opinions or other reviewers), or perhaps "importance" isn't a criterion for publication in this journal (e.g. PLOS One).  If that's the case, then the review invitation should make this clear; otherwise, do consider the paper's importance as part of your review.

This is a great question. I've been on the "other end" of the situation - I've submitted my paper which "could" solve a real-world problem, but the paper only did a simulation on a toy/contrived problem.

Problem statement: Running all regression tests can be really time-consuming for a team/organization/company. If we could schedule the tests from the lens of game theory by looking at testability as a competition between testers and developers, we could get superior scheduling as opposed to "any" kind of prioritization scheme one could come up with.

This is really really hard to do on a real system with real people with real tests. In fact, we don't even have data on the "success" of tests even if we use open source software (i.e., which tests were the most successful at identifying problems/bugs).

The best we could do in this situation, is abstract out everything about the "real world" and only focus on the algorithm at hand. We tried to model all known prioritization algorithms similarly so that a simulation could give us some idea into its effectiveness.

We got comments on the lines you suggest:

...I (reviewer) am okay with any direction of research, but this is so far-fetched that the authors are imagining this problem in their head when none exists. There is no evidence of any competition between testers and developers in reality and this is not even applicable in the wild.

This caught us off guard - apparently, the reviewer(s) focused more on the "formulation" of the problem than what we were proposing. Our paper's premise was to put forth a better way of prioritizing and scheduling regression tests so as to optimize the chance of finding bugs by randomizing the tests w.r.t. game theoretic models. That is if we can only run 10% of the tests, which to run (randomly) that would maximize our chances of finding bugs at some X% level of confidence.

What I'm trying to say is, it'd have been really nice if some of the reviewers would have just taken a step back and evaluated the paper from the problem's POV vs. everything else. Some reviewers thought it was pointless - we thought it was a great new POV that never existed before and hence we wrote a paper to put the idea out there. Few got quite a few folks who liked the idea but many just didn't get it (or were swayed by their prejudice).

Hence I strongly urge you to see the actual problem being solved - is that an interesting problem? Can it be solved any other way? What's better about "their" way? Can you, the reviewer, even imagine a possible application? Does the paper call it out? What are the merits of that approach?

If the paper holds up to the question above, then it may be a candidate for acceptance vs. being a pointless research direction. Note, the folks writing the paper are more deeply set into the problem and have some idea of its applicability (or not at all, and the reviewer should help with that).


Can I thank websites that host illegal book downloads in the acknowledgements section of my thesis? My stance is that these websites are a great boon to the research community and they were certainly extremely helpful for my research. I think they should be applauded rather than persecuted, and while they may be illegal now, I think a way to make them legal should be found (in the same way I can download articles legally through my university's subscription to all the major publishers and journals).

Can I thank them in the acknowledgements section of my thesis?

You can thank whomever you want in the acknowledgments of your thesis, but there may be consequences that you have to live with.

In my opinion it is a bad idea to admit to illegal activity in a formal document like this.  Once you write that, you cannot unwrite it: it will be archived for the rest of your career.  I don't really think you'd get in any trouble directly, but by doing so you're advertising the fact that you are willing to break rules that you don't like and do so entirely openly.  I think that a lot of potential employers prefer employees who when they break the rules for a good reason, do so more quietly.

I also don't really see what you're gaining by doing this.  A thesis acknowledgment is not a step toward legal free downloading of texts.  I happen to agree with you that "a way to make them legal should be found".  One way I work towards this is that I make all of my lecture notes -- some of which are very close to being textbooks -- freely available on the internet.  Whenever I have spoken with publishing companies, I mention at the first meeting my requirement that my material be made freely available on the internet.  To my surprise, they have not walked out of the room.  I also have largely stopped assigning expensive required texts.

In summary: an acknowledgment to the providers of illegal content is a microscopic flouting of the establishment, not a helpful act.  I recommend that you think a bit more carefully about what you can do to actually improve the situation.

As a publisher and author I would be extremely annoyed that someone actively promotes those who commit the criminal offence of illegally copying and distributing our intellectual property.

First, I would refer to your university that your research was conducted using illegal obtained materials: that is undoubtedly in breach of your contract with the university and I would press for the cancellation of your degree. Harsh? Yes, but you are a criminal benefiting from the knowledge, expertise and labours of others.

Secondly, I would take steps to have the site removed from major search engines and references to it blocked. We routinely do that now, when we become aware of them. We refer the site hosts to the relevant authorities in the countries where they are hosted with a view to having the site taken down and the owners / operators prosecuted.

We would publicise the internet host and its IP range with a view to responsible site owners blocking that host's customers from accessing websites around the world.

And finally, we would publicise your name and that you were prepared to use criminally sourced material for your own advancement, demonstrating both a tendency to criminality and that you operate in a moral vacuum, in the hope that no employer would engage a person with such a lack of ethical values.

If the book you want is not legally available on-line, go to a proper library where publishers and authors are rewarded for loans. See if the book is available for lending for Kindle (you pay a small membership fee) because, again, publishers and authors are paid when you borrow.

Would you thank the photocopy shop that makes illegal copies of text books?

No, because you know it's a crime.


Is above average number of years spent on PhD considered a red flag in future academia or industry positions? I am currently working on my PhD in a Canadian university. I already had a master's degree before joining the PhD program. In my department (chemical engineering), the normal timeline for getting a PhD is 3.5-4.5 years (if joined with a prior master's degree). We take only 2 courseworks in the first semester. More are taken if the advisor or the committee instructs one to do so. Rest of the time is dedicated to research, TAship, etc...

However, due to my own mistakes (taking too much time initially to explore the research area and scope) and wrong decisions (investing too much time of a day in developing my hobby), I will be defending later this year with the total PhD duration equalling 5 years 4 months.

I will have 4 publications (in decent journals) by the time I graduate. I also have couple of other works that will eventually get published. I am not concerned about my publications record at the moment as that's something in my control and which is directly proportional to the hard work I put in the future.

My question is: Will my above average number of years spent on a PhD be considered a red flag in future academia or industry positions?

It's well known that there is a significant amount of variability in the time that it takes for a student to finish a PhD, particularly in programs with more rigorous standards. My own graduate department, for example, preferred people to finish in 5-6 years, but was somewhat infamous for allowing some to take as long as 10 years.

In fact, I would venture to say that it is the opposite. I would typically consider it a red flag if somebody took a shorter than usual amount of time to obtain their Ph.D. Typically if you have a really good student, you don't graduate them faster, but instead you graduate them in the normal time but with a much stronger portfolio of results. Shorter-than-usual Ph.D. studies, on the other hand, are typically a sign of somebody rushing to depart the program by meeting the bare minimum of requirements.

Bottom line: if you've done good work and have good publications, the fact that you took one more year than is typical for your department will barely even be noticed, let alone held to be significant. This is even more true for most industry jobs.

If somebody does actually ask you, however, focus on the first of your reasons (time spent figuring out an appropriate area of focus) rather than the latter reason (time spent working on out-of-work projects), as the second may be of legitimate concern to future employers.

I would claim it is rather the opposite.
A good student you want to spend much time working together with.
A bad student just takes time and resources and gives nothing.

So it makes sense to get rid of them faster and hold on to the good ones.


How is a research direction determined between a graduate student and their advisor? My question applies to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math disciplines (STEM).

Q: By what process does a graduate student determine his or her research direction?

(Assume that the graduate student is in the first year and has no previous publications with this supervisor.)

I can imagine several scenarios:

The graduate student proposes a research topic and then their
supervisor evaluates it for originality and feasibility. In this scenario, the graduate student has the foresight to know what research directions are promising and appropriate.
The graduate student performs an extensive
literature review. In this process, the student finds a challenging and/or interesting problem. (I am not sure how much effort this requires. I also don't know how to identify a problem as "interesting" or "challenging".)
The supervisor comes up with an interesting research problem or question and then presents it to the graduate student. (This appears to be a common pattern, given the plethora of complaints that I see on-line about uninteresting research.)

I would especially like to see responses from professors who are supervisors and also from graduate students.

Any of the scenarios you describe can happen, in practice. (I am in the United States; this may differ in other countries.) It depends on the student's interests and abilities, the advisor's interests and advising style, how broad advisor's interests are, whether the advisor has funding for a particular project and needs a student to work on that problem, and many other factors.

All three have happened within my own research group. (Another possibility that happened in my research group that you haven't mentioned: student initiates a collaboration with another researcher, who proposes a topic, and involves the advisor in the project as well.)

Actually, the scenarios you describe are not discrete scenarios, but a spectrum from "most student-driven" to "most advisor-driven." Some points on the spectrum include:

Student enters grad school with a topic in mind that's judged acceptable by advisor, and proceeds with that topic.
Student enters grad school with a topic in mind, that evolves and changes following advice from advisor.
Student enters grad school with a general idea and, together with guidance from advisor and extensive reading of literature, shapes it into a topic.
Student enters grad school without idea, advisor suggests general direction, and upon extensive reading and with guidance from advisor, student shapes it into a topic.
Advisor hands student idea, and student proceeds to execute idea. Of course, this is a PhD, so as student works on the topic, the student's mastery of the specific research will most probably come to exceed the advisor's, even though advisor originally proposed the idea.

Other scenarios include: student enters grad school with idea in mind and then changes directions completely in middle, student enters grad school with idea and changes advisors in middle but keeps idea, and many more..

Like any relationship, it really depends on the relationship that you have between you and your supervisor. Some will leave you completely alone to decide, others will guide you step-by-step. And it's a continuous spectrum!


Article published in a conference has several technical flaws in it. What should be done? This conference is organized on every 3 years. It is highly influential in the field of study. Screening and review committee are usually reputable that includes a strong set of researchers and professors.

The article in question is similar to my field of interest. I was happy to read it, but am very dissatisfied with discussion, analysis of data and moreover, there are several theoretical flaws in the paper.

What should I do in this case? How to submit a comment? Or, should I just ignore this?

When I was in graduate school my group found a major flaw in another group's work, and another group found a flaw in one of our papers. Beware that it's worth it to be sensitive about these issues- academia tends to be a small world, and you don't want to hurt people's egos or make enemies. Everyone makes mistakes, even in published and peer-reviewed papers. Bear in mind that once a peer-reviewed paper is published with a methodological flaw it becomes a failure of the entire community rather than a failure of that author.

I think the most productive way to handle this is to first contact the authors of the paper directly. If you feel as though you've found an error then you should be able to provide specific evidence or (for theoretical work) a counter-example to some proposed theorem. Approach them gently, and remember that you might be the one in error or that the error might be a simple like an unstated assumption. If the authors are responsible academics then you will have a dialogue with them that identifies the error or points out the flaw in your argument. If your claim is substantiated then it may be an opportunity to publish a joint correction or they might opt to retract their paper, depending on the severity of the problem. This is how good peer-reviewed science is supposed to work.

However, if the authors are unwilling to talk then and you feel like you need to push the issue then you'll have to escalate. Get in touch with the editor of the publication, but be sure you can substantiate your claims of an error in a way they'll understand and agree with. If they determine that you are correct then they may unilaterally retract the paper or provide the authors a chance to publish corrections. Depending on the severity and circumstances of the issue it may be appropriate for you to publish your own analysis of the topic.

Done correctly, finding a published flaw can be a great way to start a new relationship or collaboration with other people intensely interested in the same topics as you are. If you allow them to fix the problem with their published work in a way that allows them to save face they will be grateful. If you make a public debate out of the issue or go above their head to the publication editors too quickly you'll engender some bad feelings. If you make a public fuss about something and you end up being wrong then you'll look like a stupid jerk. Remember that academia is a small world and your reputation will follow you, so think about how you'll be perceived.

Above all else just remember that the purpose of the exercise is to correct the scientific record and you should be OK.

Edit: I wanted to echo John's comment to another (now deleted) post, which is that the probability that you are wrong or have misunderstood the paper is very high. Let the paper sit for a few days, and then read it again carefully. If you're still convinced there's an error then go to your adviser or a colleague and ask them to review your analysis. If everyone agrees that there is an error then it is time to humbly approach the authors.

DO NOT IGNORE THIS.
(As per the comments by David, FredDouglis and John) It is advisable to email the authors first on the issue. If they are responding, then it is well and good. If they are satisfied with your concepts and unintentional flaws, then they would go for publishing an erratum. If they are not responding in this regard, I will do the following.
I would try to Google out the names of the Program Committee Chair or Members or Organizers and directly send a formal email regarding the same.
For example:

Dear PC Chair/Organizer/Professor
It is pleasure following the articles published in the proceedings of the reputable conference that was organized in 20xx at the University of Suggestions, Academia.SE.
However, I find a serious theoretical flaw in one of the articled entitled An article with the significant theoretical flaw in it, which I have been following currently. The complete explanation on the errors and wrong assumptions along with the possible conceptual evidence from my side have been attached for your referral.
I would request you to look after this and kindly consider the article removed or revised (a possible erratum) or re-reviewed.
Looking forward to your considerable action in this regard.
Sincerely
The Guy who found the error

I think one of the people would definitely respond in this regard. If they don't then directly email to the publisher of the conference proceeding.


Asking an exam question that requires a specific technique This question Inadmissible theorems in research mentioned a scenario in which a student was not allowed to use a theorem that he knew because it wasn't in the course.  I've administered exams in which the instructor said "using X technique, solve for Y", and grades of 0 were assigned when a different, admittedly simpler, technique was used.  Students seemed to consider the question to be giving a hint, rather than a requirement.

Students often get angry about this, since they feel they got the right answer.  The instructor's goal, though, was to get the students to prove that they could use the particular technique, and therefore the answer itself was not relevant.

To complicate matters, there are often times in which not using technique X results in a simpler method for the particular question.  This is usually because X is a more general method and is only really powerful when the problem exceeds what is reasonable on an exam.  A student could reasonably walk away from the exam thinking that X is just "more complicated" and not worth the trouble.

How can you ask a question like that that tests their ability to use a particular technique in a way that gets them to understand the purpose of the question?  Especially, how can such a question be asked to avoid having students erroneously discount the importance of technique X because a simpler method exists for the particular problem?

You say, "Solve for Y.  You must use X technique to demonstrate that you know how to use it, even though there may be simpler other ways to solve this particular problem."

Edit: One should cover in class why the students need to know X.  The point in the exam question is to make it clear that using X is a requirement of the question, not a hint.

Example: "Use a Karnaugh map to simplify the following Boolean expression."  Here, the question asks, "use a Karnaugh map," not "simplify the expression."  The latter is the mechanism to demonstrate the former.

Sometimes, setting the stage can help.

If your concerned that students won't follow the directions correctly, you can always give the old classic quiz. The one that starts:

  Read all directions before starting the quiz.

Then, in the directions, tell them:

  Make no marks on the paper besides your name.

So, anyone who does anything beyond putting their name on the paper fails the quiz. Make the grade trivial (or, give a small amount of extra credit to those who pass and take no points from those who fail).

The point would be that the directions on your quizzes and tests are important.

It may be overkill, but it might actually get the point across.


Should I recommend a student with a bad ideology? My problem is the following: I teach  an honors course in an engineering discipline at a small university. (It is not exactly that, but "teaching an honors course" is a good approximation to what I do). Large US companies sometimes ask me to recommend the best students for an interview, and they are often hired. The policy of the University in general is that it doesn't discriminate on political opinions or religious beliefs or anything of that sort.

Now, I have a student who is a very nice person and has a great academic record but he supports an ideology that many would find abhorrent. (Again, this doesn't mean he is a bad person. For example, the famous mathematician and Fields Medalist Stephen Smale supported Stalinist communism in his youth, in reaction to unjust practices in the US:
http://www.ams.org/notices/200011/rev-kirby.pdf   ).

Now, if I recommend him, I think there's a reasonable chance he gets hired because he's pretty good in technical matters. But then I think he might really get into problems there because he supports his "bad" ideology in a rather ostentatious manner, and I'm afraid that this will reflect badly on me and on my ability to recommend other students. I'm pretty sure the overwhelming majority of employees would be hostile to his ideology.

Mind you, I wouldn't have hesitated for a second to give him a recommendation for graduate study, people are usually much more understanding of that sort of stuff in academia, and the only person he really would have to please in that case is his advisor, and if the student's research is good, the advisor would probably forget about all the rest. But working in the industry necessitates interaction with a lot of people, and I think his ideological views may cause problems.

What do you think I should do ? Recommend him or not ? If I don't, I feel it would be a kind of betrayal; especially since he wouldn't even know why he's not getting the interview some people less qualified than him are getting. I also have the impression I'm not the only one to have this issue with him, as he has been already "overlooked" for several positions where less qualified people succeeded.

As stated in the other answers, no-one can coerce you to provide a recommendation, you are free to not recommend a student for any reason you choose, or no reason at all - if you are not comfortable recommending this student, then don't.

However, from your description, I would suggest that it's not the ideology at issue, but the student's interpersonal skills. I guarantee you that I have opinions that you would find absolutely abhorrent, and you have opinions that I would likewise. The point is that in a professional context we usually have the good sense to keep these things to ourselves.

It's not clear what your opinion of the student, and their suitability for the role, actually is. If you think that the way he expresses his ideology interferes with his ability do the job well, or his ideological standing is in some way relevant to the job at hand, then there is no conflict here. (For example, a raving misogynist would be completely inappropriate in a supervisory position.)

If you think that he nevertheless really would be an asset to the company, then you can either (i) informally suggest to your contact: "Here is a brilliant student who will produce technically excellent work, but be careful; he has a bit of a problem with appropriate boundaries at work." and/or (ii) write a letter that expresses his technical skills and omits any mention of personality or social skills. The omission will be  loud and clear. In the end, it is up to the company to decide if the tradeoff is worth it.

As soon as you will send the recommendation letter directly to the companies, can't you simply warn about this concern in your letter?
Then it is their responsibility to talk about it with your student, during the interview; and to decide if his positions and attitude is acceptable to them...


The lecturer supposed to grade my presentation fell asleep while I held it. Should I complain? TLDR:
I am attenting a seminar where the grade is based entirely on a talk I hold. The responsible lecturer fell asleep during the talk multiple times, and I am worried about my grade, feel insulted and am unsure how to communicate these issues.

For a seminar, I was required to hold a 45 minute-talk about current department research in front of the course. The corresponding researcher attends this talk as well.

Together with the lecturer (the instructor for this seminar), they grade my talk, which amounts for the entire seminar grade. The researcher can make comments about how accurate the presentation was, but the ultimate choice of grading is with the lecturer.

During my talk (actually not too far in), the lecturer fell asleep for a bit for the first time, for only a brief period. Now this happened on multiple occasions during my presentation, and it has happened during someone elses' past talk on an earlier date as well.

I find this highly insulting, since I have spent a lot of time reading up on the topic and practicing to hold the talk.

Since the lecturer did not hear or see my entire talk, I am worried that grading may be affected in addition.

The lecturer is notoriously busy (which I assume to be quite common) and stressed, but both issues should not affect me or my grade in my opinion.
Also, he may have had stress-related health problems in the past, which could be a reason for him to pass on caffeine consumption. I see that this may be a reason for his tiredness, but again I cannot possibly account for it and I should not be graded differently because of it.

I want to communicate the following two issues, how can I approach this situation?

I feel insulted by the lecturer falling asleep through my graded talk
I am worried about him falling asleep could influence my grade

On a side note, I really like the lecturer otherwise, but I am afraid that making a comment like "please reconsider your sleep schedule" whould be considered highly inappropriate (and rightly so). Recommendations on this matter will be appreciated as well.

Update: Grades are out as of today, and I am not satisfied with the grade. I don't have any pointers on what I could have done better or how to improve future talks. I will probably not pursue this any further.

I don't know if I wrote this in a comment already, but in another seminar I attended, a similar thing occured for another student.

The first thing to note here is that sleeping in such situations is often not a voluntary action, but a physiologically unavoidable response to the situation the body is in - many people die every year after falling asleep at the wheel of a car. I don't think you'd describe the results of that on other people in the car as "rude". In general, if you are in this state of involuntary somnulence, then no amount of caffeine will change anything.

You do not know the circumstances in which this lecturer is in: casual lecturers or adjuncts may be working several other jobs, or may have insufficient income to afford rent and therefore a proper place to sleep. Permanent folks may have so much work that they literally don't have time to sleep and complete everything they are required to do. Or they might have a young child or as you say, mental health problems. My point is these things may not be voluntary choices for the person concerned.

If i had a dollar for every student that fell asleep in a lecture that I had spent days preparing...

But....

None of this is your problem. You deserve not just to get the correct mark for your work, but also the feedback that will help you improve - after all, you are there to learn, not to get grades. As others have said, wait and see what the feedback is (and really you want proper feedback, not just a grade). If it's fine, then I'd wait and see, but even if it is - if this becomes a pattern then it might be in everyone's interest, including the faculty member's (depending on how understanding the Chair is), for people to know what is going on.

... You could always ask the presentation to be remarked by a different lecturer?

Being a former student myself, this option has always been common knowledge across the entire class if one is unsatisfied with the assessor.

Best act sooner than later, I recall remarking of work after being formally marked only able to reach a certain percentage (60% - or a 1:2).


How to respond to “philosophical” questions that aim to undermine a position or derail a discussion? A colleague of mine enjoys using philosophical questions to undermine ideas that are different to his own and to derail discussions that are not in his favour. At first I thought he was offering genuine perspectives, but overtime I realised he was just being defensive and finding enjoyment out of disrupting discussions.

To give you some examples, here are some of his frequent techniques:

The you-can’t-know-for-sure:

  The evidence may seem to be true but it could be wrong, and we can never know that for sure. You can only believe in evidence. Therefore, making claims about anything, with or without evidence, is meaningless.

  The human senses and the human mind are limited and fallible, and to say that an idea is more correct than another is just your opinion based on a fallible experience.

Disagrees with the definition, or shifts to a different definition, or question the meaningfulness of definitions and language in general:

  I define X as something different to how you defined X, and according to what I think of X, I am right. You can think of X how you want but it doesn’t matter to me.

  “X” only means X because humans defined “X” to be X. But “X” is just a subjective idea that doesn’t exist in reality. Therefore, anything you say about X, your ideas are on based on something non-objective and arguable.

All things are just perspectives:

  To say that I’m inconsistent with my argument or to say that I’m wrong is just a perspective. There are many perspectives and just because from one perspective I’m a certain way, doesn’t mean I really am.

I usually enjoy genuine philosophical perspectives in all discussions, but this colleague never offers his philosophical ideas at the beginning of talks and never mentions them when we agree with him, but only throws them out selectively against ideas during the middle of discussions. The worst is that he speaks them with a triumphant and condescending tone of voice over everyone else as if he is so clever.

Question: When he uses these types of philosophical questions as a way to undermine someone’s idea or to derail a discussion, what is an appropriate way to interfere with his remark in a way that doesn’t confront him, protects the other person from appearing to have being undermined or devalued, and restores the direction discussion to what it was before?

Is this colleague really an academic? How on earth did he get a job in academia? How does he manage to retain it? He sounds like a teenage boy from your description of his style of arguing.

He's a troll, so best ignored. He also sounds like he's realised he's way out of his depth, and this is bluster to cover it up.

Formulate a single sentence that lets him know he's been heard, but that it was irrelevant, and that you've already moved on. Use it. Vary it, but keep it short, and always end with an invitation to the interrupted speaker to carry on where they left off. The troll should get the message that he's been sidelined, and troll elsewhere.

"I don't think we need to surrender to nihilism just yet, do we? [turn back to the interrupted speaker] Now, as you were saying ..."

Then just exclude him from discussions in the future. Take your fellow discussants to another room, away from the troll, if you have to.

This is typical academic evasiveness. I would simply ignore this weasel or see to it that he does not get a chance to get a word in. Or perhaps, say how astonished you are to hear this.


Can a single college course section be taught by two professors? For example, having half of the lessons taught by one professor, and the other half of the lessons taught by another professor.

If this isn't possible, why isn't it possible?  Can you provide any links to further information on how it's done (e.g. dividing the compensation)?

For several years I taught a doctoral level course with a colleague. We were both always present for every class. Each of us took a different "perspective" with the material. One of us would take the lead at any given moment and the other would comment as he felt inclined. Students could ask either of us questions at any time.

The course was very broad, but, generally speaking, centered on Agile Software Development, both its technical and managerial aspects. It was a bit broader than that implies, actually.

We were both salaried, as is typical in US, and each of us got "full credit" for a course taught. The course was considered important enough by the university that the pay issue was basically ignored.

Not every university would be willing to ignore pay issues, of course, and, I suspect, no university would make a general practice of it for many courses. Few would, anyway.

I shared a course with two other professors, we each taught our own cohort of students - biggest issue is making sure you all cover the same material per week. Students ask questions that can easily cause "drift" away from the main topic - usually interesting, but the main material still needs covering as that is what is in the exam.

I have shared other courses where I covered one set of topics and the other covered a different set of topics - works fine but you have to stick to what was agreed and communicate.


How good do I actually have to be to get into a top graduate program from an average undergraduate program? So, this is a question that I do not know much about. I might get called on not having done a ton of research on graduate school, but I am really curious about this. I am an undergraduate student of mathematics and I am certainly planning on pursuing a graduate degree. I have looked at the top schools of math and they are certainly what one would expect: MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, etc.

My issue is this: Academically, I was a late bloomer. I did not take high school seriously because it was annoying and elementary. Where I grew up, my school did not offer much in terms of AP classes or other opportunities. So, the only thing I excelled at naturally was math classes. Of course, they were extremely easy and required almost no effort on my part, which is what made me leery in terms of taking college level classes. I figured that I was good at high school classes because they are simple, but college level will be a different story.

I was wrong. In university, the gap was wider. Once I became adjusted, I actually enjoyed mathematics because it was so much more abstract and complex. This caused me to do rather large amounts of independent research in graduate level topics (topology, analytic number theory, analysis, etc). My only issue is that I am not in a competitive environment, really. The students are not top-notch, and don't share the same drive that I have. This is why I feel like being at the top of the class is not really an accomplishment, since I am not doing anything that any undergraduate at MIT, Harvard, Yale, etc, couldn't do.

My question that I pose here is this:

How good do I really need to be?

I have a passion for mathematics and for the most part, I seem to be talented at it. In terms of GPA, I have maintained a 4.0 with little effort just because I typically have already covered the material in the class on my own. However, there is a voice in the back of my head that keeps telling me that I only stand out because I am at a school that is not top tier, ivy league.

What does a graduate student at a top tier school look like? In my mind, I see someone that has been publishing papers since their teens, and was at the level I'm at now coming out of high school (I am a rising senior at the moment). Is this true? Am I being realistic? I am concerned because I would love to apply to some of these schools (and to get in is my dream!) but I honestly don't even know what level I am at in comparison to the rest of their applicants. I would hate to get shot down almost instantly because I am a joke in their eyes.

Sorry if this was a bit of a ramble. The question boils down to the title really, the rest is just elaboration for those that are interested. Thanks!

From what you have said about yourself, I think you're very well prepared for graduate school at a very good institution. There are always a few incredibly bright, very young mathematicians that fit the image you have in your mind of students at top tier universities. I know of a few myself. However a very large number of math graduate students are much like you (and I).

I had a very strong affinity for math as a young child but grew up in one of the worst academic environments in the US. A highly nontrivial amount of students in my area didn't graduate high school, even fewer went to college and fewer then even went to universities that were not the crappy local universities. I lucked out because one of the best high schools in the nation was in my area yet I didn't feel very challenged and more or less coasted along and didn't try. Ended up with a GPA of about 3.0 at the time of graduation. I even spectacularly failed statistics with a 40 or so from lack of effort.

Undergrad rolled around. I flourished in the environment: took lots of math classes, took plenty of courses outside my degree to broaden my horizon, did lots of research, but like you I was a big fish in a small pond. I felt similar to you - that I only looked good in comparison to all of the others. I almost had a 4.0 in math and had a 3.8 overall with a couple of years of research under my belt. When it came time for grad school applications, I cast a bit of a wide net, but got rejected from a lot of universities. (This was largely my fault since I seemed to mess something up on every application. Having not really done undergraduate applications, I was a bit overwhelmed and scatterbrained.) I actually got into my top choice university which surprised me a lot.

When I started my master's, I did notice that there was a bit of a gulf between me and the other students once I got there. My undergraduate institution didn't have nearly the course selection or resources that the other students had. However in terms of math capability, I was at least middle of the pack; so while I had a bit of a learning curve and some growing pains, I think I ended up being one of the stronger master's students because I fully dedicated myself and didn't give up. I did spend a ridiculous amount of time in my office the first semester, though. I went to school around 9:30 in the morning and went home at midnight many days.

For all of it, I grew incredibly and am doing quite well in my PhD program. Coursework is a cinch now, research is going well and I'm writing up a couple of papers which I hope to submit in the not-too-distant future. With your background and love for mathematics, I think you'll be in a much better position than I was in terms of applications. Your GPA is better, you seem much more fluent in many areas of mathematics and are much more mathematically mature. The biggest factor in determining your success (outside of pure genius - which is incredibly uncommon, even amongst mathematicians!) is your unwillingness to give up. Even if you're slightly weaker than some of your future fellow graduate students right now, once you get there, all of those disparities will quickly melt away if you put in the time and effort. Where you came from does not have to dictate where you end up. You are more than your past if you allow yourself to be.

Here is some general off-topic advice regarding grad school since you seem to be lacking in advising: just because you want to go to a top tier university and get in to one does not mean you should necessarily go. For undergrad, this is not the case; if you get into MIT, Stanford, Harvard, etc. and have the financial means, you should definitely go as it is a great opportunity and can directly impact your future. At the graduate level, things are so much more nuanced. (For example, the reputation of the university doesn't directly dictate your future success provided that you put in 100%. In the internet age, it is much easier to do really meaningful research and network with top researchers at any respected university since you have access to all of the information you want.)

When you apply, you are not applying to the university more than you are applying to a professor (or professors) or at least this is the philosophy I think one should have. You should have an idea of what kind of things you want to pursue for research and you should look to those people who do research in that direction. I don't mean to say that you need to know exactly the project you want to do but have a rough idea of the field you are interested in, say commutative algebra or functional analysis or harmonic analysis. If you apply to a university in which no one really pursues what interests you, you're going to be without a future advisor or you'll have to settle for second best. Applying to a graduate program just because of prestige doesn't guarantee success or happiness. Granted, at the top universities, this tends not to be an issue as they have very broad reach but it is something to be wary about. Just because it is a great university or great department does not mean it is a great fit for you.

There are also other factors to consider when applying to schools: Could you deal with the super competitive atmosphere (or alternatively the extremely laid back atmosphere)? Could you stand to live there for four to six years, e.g. if you're from a very hot climate, could you survive the very harsh winters in upstate NY or if you're from upstate NY, could you handle a Texas summer? If you cannot see yourself being happy with (or tolerating) a lot of these extra-academic aspects of where you are, you might want to reconsider.

A PhD is very demanding and can be soul-crushing at times. You'll often run into really difficult road blocks in coursework or research and if everything else in your life makes you miserable as well, you're going to have a really bad time. Your mental health is very important. You will be pushed to the extreme at times and in many ways throughout your PhD and your environment shouldn't amplify this. If you're having a tough time in research, the weather is absolutely miserable and you cannot stand your fellow graduates for whatever reason, your mental wellness might take a turn for the worst. I have seen this happen first hand and it is really unfortunate. These are not things academic advisors often tell students who wish to do graduate school because they are easy to overlook, but it is something to keep in mind. Hopefully this has been helpful.

If you state on your letter of purpose what you have stated here, it will be regarded highly, because the admissions officer will see the passion that you have, and that has more relevance than anything.
Opportunity doesn’t knock.  If it knocks, it knocks on the inside.
You.... are opportunity… You create it
And...You are what you believe.
That is what sets you apart, and, that is what
you need to let these Ivy League admissions people know.
That is what I did...