text:
Do UK's 1-year taught MSc programmes provide any scope for research roles either in the industry (R&D positions) or in academia (through PhD)?
Context - need to understand the 1-year taught MSc programmes offered by universities in the UK, in order to make a choice regarding higher studies (masters level) in Computer Science.
Specific confusion - Generally, an MS degree elsewhere will be of 2-years duration with enough time for lectures, electives and projects/thesis, thus equipping students for both jobs and research in the future.
How does a 1-year taught MSc programme in the UK differ? Are they only for students who have no interest in research? Do they not cover the subjects in depth? (I am aware of the MRes programmes but they seemed apt for students who're 100% sure of pursuing a PhD.)
Basically, I am confused if pursuing a 1-year taught MSc programme in the UK will add no value at all. I mainly want to learn specific subjects in much more depth and want to keep open options for research roles / PhD in the future.
Any guidance will be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/72341/68109

What qualification do you already have? A BSc alone is sometimes sufficient to start a PhD in the UK. And have you checked the syllabuses of the MScs you're interested in? Many will include a dissertation/research project component.

+1 I will up-vote any down vote when there's no justification in a comment and I see no basis for the down vote

As other answers indicate, taught MSc courses seem highly variable. I did such a degree in Mathematics/Computer Science, a subsequent PhD, and am currently a research postdoc. So in the strictest sense, I can report that not all taught MSc courses are insufficient in this regard.
The course featured an approximately 3 month research thesis after a first 9 of intensive coursework. This supplied the most important element for academic preparation.
One other comment on "value" you might consider: I had few marks and no new recommenders from the MSc by the time applications for PhD programs the subsequent year were due. The MSc proved valuable in subsequent years after having sufficient time to get those in hand. At the time, I think it had little impact on which PhD programs accepted me.

You will need to enquire specifically about the particular MSc. Because MScs are short, they tend to serve very particular purposes.
They might provide the opportunity for someone who did one subject, to gain enough knowledge in another subject to work or do research in that subject (e.g. someone with a Mathematics undergrad to do a computer science job).
They might provide specialist training in a very narrow part of a subject. E.g. we do a degree called Human Molecular Genetics, which is basically training to work in an NHS genetic diagnostic lab, or my friend runs an MSc in Mammalian Zooarchology, which will train people who did a general archology degree, and now want to either get a job as a animal bone specialist on a commercial archology unit, or do a PhD in Mammalian Zooarch.
Or they might be for people who's undergrad degree wasn't good enough. Say you only got a 2:2, or you went to a university that isn't very well regarded, but want to do a PhD... they give you a second chance. We offer one of these. The students combine taking a selection of our final year undergrad courses with special lab skills course, an extended literature review and a lab research project.
I should add that all our MScs provide an extended research project (3 months, full time in the lab), but I don't think that's the case for all MScs.
I always advise student thinking of doing an MSc in the UK to know exactly what it is they want out of it, and to know that the particular MSc they are thinking about will provide that.

Suitability/format: At my UK institution, and I do believe this to be a country-wide standard, the taught MSc (just like the MSc by research) lasts for 1 full year - September to September, or 3 semesters. This is indeed 1 semester shorter than a typical MSc elsewhere in Europe, but not half as short. This is 2 semesters of courses + 1 semester for the thesis (at my institution, the "lit review" part of the thesis is done as part of a course in the 2nd semester, and 3rd semester is fully practical). The quality of the programme can have large variations depending on the University.
Value compared to other EU MSc programmes: On average, I would say the "depth" of the material is the same, or maybe just a tad lower, as the depth on an average EU University. But, this is just a hunch (based on a sample size in single digits). In the context of ambitions for an EU research career, my next and very strong hunch is that finishing a 1-year taught MSc in the UK would not put you in any disadvantage compared to finishing a MSc programme anywhere else.
Value on it's own/as regarded in the UK: The picture slightly changes when viewed in the context of UK Higher Education or if you, for any reason, target a career in the UK specifically. Some tidbits to consider:

When talking about Higher Education, most Brits will inquire "Do you have a degree?" referring to a BSc.
A MSc here is not only quite expensive, but also considered to be for students who are passionate about subjects: often a personal development choice rather than a career move.

An increasing number of funded PhD positions in the UK are now part of large university-wide or cross-university doctoral programmes, which are integrated: (taught) MSc (1 year) + PhD (3 year) programme.
In other words, if you are interested in pursuing a PhD programme in the UK, but first finish a MSc degree on your own expense/with funding for MSc only, there is a good chance you will be required to do a second MSc degree as part of your PhD. It will still, of course, help your application. The trend I have seen here is that most Brits will apply with a BSc (only requirement), while quite a number of overseas students will apply after their MSc (as is typical elsewhere).

For completeness: if you are interested in a (non-research) career in the UK, I have anecdotally observed a number of situations where an overseas degree is not very highly valued (especially outside of STEM) in industry. Finishing a (MSc, but really, any) programme at a British University could be a way to get an industry position in the UK.

Similarly to above, even before Brexit, finishing a degree in the UK (any, I think!) would substantially ease the immigration situation for international (non EU) applicants.

(I know nothing about the US to compare with value of programmes there.)

Regardless of length, MSc programmes vary by institute and country. An MSc isn't necessary (nor sufficient) for entry onto a PhD programme, requirements vary between instituties and countries. Nonetheless, PhD students commonly hold an MSc (or equivalent).
Generally, the difference between a one- and two-year MSc is that the latter is twice as long. That doesn't imply you'll be taught twice as much, because institutes vary. Nor does it imply they'll be any emphasis on research, again institutes vary.
To determine whether an MSc (of any length) is useful for industrial- or academic-research positions, look at requirements for positions you are interested in.

It's worth noting that UK MSc and PhD programmes are shorter than those offered in many countries.

I don't think this answers the question. The question asks specifically about the 1-year MSc programmes in the UK.

@GoodDeeds Every MSc programme differs, so there's no generic answer. Is there anything specifically missing?

Enrolling British PhD students in the UK do not commonly hold a MSc (or equivalent).

@penelope Do you mean an MSc isn't necessary for a PhD in the UK? How common is having a PhD but no MSc (/MA, etc.) in the UK?

That's exactly what I mean. What I am observing during interviews/shortlisting (so, not official statistics) is that most British applicants will have only a BSc, and most EU/international applicants will have a MSc at time of applying to a PhD programme (see my answer). While I was a postdoc, our British colleagues pursuing their PhD did not start their PhD with a MSc degree. On the other hand, most PhD programmes are integrated, meaning that a MSc will be done as a part of the PhD programme (therefore, upon completion, a person would have both).


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Writing an Original State of the Art Section When There Are Recent (Meta-)Surveys for the Topic
Problem
In many fields, it is customary that every paper has a section describing the state of the art of the field, to give a background and show familiarity with related works. While sometimes, this can mean an exhaustive enumeration of related works in the area, other times it is more useful to reference literature reviews or surveys. However, this can be a problem: If a recent survey of the field exists, there is the danger of plagiarizing the survey. This is even more of a problem with meta-surveys, since otherwise you might just use several distinct surveys (if available).
What I found
For a similar question, one answer proposes referencing both the survey and the original work. However, wouldn't it still look weird if the entire section consists of mainly one reference, that is paired with several others?
Question
Which works do you cite in a state of the art section, when there is a recent and thorough survey for the topic of your paper?

What's wrong with "Suvey-Author et al. (2020) provide a recent overview of the cuddling hedgehogs dilemma."?

Let me reframe your question somewhat, in a way that hopefully leads to a helpful answer.
It is widespread to think that the purpose of the "literature review" section of an article is to describe "the state of the art of the field, to give a background and show familiarity with related works", as you say. But I would argue that that even though that is very often what such sections do in practice, that should not be their primary goal and that certainly is not the most valuable thing they should do.
Rather than broadly reviewing the literature, a "literature review" section should focus squarely on framing the current article in the context of the literature. It should not do anything more (or less) than that. That is, it should show how the current article fits in the existing scholarly conversation. To do this, it should show what literature is similar, but in a way that clearly shows how the present article is different. In particular, it should clearly show how the present article aims to contribute to knowledge that is currently missing in the literature.
So, coming directly to your question, from this perspective, if there is a recent state-of-the-art review published, there is no problem at all. Such a review should only help you to better frame your own article to show what is close to your work, yet different. Above all, do not try to cite all the existing literature. Only cite the literature that makes your point: your article is different from similar literature and contributes important knowledge that is still missing from the literature.
From this perspective, concerning which work to cite, it is more likely that you would cite the specific original papers that refer to topics that are similar but a little bit different from your own article. You might cite the survey paper as a general source, but citing it does not tell readers much about how similar or different the literature is from your own work. It is your custom summary and citation of each individual paper that is close that would do this. And note that your custom summaries are not summaries of each entire article--that is not very useful, since the survey paper probably already does this--rather, it is a to-the-point summary of exactly in which way each article is similar yet different from your own work. That would be original (since the survey paper does not do that) and would help readers better appreciate the contribution of your own work.

I generally agree with your input on the purpose of a literature review section. I'm not sure that this solves the citation problem, though. Do you cite the survey paper, the original paper, or both?

@nonthevisor I have added a paragraph to explicitly address that point.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

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Does this case constitute plagiarism?
I recently read a dissertation where I recognized sentences that appeared in earlier papers but are not cited in the dissertation.
Here are some of these sentences.
He also appears to be copying from flashcards , also without citations.
Does this constitute plagiarism?

Was it all from the same author?

Depends on what you mean. The sentences are all in his thesis but none originates with him. He has republished parts of his thesis but that is irrelevant.

Yes, the use of unattributed material, or use of quotes without indicating they are quotes even with attribution, is plagiarism.
If it's just a few sentences in a long dissertation, it's plausible that some of it was due to lazy note-taking, like copying the words of others into an intermediate document and not realizing months or years later that they were copied. However, laziness is not really a defense. Maybe a mitigating factor.

I am not sure if it's due to lazy note-taking. The person who did it has a history of plagiarism. It seems to me that he did his appropration of sentences quite skillfully in his thesis since plagiarism detectors find rather few copied material but a manual sentence by sentence (or parts of a sentence) search reveals that he took a lot of sentences (consecutive 7-9 words) without citation . What is the likely outcome if I report this to the dept chair of the university of his thesis?

@MSD That depends entirely on the dept chair.

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Do I need to reason why I use a particular technology in my research proposal?
I have started doing a research related to NoSQL databases for the master's degree and I have submitted the research proposal.
Proposal evaluation results have been released and the examiner has added some comments.
My question is about one of his comment.
In my research I have mentioned that I am going to use Yahoo! Cloud Serving Benchmark (YCSB) for the evaluation process of the research. The examiner asks me to justify the appropriateness of use of YCSB for the performance assessment.
What does this mean? Does that mean I need to reason all the tools or technologies I have chosen to assist the research process?
The real reason for choosing YCSB is because it has been used in many recent past researches related to NoSQL databases and also there seems to have limited standard available bench marks in the field.

This isn't a full answer, but for the topline question itself: If the official examiner asks you for something you'd better provide it as they are the gate through which you must pass. Whether that is "logical" or not is irrelevant.

You have two (related) questions:

What does this mean?

This means you should explain why you suggest using YCSB (You already know the reasoning, given your last sentence.)

Does that mean I need to reason all the tools or technologies I have chosen to assist the research process?

No. If that were the case, the examiner would have asked you to. In general, researchers use direct/concise language. Do not assume that they actually/secretly want you to answer another question than the one they have asked you.

I'd add to this: find the original description of this benchmark, understand the creators' purposes in creating it, and cite their paper(s) (conference or journal) or websites or software releases in putting it out there. Summarize their reasoning (don't copy it!) in your justification, and cite it! This will be more persuasive than just a bare statement that the field hasn't provided sufficient benchmarks of databases (SQL and NoSQL) to-date. This statement requires a citation.

That is a great persuasive solution I didn't think of executing. +1 for that.


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What should be the main concerns while writing the research methodology section of a research proposal?
According to the research proposal evaluation results I have received, my supervisor advised me to elaborate more on the research methodology I chose. This is a research related to computer science, machine learning in particular. But he did not mention as to what I should write exactly there. Currently I have described my approach similar to software development life-cycle as follows.
Problem Identification – Problem Identification and motivation

Collect enough learning materials about the four main subject areas considered.
Conduct a literature review and synthesize information.
Construct a conceptual framework

Solution Design

Develop a system architecture.
Analyze and design the system
Develop algorithms for the processes.
4.Choose suitable technologies, environments and materials for the implementation.
Implement the system.

Evaluation

Test the system.
Once the system is error free, up and running use a benchmark workload to test the
performance of the system.
Conclude and summarize results.

I have no idea how I can elaborate this more or to re-write this section properly. Can you please let me know what a good research methodology section is and how to shape up this existing content into a proper methodology section?

Expand some or all of these bullet points into proper paragraphs. You professor probably wants to to explain how you will test the system, rather than just writing "test the system".


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Where can I find good research proposals of researches in computer science?
Where can I find good research proposals of researches in computer science? I specifically need to see some example methodology sections. I am writing a research proposal where the research problem is based on database systems and reinforcement learning. Writing the methodology section has become a great difficulty so far because there isn't any proper guidance or understanding I have on the area of academic documentation. If you can suggests a good book or a website to refer it's also helpful in this matter.

Why not read papers rather than proposals? Certainly you need to read them anyways to motivate your work

Check with your local/national funding, research promotion, or research training agencies, as these may offer limited access to past proposals under some circumstances.  For example, the Austrian Research Promotion Agency maintains a reference library of successful ERC proposals that can be consulted by the public (albeit in person only, and without borrowing rights).  Similarly, the Austrian Science Fund and Tutech Innovation periodically organize grant-writing workshops where real-life successful and unsuccessful grant applications are presented and analyzed for educational purposes.  For these two institutions, though, there's no guarantee that the proposals you'll be studying will be from your own field, and you can't take the proposals with you when you leave the workshop.
Another option may be to ask your current and past colleagues and supervisors if they will share their past proposals with you.  I've obtained a number of proposals this way, with the only restriction being that I had to keep them confidential.

informative and helpful. thanks


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Mentioning professor's name in SOP
I have applied for a PhD program in USA. I have mentioned a professor's name in the SOP. Will the professor only get the application to review or the other professors will also be able to see my application? Will the other professors mind as I did not mention their name?

This depends on the university, the department, and whatever rules they have for the application process. I don't understand who are the "other" professors who aren't mentioned.

Does this answer your question? Can I mention professors' names in the statement of purpose?

@GoodDeeds: Thank you. It has some useful information.

@Buffy: The 'other' professors mean the professors who is working in the department but  I did not mention their name.

Usually PhD admissions in the US are by a committee of several professors. Everyone on the committee will see your application (except that applications are often triaged or only read in full by certain members); the professor you mentioned may or may not be on the committee.
If your application suggests you are interested in working with a particular professor, then your odds of admission go up if that person is taking students and wants to advise you - one of the things an admissions committee is looking for is "fit", and "fit" is pretty good in this circumstance.
Your odds of admission go way down if that person is not taking students or does not want to advise you. Again, the admissions committee will be looking for "fit" and this would suggest you would not "fit".
I wouldn't expect other professors to be offended, but it's quite reasonable to not admit someone who will not have a place. Typically I don't think it's a good idea to mention an individual professor unless you have had previous positive interactions with them and are applying to the program specifically to work with that person.

Hi! I contacted with a professor before the submission of the application and he encouraged to apply. That's why I mentioned his name in the SOP. However, he is not responding after sending him 2 emails. I am bit worried about the outcome of the application.

@SRC Encouragement to apply doesn't necessarily mean "yes I'll take you as a student!" It's just...encouragement to apply. Be sure not to badger this person with emails or they may certainly get annoyed with you and be turned away (there are lots and lots of questions here about when it's appropriate to send another email in these circumstances, so I suggest you look through those). Not responding to 2 emails doesn't tell you much. They could be busy or on vacation, or they may not see a purpose in responding.

Also, I of course don't know what program it is that you've applied to, but the typical admissions period for US PhDs is with applications due somewhere around December, feedback which may include invitations for interviews late in December or around January, and admissions decisions a month or two later (Covid might interfere with it all this year of course). September is really really early and it's unlikely anyone has even looked at your application if you've submitted it already. The committee will wait until after the application deadline so they look at them all at the same time.

Thank you for enlighten me with some important information. The program has rolling admission, I applied in 1st week of August for Spring 2021. I do not know when I will get a response from them.

+1 @BryanKrause, September is way too early, and you can possibly strengthen your profile (more research work/publications which could lead to stronger recommendations as well) and update your after a few months.


text:
Research project scholarship in Australian university
After a zoom interview and sending my cv, certificates and research proposal, one Professor has sent an email inviting me to apply for the University of Queensland PhD program admission and research scholarship of one of his projects. Can anyone enlighten me about the process of research project scholarship application? I know about Australia awards scholarship and university scholarship application but unaware about the research project scholarship application.

If it is an industry sponsored scholarship or from the Australian Research Council (ARC), then the supervisor has full control of who he/she awards the scholarship to.  It is not as competitive as a scholarship offered by the university itself.
The application process may be the same for all scholarship applications to ensure the university captures your information.  However, instead of your application going into a pool to be ranked later, it goes directly to your supervisor who will then request the research office to issue you with an offer and the scholarship.
That's roughly how my university processes such applications.

Thank you for the answer.


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Postdoc, country and comfort zone
Due to covid, I had to extend my current postdoc contract till mid of next year. My postdoc albeit with my PhD supervisor, is on different topics and in collaboration with other groups. My advisor offered me to extend it till end of the next year too.
I am starting to search for other positions in my current country of residence and also other places. But, I am starting to feel comfortable here which is killing the drive to move to new country/place.
I am single, and want to try for academia (tenure track positions) in my home country in a year. But it seems, my motivation has shifted since I graduated my PhD in February 2020. I am two mind about what I actually want to do.
How do I come out of this comfort zone and make rational choices? I am probably digging my own career grave here. I want to stay in academia but I also don't want to leave my current position this or till mid of next year. And I know that doing a postdoc with PhD supervisor is looked down upon in academia. So, I am already in a bad place career wise.

Comfort and safety should be very high priorities right now. But, no harm in looking around and seeing if something catches your eye.

I suggest that you pursue all options open to you at the current time and delay decisions until you are required to finalize them. In other words, apply for some positions in your home country and see what develops. If they then seem better than your current situation, then do that. But you can also pursue options in your current country with the same goal.
Just be honest with your supervisor, who seems supportive now and may be supportive of your need to be flexible.
Many of us had to make compromise decisions along the way due to such things as a bad job market. Now it is the pandemic. People generally will understand such things and that one can't proceed now as if things were normal.


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Can we add co author later?
Me and my friends did a project during final semester. It got accepted for publication. Later I came to abroad for studies. My friends didn’t add my name as a co author.I have given my input and it’s my project idea to initiate. Can we add my name as a co author later?

Does this answer your question? Adding co-authors after acceptance

@cag51 I don't think this is an exact duplicate: the listed question asks about a a deliberate strategy of omitting authors until after acceptance. In this question the paper has already been accepted, and the omitted author wants to know how to fix the issue.

@cag51 I think avid is correct. The two questions are different. I retracted my dup vote.

If your name isn't added, then the manuscript plagiarizes your work.

In principle, it is possible to make changes up until the point that final proofs have been submitted. However, at a well-run journal any attempt to add an author after acceptance would require approval from the journal's editor, and they would likely require an explanation for why this change is being sought before agreeing.
The reason for this is to guard against various forms of misconduct, especially:

subversion of the review process, e.g. by concealing conflicts of interest;
offers of authorship as a reward/bribe.

If the editor is satisfied with your explanation, they will allow you to add authors. If they are not, the result is likely to be that the paper's acceptance is rescinded, and it is rejected from the journal. Note that many journals require the corresponding author to certify that they have included all relevant individuals as authors as part of the submission process, and admitting that you lied here does not do much for your credibility.

I believe we cannot. This is because the purpose of an article is to be a source of information and entertainment for people who do not have the time to do research on their own, which means that it must be as accurate as possible.
If you were to go back and change things after it was published, then what are the readers supposed to believe?
The co-author would likely have a different perspective than the original author, which means that he would either disagree with it or expand on the topic in ways that could be considered offensive by people who agree with the original article.
It is possible that the co-author would disagree with the topic and remove it entirely, which makes a mockery of the entire article.
It is also possible that the co-author might add information that was not there before, which would change the focus of the article and make it more about him or her than he main topic.
I believe it is best to keep articles like this as they are, where the author has a single point of view that will not change over time.


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Is it okay to reference theorem in the secondary source If I don't know where the theorem begins?
I would like to cite a theorem in my paper.
It's not famous, but it is used by many people.
So, I don't know who first proves the theorem.
Is it okay to reference the theorem in the source that might not be the first paper to prove it?

Is it okay to reference the theorem in the source that might not be the first paper to prove it?

It’s not only “okay”, but you must cite at least one source you are aware of, and preferably the chronologically earliest one. If you can’t trace the exact provenance of the theorem, then do the next best thing, which is to describe the earliest possible source, and explain that you were unable to determine if that represents the original source or a later source.
Of course, saying this carries with it the assumption that you made reasonable efforts to determine the source, for example by asking your adviser, colleagues, or emailing the author of the paper where you found the theorem if they are still around and easily reachable. If you didn’t make such efforts, then that’s what you should do first of all. But if you did make an effort, then sure, proceeding as I described above is “okay” and is the standard way to proceed.

In general i agree, OTOH if the theorem was used in a new field, if may be appropriate not to cite the original proof but the first paper where it was applied to a new problem, however the referencing should make that clear.

Not to deliberately pass the buck, but reviewers may be able to provide a more appropriate citation for the theorem.

@Sascha I think in that case I would cite both the original and also the first use in the relevant field

@GageMartin I actually like things like "[n] and references x-y cited therein. It can make the genesis of something more clear, since it indicates that the author got the specific idea to use it from a specific paper.

@Sascha Oh yes something like that sounds nice. I just meant that I wouldn't Only cite [n] without also citing what [n] drew on


text:
What are PhD welcome events like?
I was invited to the online welcome event for my cohort. There supposed to be some greetings from faculty and current students as well as Q&A session.
Apart from that what should I expect from this kind of events? Would I be required to say some words about myself or how I am happy to join the program or smth? I'm not that great of a speaker regarding social gatherings and a bit nervous that will be asked to say something I am not prepared for.

I don't think there's a standard format for such things - certainly not in 'online' mode, which is new to everyone. I doubt you'll be asked to give a speech, but they might go around the zoom call and ask everyone to introduce themselves. This can literally be as simple as "Hi, I'm newb, I'm intending to work on  and have just completed my undergrad at ".

Protip: force yourself to speak up at such events if given the chance, even if you really hate doing it. A big part of building an academic career is networking, and you can get better and more confident through practice. Plus, no one listens too hard during this type of introduction -- everyone is too busy worrying what they're going to say ;)

@avid, that is probably an answer.

@astronat, good advice. Perhaps you can expand it a bit as a formal answer without losing the key idea you present.

Is this after you have accepted to join there, or when you are still considering your options?

In the pre-pandemic world, such meetings, face to face, had the purpose of encouraging people to accept offers, to "personalize" the faculty, to let students and prospective students meet one another informally. They gave new students the opportunity to meed possible advisors and discuss, if only for a few moments, mutual interests, both research and personal.
And yes, they were a bit uncomfortable for incoming students who didn't really have a great idea of the place or their future there.
In the pandemic era, the zoom meets are an attempt to capture as much of that as possible under unfortunate circumstances. It isn't intended as an inquisition.
Yes, you might be asked about your interests and maybe a bit about your background, both personal and professional. But think of it as the sort of thing that might happen if you bumped in to someone who didn't know you well.
It is impossible to say exactly how it might go, since these meet ups are new to everyone involved now. If you are uncomfortable, I'd suggest that you just try not to be the first to talk, so that you get an idea of the kinds of things that go on. But, I don't think any preparation is needed or expected. In the US, at least, it is enough to be able to say that you are interested in some general area (Analysis) or in some fairly broad sub-field. You don't need to come, certainly, with a dissertation topic in mind. Human qualities may actually be more important than deep research qualities at such a meet. There is plenty of time to do the hard work once you start.
There won't be a "sorting hat" as in the Harry Potter books.

And take the good advice that astronat gives in a comment to your question. Find a way to participate.


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Want a recommendation letter, but the professor passed away
I am in the process of collecting recommendations for my PhD.
I was the best-performing student in final exams on three different courses, all given by a single professor. (The results of the exams are anonymized and published for a short period in my university.) These were the courses related to the fields I want to do research in.
There is nothing else this professor could have written about me - I didn't do any research in their group.
Sadly, the professor passed away after a short and severe illness last month.
Is there any way I can get a recommendation letter which acknowledges that I was the best student in these courses? Would another professor write that, given the death of the professor in question?

Maybe ask the department chair, who would have access to your records ?

was there a TA?

can you just put this info to your cover letter/CV/statement of whatever?

When is the app due?

It's due in a few months. There were different TA's. The anonymized data for most of the courses is not public anymore, but the professors usually keep it somewhere, for purposes of recommendation letters actually. I don't know about the late professor.

I would really have liked to have this included in a recommendation letter, otherwise one of my letters will look really bland - "generic strong student, never met them".

Your best letters will come from professors who know more about you than that you did well in their courses. I hope you have some of those.
You could say in a cover letter that your exams in this persons courses were tops in each, based on anonymized department reports. I doubt that you'd be required to provide evidence for that.

Of course my other letter will be more personal and better. However, it's not that I had an A, which is sadly not remarkable, it's that I was the best (out of >100) people each time, in courses in similar topics. Everyone I talked to says it could matter a lot.

Two is the minimum number of letters. I am able to obtain exactly one personalized letter.

Perhaps your other more personal and better letter can include a paragraph in which that writer talks about your top performance in these three courses. You could ask about that.

Not sure if the first letter writer even knew the late professor (they were in a similar research area, but at different institutions), but I can try.

It seems this professor would not have written a terribly good reference letter as he or she would simply have restated what's already on your transcript.  You must find a better referee.


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Is it advisable to include independent reading/projects in Statement of Purpose?
I am a Mechanical Engineer applying for Masters's in Financial Engineering program in the USA. I have around four years of experience in the field (Quantitative Modeling of Credit Products).
In general, I am interested in the mathematical aspects of this subject, and I have taken a few unsupervised reading projects, e.g., a self-study of Undergraduate Statistics from Casella and Berger (including exercises) and a Study on Brownian Motion Calculus.
For Machine Learning, I have taken two specialization courses on Deep Learning from Coursera and Udacity.
Over this period, I have expanded my knowledge base. I have recently been trying to ossify this learning by doing independent projects (preferably implementing an ML Concept in Option Pricing). I have found a few papers that employ MLPs for Pricing Options and Calibrating Volatility Surface.
Shall I include these learnings in my Statement of Purpose, especially since a large part of it is unsupervised? What steps can I take to ensure it comes off as authentic and credible?
I feel these learnings have vastly enhanced my interest and are one of the core reasons I wish to pursue further studies.

This has nothing to do with your question per se, but the word "ossify" has negative connotations (to become inflexible/obsolete), not positive ones. It would sound strange if you were to say in your SoP that you "have been trying to ossify" your knowledge. Perhaps "solidify" is the word you were looking for?

Thanks for your suggestion @AdamPřenosil; I see it means to stagnate.
I meant here to solidify my understanding of such topics.

Don't forget that the purpose of an SoP is to look to the future, not the past. It is about your academic and career plans, not your past accomplishments. Why are you entering this particular program and how will it help you accomplish your overall plan?
That said, if some bit of private study can show your seriousness on some particular future goal, then a short mention might be fine.
You could also write your CV (which is about past accomplishments) so that it has a section on "Private Self Study", listing topics and books (or whatever) you used. Then the SoP can refer to these if it needs to, but not so that it overwhelms the actual purpose of the SoP.

Thanks, @Buffy for your suggestion!


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GWA TO HONOURS CLASS
In the Philippine Grading System, my GWA is 1.6250, is there any chance to know the standing of this grade in the UK GRADING SYSTEM?

Sorry, but as I explained in the comment under your previous post, this question is essentially a duplicate. We cannot answer for each individual value of the GWA/GPA etc.


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Recommender sent me letter to submit
I am applying for postdoc positions this fall, and have three references.
My main two writers are doing everything as I expected.
The third agreed to write a letter for me--and he wrote a very good letter. It was very positive and I was even impressed by how personal it was, given that we do not know one another all that well.  He is also very well-known/famous in the field.  However, he simply gave me the letter to use as I wish, so it won't be customized for each position or anything.
I do not really have any good sense of what to do with this, when I apply for postdocs.
My PhD advisor said that he agreed it was strange, but "I would keep the letter and when requested send it and say he sent it to you."  I am just not sure what the least awkward way to do this is.
(I want to add: both my advisor and I are quite certain this letter will help my case.  My first two letters are going to be great, and are written by people who know me very well and will be tailoring, etc.)
Should I simply include, after the contact information for two references on my CV, "An additional letter of recommendation from ________ is available by request."?

Is it possible the third reference is just really busy? Leaders in their fields are often really busy, so he might have given you the letter because he knows that he might not have time to give you a more customized one on time when you need it.

Totally. I'm not even remotely upset that he did it this way and I totally understand why he did it.  He's very busy and very well-known, so I was happy for him to agree to write for me at all.  I just cannot figure out a non-awkward way to submit the letter.

What I do when I'm in this situation is to send the letter by email to the recruiter, witht he professor who wrote the letter as Cc. This way, the professor is aware that you used their letter, and the recruiter knows that the professor is aware, and the recruiter is not afraid that you might have written or tempered with the letter yourself.

The issue that I am having is that many postings request that I email a professor with a CV and the "contact information for 2-3 references," so that they can reach out for the letters if they like my CV.  I do not know how to tell them about this letter without looking amateurish.  I normally would have included the contact information for all three references at the end of my CV.

Your country? Where do you want to apply (country)?

United States for both.

Edit after some exchange in the comments below: I recommend that you contact the writer of the third letter and tell them that what you really need is them to send the letter directly when asked, and to pass on contact details now. This problem seems to be the result of a misunderstanding, and busy high profile researcher or not, if a misunderstanding is happening, it makes sense to clarify things. If you don't get a response, you can still use the letter you have.
Original answer:
Personally I wouldn't have worried about simply including the letter. What's wrong with that? It's a good letter, and if they don't believe it is genuine they can contact the writer. Where I work, such letters are not that important anyway. Personally I'm fine if a candidate is able to present two or three such letters by qualified people in which there is nothing worrying, and that's it. As most candidates fulfill that, these letters play no further role in decision making (frankly even unsuitable candidates can come up with glowing reference letters, so these are not that informative; even some high profile people write nice letters for everyone). Of course I can't guarantee it's like that everywhere.

Okay--I was just worried about sending the letter unsolicited.  In other words, they ask for the contact information of references, and I was wondering what I should do for this case.  Are you saying that I should email the letter with my other materials, then let my potential postdoc advisors email the other two references?

What exactly were you asked to do? I don't quite get the procedure from what you wrote. Were you asked for letters or for contact details so that they can request letters? If you are asked for contact details, you should ask the author of the reference whether they are fine with you passing on their contact details of course, rather than asking them for a letter.  Or is the situation that you have done just that, and instead of authorising you to pass on the details, they sent you the letter?

I was asked for contact details, but presumably that is simply so they can ask for a LoR.   I only asked for a letter.  My other two references are fine with being contacted for whatever.  Most of the positions are asking for the contact information for two or three references, so I am covered either way, but I would like to have this letter counted in my favor, given who is writing it and its contents.  My advisor was also confused by the fact that I was simply given the letter, and he agreed with me that I should not pester the writer about doing something different/extra.

@Lewian In academia, letter writers usually submit them directly to the institution. The person being recommended never sees them.

@DanHarlington: I'm still confused. "I only asked for a letter" - and then you are surprised getting one?

@BryanKrause: I work in academia and I know that. I realised after my writing of the answer that I should first have asked more precisely what both the TO and the third letter writer were asked to do, and what exactly they did. Because if there are clear instructions given, of course one should follow them.

This is what I was confused by as well.  My advisor also thought it strange.  I never expected to see the letter at all, just for my reference to write one, and respond to requests for it.

I used almost the same words requesting this letter as I did for the others, and my other references did as I expected and said they would write a letter and send it out as needed.

Well, you've got to accept that the same words are not always understood the same way by all people. If you tell me "I want a reference letter" I will send you one. If you tell me "I want to pass on your details, can I do that?" I will say yes. I may just be like your third writer. ;-) Maybe you should just tell this person sorry, you asked them in a way easy to misunderstand, and whether you can pass on their details for a reference because this is what you really need. If they say no or don't reply, you can still use the letter you already have.

@DanHarlington: See, it's not up to the people you ask for a favour to guess what the instructions are that you have to fulfill. You need to explain to them exactly what you need.

I don't want to get defensive here, but I am extremely careful with these correspondences and, before I requested the letter, I had my advisor read over the exact wording to make sure that I got everything correct...

Is the conclusion that there is simply no way to note that I have the letter without it being awkward?

@Lewian In my experience (as an applicant, as a letter-writer, and as a letter recipient), everybody knows that "asking someone for a letter" is shorthand for "asking someone to write a letter and send it on request".  To first approximation, nobody in American academia accepts letters directly from applicants.  And this has been true for decades.

@Dan: This is not a question of correct or incorrect. Misunderstandings happen. As I said, I'd ask the writer to give you what you need. If you don't get it, you can still add the letter to the application. I wouldn't worry about being awkward. People in admission commissions have other things to do than worrying about somebody else's feeling of being awkward. The only thing that can happen is that they ignore the letter because they have a formalism that tells them to only use those that were received directly from the authors.

@JeffE: Fair enough, I'm not in the US. But what does this change in practical terms for the TO now? The story up to this point is how it is. The writer may be a foreigner who is new to the system, or one of the people like me who tend to take questions literally whatever.


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Master's Scholarship with CGPA less than 3 out of 4
I am curious about can anyone land full free scholarship (data science, AI, ML) in any reputed university in USA, Canada, Japan, UK or any other country with CGPA less than 3 from a lower-tier university of a developing country?
In this scenario, the student has 3-4 journal publication(based on AI/ML/DL; impact factor 2+) wherein 2 of them the student is marked as the first author.
Thanks.

Many graduate schools have a minimum requirement of a B-average GPA for admission to the graduate program, and will rarely care very much about the publication record, even if it is stellarafter; the publication record might interest the Department into admitting you but it will have to fight for you to get the school to waive its requirement for a B-average GPA. If the applications are submitted through the graduate school instead of directly to the Department, the School might not even forward your application to the Department but just reject it out of hand.

In the US acceptance might be possible as the decisions are made on more than just GPA, and publications would certainly be a positive.
A full scholarship is a bit more tentative, however, as they aren't especially common and the competition for those that exist is fierce.
For a doctoral program, however, landing a TA position (or RA) would be more likely. This would provide funding (for the teaching/research duties) as well as forgiveness of fees. But for a masters, that path would also be unlikely.
However, in the US, the normal path is from a bachelors directly into a doctoral program. And again, there is competition for limited slots, but the decisions are made on the basis of several factors, not GPA.

Thank you so much for your explanation.


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How much time Google Scholar take (generally) to index an arXiv document?
recently I have arXived a manuscript of mine but it is not indexed by google scholar and around 64 hrs have passed. Is there anything else I have to do in order to get indexed by google scholar or will google scholar index the manuscript automatically?
P.S. arXived was done successfully.

It usually takes a few days according to this answer, which is in-line with my experience (I don't really monitor it though). In some cases, I think it can take a couple of weeks for Crossref which may give an idea of how long it could take for Google Scholar.
If you want to, you can manually add the article to your Google Scholar profile. However, I'm not sure how quickly that affects indexing.

Nice, thanks for the detailed answer.


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What is the right approach to publish papers in top conferences?
I am a PhD student works in Algorithms. I am thinking about the research styles of different people. There are are two set of researchers which I have seen

One who solves the problems in cases they work on some leftover cases of other researchers. Their results normally gets published in middle level conferences with lots of effort. For example improving the runtime of other algorithms. They have to understand the previous results deeply and fruits in this side seems less.I have observed that working on small cases is hard and also it is not fruitful many times.
Those who apply techniques in other problems for example, some one gave an algorithm for some graph x problem then they will think if we can solve problem y using the same technique. If they are able to solve it then it will get published in the venue comparable to the work they have used.

If I tell you that I want to be productive and want to publish my results in top conferences like FOCS and SODA which of the method do you think will be more effective? I am asking simply what is the research style of researchers who publish in top venue.

I'll guess that if your attitude toward research is that you want to "sneak by" with minimal effort, that you won't ever be very successful. Work on "interesting" questions. Then submit the work.

@ Buffy I have spend around 6 year in my PhD and my little experience tells me it matter alot and hard work also but to small extent.

Neither strategy works on its own - work that appears in top conferences is usually truly novel.  The question is which strategy helps you stumble upon something novel you weren't expecting in the process.  Coming up with results that belong in top venues requires luck and talent as well as effort.  If there were an algorithm for success then everyone would be able to follow it.  Since many people try very hard to be top researchers and don't succeed, there must not be an algorithm.


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How to be focused while reading a paper?
I am currently a researcher(PhD student). I work on this which needs long hours of sitting with concentration and quite some time to get a result or a paper.
Reading a paper takes time. Let us say I want to read a paper. I usually try to sit down a start reading it then try to write the things in my notebook. During this phase I can't able to focus on the content. I am getting distracted by many things email, messages etc. I don't this is the case with everyone in academia or not. Due to this distraction I am very slow in focusing on the things in which I want to pay attention. I notices that I can't focus more that 10 minutes on one thing in such situation.
The problem I am facing is distraction from the many sources and this distraction is making hard to understand the proofs/theorems I want to understand.
I have also observed on thing if I am understanding the content then it is unlikely I will open a new tab/ window in my computer.
In my past I have tried to block the sites/fb etc email account also but what happened that I missed some deadlines due to that. I have observed I can pay more attention once I block all the mentioned websites but that is also probelmatic.
Question : How to be focused while reading a paper? Are there any techniques/ some methods to tackle this problem?

"getting distracted by many things email, messages" Did you try turning off your mobile phone and e-mail while reading the paper?

Print out the paper. Sit away from your computer, phone, and other distracting elements. Close the office door, perhaps. Make annotations on the paper as you go.
When finished, transfer a summary to your notebook using the annotations you made on the paper.
If you don't want to mark up the paper, use index cards for your notations. Put only one thought on each card or only closely related thoughts. Then use those to create a summary for your notebook. If you put the name, etc., of the paper on the cards they can be easily carried for review if you need to reinforce your memory about the paper. This might be easier than carrying your notebook(s).

Note that using a two step process to get things into your notebooks is also a reinforcement mechanism that helps you learn what you are reading, not just process it. Review of your notations is additional reinforcement. It is a mistake to bypass this for most people.

(+1) Print out the paper. Sit away from ... --- I was formulating in my mind a reply that began with exactly this as I was scanning through the comments and the (at this time, only) other answer, then I saw what you wrote.


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How to select a subset of Euraxess's RSS Feed?
From this answer, I was able to get the RSS feed for Euraxess.
However, is there any way I can select a subset of this? I am interested only in Astronomy jobs, so I would like to know if a filter to just have an RSS feed for Astronomy jobs from Euraxess.

If Euraxess does not offer this more specific feed, there are two options I'm aware of. You can use an RSS reader with built-in keyword filtering capabilities, or a service such as siftrss to generate a filtered feed. Some more options are mentioned here.

Most RSS feeds only give the X most recent entries (X can vary). This is by design, to give the newest information and not waste bandwidth. Of course, it doesn't necessarily suit human reading patterns. I think the simplest approach is to just use an RSS reader that stores the feeds. You could try something like https://theoldreader.com/ for example, if your current reader doesn't support it.


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How to come back to academic machine learning career after absence due to health issues
Back in 2018 I started a master's degree in CS focusing on ML with the goal of eventually obtaining a PhD. This did not work out for two reasons: 1) most of the ML faculty left for another university. 2) I was diagnosed with depression and could barely keep up with classwork let alone do meaningful research.
Since then I have graduated and worked in non-ML-related generic software engineering jobs, always holding on to dear life due to my mental health issues and being an average performer at best. Thankfully, this year I have been approved for a new form of therapy which has resulted in great improvements. I feel almost entirely normal again and my productivity has skyrocketed. I am able to read and implement ML papers in my free time again.
I now feel determined to go back to my original plan. But the obvious problem is that my CV post Bachelor looks entirely unimpressive and going back to do yet another MS in CS seems like it would raise red flags. At this point I am not sure if there is a realistic way forward into a PhD program. Getting ML industry experience? Trying to self-publish? Going for a non-CS MS degree (e.g. stats)? I am also unsure of whether I have to/should explain my situation in my CV or motivation letters.
Essentially I am unsure how admission committees evaluate non-traditional candidates with obvious gaps in their resumes and whether a comebeback is a) realistic (if so, what paths have you seen such students take?) and b) has to be explained.

How were your grades in the CS master's?

One might hope that many people still remember that 2020 was the start of something not-very-fun that interfered with all sorts of plans.

@deee My grades were (somehow) still very good (perfect GPA, possibly best student in my year but that's unclear) but unfortunately no research experience after publishing my bachelor thesis. I attribute this to luck mostly since I've had a hard time studying.

I'm in the UK, and not sure if this applies elsewhere, but starting a PhD without any research experience is very normal here.

@deee By research experience do you mean publications? Or also research internships etc. Is the latter not quite common or is that only a US thing?

Many people in my lab (at a fairly prestigious university) went from a taught masters straight into a PhD without doing any research other than their master's thesis. My programme was particularly competitive as it comes with four years funding and a generous research grant, I had two papers where I was fairly low down the coauthor list and a good grade on my master's degree.

I'm not sure if you've actually applied to any PhD programmes, if you haven't then I would honestly just send in some applications and worry about getting more experience if that doesn't go anywhere.

I also took an extended mental health detour before getting to my PhD, and my industry programming experience has been very exciting to a lot of the academics I work with because competent programmers are surprisingly rare in computer science. (It makes sense if you think about it, computer science researchers don't spend much of their time on programming.)
When applying for a PhD, the admission committee is trying to decide if you're likely to successfully complete the PhD. You need to present your experience in a way that will make them confident in you as a candidate. If your master's degree transcript is unimpressive, you may want to acknowledge that this was due to a health problem which has now been resolved. I would suggest that your CV should cover all the relevant experience that makes you a good candidate, and your motivation letter should tell the story of why you want to do the PhD and how the experience in your CV sets you up well for this.
If you are struggling to be accepted to PhD programmes, one way you can make yourself more attractive as a candidate is participating in relevant contests/challenges, preferably ones which involve writing a paper about your submission. You want something that involves researchers but is open to anyone. It doesn't matter if you don't score highly (although a high score is nice!), the point is to show a basic level of competence. As an example of the kind of thing I mean, there's an annual challenge run by PhysioNet with an associated conference which has detailed instructions on preparing a paper as the assumption is that not all teams are within academia.

That's a great suggestion. I have been looking into publishing in ML adjacent areas that I have already worked in during undergrad but actually getting a paper accepted seems daunting, this might be more manageable.

Don't get too hung up on actually publishing something - I know people who have finished PhDs without having a paper accepted!

I do actually have one CS paper published already but as second author and in a different field, I was hoping to build on that.

Here are some of the tips that could strengthen your profile and eventually might make ready to get back on track.

You can do some ML courses and upload the certificates of completion on your LinkedIn profile.There are so many courses available on platforms like coursera, udemy, udacity, and so on. Pick the one that suits you best.
LinkedIn is a nice platform and one of the must-haves these days to get connected with like minded people. You can join certain groups/communities where people look for other ML folks without even needing a fancy ML degree.
Start exploring Kaggle competitions and submit your entries without even worrying whether it would lead to the top of the leaderboard.
If you are interested in gaining some experience, you can try freelancing.
You can always attend workshops, and academic conferences as a visitor to learn what people are doing research on and engage yourself in discussions with real professionals. You can also avail the opportunity to address your concerns and get even more practical and sensible advice.

Good Luck!

I really don't think random online ML courses and LinkedIn profiles will have much weight with selection committees.


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Chicago or APA for draft manuscript?
I am relatively new to the writing process. I wrote my first manuscript in APA style and found it time consuming while changing it to the Chicago manual style. I am aware that most journals have their own specific journal styles that we have to follow despite the reference style being the same. However, as per your experiences, in which style of referencing/writing, did you find writing your draft manuscript easier to modify later on? (Modify as in changing styles). Simply put, should I write my draft manuscript in APA or Chicago? P.S. Political Science Pre-PhD student.

I don't think this question should be closed - it's an XY problem than Jeromy has answered well.

My main tip would be to use a reference manager that automates the task of formatting references. There are many to choose from. But any good tool should make it fairly trivial to move between author-date format to numbered format. Good tools should also come with a wide range of tools for customising the look and feel of your references. Personally, I use Endnote and it works well for my workflow with MS Word. If you use LaTeX, then you'd want something that works better with BibTeX. That said, I think the big thing is that you get to know the features of your reference manager so you can use it effectively.
In terms of what reference format to adopt, I'd go with the format required by where you plan to submit the work. If it's a thesis, then follow any rules provided by your department. But commonly with PhDs, the format is up to you. In that case, you'd usually adopt the convention (or one of the conventions) of your discipline.

I agree with Jeromy. The best way to address this issue is to use a reference manager. If you use a word processor Zotero may be a good alternative. It is free and open-source and has an extensive reference library making it easy to download different styles and format your manuscript.
LaTeX with BibLatex/Biber (Bibtex-successor) is even more precise and reliable with regards to formatting references. However, in the social sciences there is very few journals that accept LaTeX submissions with means that you have to convert it to a word file which can be a pain.


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Awaiting recommendation, but before any sort of peer review
I submitted a paper through ScholarOne Manuscripts 3 days ago. The first status that I am getting is "ADM: Awaiting Recommendation" , just after the initial status which was "ADM: Waiting for Admin Processing". I know the typical stages of a journal workflow. My Q is, has anyone had any experience with the particular status? Should I expect an outright desk rejection?
N.B. I am aware that Awaiting Recommendation is generally seen post peer review. But mine is not the case as listed above. That is what confused me.

To me it means that the paper is with the referees.

Can you share the site you submitted this on? I can get you a specific answer.


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Should I include a title page and abstract if the journal does not specify anything at all?
Novice here. I am looking to submit a manuscript to a journal, Monthly Review. The journal website does not specify any template whatsoever except for the instruction to use Chicago Style, 16th edition for referencing. Should I include an abstract and a title page with a short bio in the submission  (as is the custom in most social science journals I know of)?

Do other papers in the journal do this?

Published papers of the journal show a short bio of the author in the footnotes section of the 1st page of the article. No abstract is shown. As a contributing author, I have no idea how the manuscripts of others look like and have access only to the published papers, which have been already typesetted and everything.

When I’ve needed a bio blurb, it is usually requested at time of acceptance. But, I’m in a different field.

Papers aren't normally published in the exact form of their first submission. I suggest that you write the paper as you think it should be written and submit it. Let the editor and reviewers decide if you should make modifications.
The title page is unlikely to be necessary in a first submission as it can be added later if needed (unlikely here). But an abstract might be helpful to the editor in choosing reviewers and to the reviewers in getting a quick overview.
But they will likely, in this case, ask you to remove them for publication. It is a process. Flow with it.

I think that you should write the paper just like you would want to write the paper. If you have editors, then they will make the modifications and tell you if you should add an abstract.
If your paper is long, then you should add an abstract to help the readers know what your paper is about, and a title page can be added later, that doesn't need to be done first.
If you do feel like you should include a title page and an abstract page, then by all means do so. If it makes you feel more comfortable, then do it.


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Scholar One Email System
I sent an email to a journal's editorial office via Scholar One's Manuscript Central. I had clicked on the EO's link , which led to a popup and then sent the mail by clicking on "Save and Send". My Question now is, where can I find the record of this email? I cannot find it in my email ID's sent folder nor does ScholarOne have one for this.

When a journal is set up on ScholarOne, one piece of information they provide is an EO email address. When you filled out the form, ScholarOne sent the email to that address "on behalf of" you. There is no direct way for you to view this correspondence through the system. You could contact the EO office again, and ask for a copy to be forwarded to you. You could also reach out to ScholarOne support to see if they could get you a copy.
Disclaimer: I am an employee at ScholarOne, but the opinions and posts here are my own.


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Is doctoral fellowship to be considered as funding source for a journal article?
As title suggests. First year Doctoral fellow with a scholarship. The article has no bearing on my Doctoral thesis. It is a side project. My synopsis hasn't even been finalized yet. So should I have mentioned and declared ny fellowship as a funding source while submitting the paper?

To clarify more, the scholarship is given by my country's government's university regulator called UGC. I am also in my first year and the article has nothing to do with my intended thesis when it comes to overlap. It is not a grant or project specific scholarship. It is merely a merit scholarship

There is no need to list it if the funding didn't support the research (if any) that went in to the paper.
But it might be at least courteous to mention that you are "personally" supported by as scholarship, naming the source.

This is a case where the conventions of the journal probably override any answer that we can provide. In general, I don’t see people acknowledging fellowships that were provided “for study” — for example fellowships that all graduate students in a department receive. Similarly fellowships that were awarded “for excellence” to attract a particular candidate to a university are often not acknowledged. On the other hand, fellowships that are “for research” or designed to further your research goals (even broadly) typically get acknowledged (in my field).
Regardless, it is okay to let this “grey area” slide for now and then ask the editor if you get a revision.

In my experience, this is wrong.  Also, if it's a doctoral fellowship it is for research.  A doctorate is a research degree.

Well, then everyone in my PhD granting department is wrong because none of us ever acknowledged the uni funding, just above and beyond funding we had to apply for…

For instance, I would acknowledge NSF funding but not generic Harvard funding that came as part of admittance. I would acknowledge an above and beyond research funding that was administered by a committee or center at Harvard.

I would say that, same as with salaries, fellowships that all students receive are generally acknowledged by stating the affiliation. If I see "university of X" next to someones name, then I will generally assume that that university supported that person. Similarly, the university of X will certainly feel their contributions acknowledged by that.

If you were paid by a fellowship, or your tuition was paid by a fellowship, while you worked on a paper, then yes the fellowship must be acknowledged in the paper.
You can skip the acknowledgement only if you did not use any fellowship resources in any way.  If you do not include the acknowledgement, you take on a small risk of angering the funder and violating the journal's policies.

Too stark. If I study, say, physics and publish an article "Personal Energy in Taiji", do I need to list my fellowship?

This depends a lot if the fellowship is being provided by the university or a third party. In the former case, your affiliation is sufficient acknowledgment of your funding. In the latter the funding should acknowledged if in anyway this funding helped you in preparing this work.

To clarify more, the scholarship is given by my country's government's university regulator called UGC. I am also in my first year and the article has nothing to do with my intended thesis when it comes to overlap. It is not a grant or project specific scholarship. It is merely a merit scholarship. I have given my affiliation to an Uni controlled by the authority that lends the scholarship too.


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Protections for writers of recommend letters
I was reading online some of the legal troubles in the US that can occur to recommend letter writers.  I imagine that many of us are familiar with (at least some of the) FERPA regulations.  We must obtain (in writing) a signed permission to use grades, and (at least according to one place I found) we are also required to inform the letter receiver not to convey that information to a third party without written consent.
At many receiving institutions, during the submission process there is a (sometimes large) legal disclaimer.  At some institutions, this includes something to the effect of "Law prevents us from keeping your letter confidential.  We will protect your identity, unless a court says we cannot.  etc..."
Some employers keep a permanent file containing the recommend letters.  As we all know, details over time become fuzzy, and so this seems to leave a letter writer open to litigation if details in the letter are disputed (by either a disgruntled employer or the one we write the letter for).
What protections exist for those who write recommend letters?  In particular, can letter writers give a time limit to how long an employer may keep a letter?  Apparently, in countries outside the US, letters of recommend are very short, to avoid legal issues.

Honesty and truthfulness are your main protection.

My employer absolutely does not keep letters around for any length of time, not least because there is no driver to do so, and legal liability if doing so.

There are legal protections in the US. The bar is fairly high for charges of libel. See https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/libel

In the U.S., grades and anything else that is an "education record" are protected by FERPA, hence the caution not to convey such information to third parties.  That absolutely does not keep the subject of the letter from seeing it.

@JonCuster Absolutely! Once a hiring / admission decision is made, such letters are no longer useful.  A wise lawyer once told me, "They can't subpoena what you don't have."

I'm thinking more along the lines of copyright/use protections, and not libel (although I like Bob Brown's point).  If I have a book that I want to share, I choose what level of copyright/use I will allow to protect myself and the user.  Why don't we do something similar with letters of recommend?  Eg. "You may use this letter for only six months.  You may not share it with a third party.  If you share it with the applicant, you must inform me in writing.  etc..."

I was reading online... — Would you mind sharing some links?

On mathjobs.org letter writers can give an expiration date for their letters.
I have no idea what would happen if a disgruntled applicant took some sort of legal action to obtain a copy of those letters.
To the best of my understanding (I'm not a lawyer, etc.), in the U.S., in academic settings, there are no genuine protections for letter-writers. Rather, if/when everyone behaves civilly, there's simply no issue.
This is why I try to demur when asked to write letters in situations that make me uneasy, especially when I feel compelled to say "I'm sorry, I'm not confident that I can write you a helpful letter. Perhaps someone else can do better."

The last paragraph is a wise policy. Highly recommended.

"if/when everyone behaves civilly"  The problem is that I wouldn't have even thought to warn a letter receiver not to share the letter with a 3rd party.  I'm looking for some standard document that one could attach to a letter (possibly as a link) laying out the "civil" uses of the letter.  Just like we have different levels of copyright on our other works.


text:
Lack of confidentiality for a letter of recommendation
I was recently invited to write a letter of recommendation for a colleague applying for a tenure-track position at UCSD.  The email said:

Although a candidate may request to see the contents of letters of evaluation in accordance with California law and University policy, your identity will be held in confidence. The material made available will exclude the letterhead, the signature block, and material below the signature block. Therefore, material that would identify you, particularly information about your relationship to the candidate, should be placed below the signature block. In any legal proceeding or other situation in which the source of confidential information is sought, the University does its utmost to protect the identity of such sources.

Firstly, how does this protect my identity, if the applicant knows whom he has invited to write letters?
Second, doesn't this policy lead to worse letters, without personal anecdotes and examples?
Third, the industry standard has been to allow applicants to waive their right to see the letter, and if they don't waive that right then the letter writer may refuse to write the letter.  Doesn't UCSD's policy remove this safeguard for letter-writers?

It is a matter for the California legislature, I think.

This seems more like a complaint than a question.  Also, there seems to be a misconception that the university has a choice.

Please ask only one question per post.  If you have multiple questions, you can ask them separately.  Your first question is a factual one that depends on the circumstances that lead to a letter, and so probably needs more context.  The second one sounds like it might be a matter of opinion.  The third sounds like it could be perceived as a rant in disguise; see our [help/dont-ask].  We're not looking for questions that are a call to discussion.  I encourage you to phrase your questions neutrally.

As I understand it, although job applicants, grad school applicants, and so on, can nominally "waive their right to see the letters", in most states this seems to be not enforceable, in the sense that it is not legally possible to genuinely waive this right.
When I've written letters, I construe peoples' waiving of "rights" to be an expression of intent, plus, an acknowledgement of the actual state of things. Yes, I've had people (misguidedly, in my opinion) refuse to waive these rights, which makes me wonder about their perception of things, and who's giving them advice.
And, yes, if someone is of the turn of mind to explicitly refuse to waive, I am much more guarded in my letter... ironically, usually because there are concommitant awkward issues as well.
And, yes, letter readers certainly understand that (in the U.S., in academic math, anyway) there is an expectation of at least pretending to not plan to ever demand to see the letters.
Yes, if we imagine that letter-writing should be fair and unprejudicial, then the issue of non-confidentiality might seem an unhelpful complication. However, decades ago, and, still in many scenarios, information is passed and decisions made in some sort of good-ol'-boy network rather than on a level playing field. That was, and continues to be, a bad thing, and needs pushing-back-against. (My own dept's faculty hiring has traditionally been a sort of star-chamber proceeding, and only this last year some of us have objected to it...)
So, yes, ... complications. :)

Regarding "unenforceability" --- does this apply to online platforms like "mathjobs"?  If a school downloads a letter from that site, are they under legal obligation to show that letter to the applicant if they request it?  How is removing the name enforceable, but not the rest of the letter?

@PaceNielsen, it's completely unclear to me... As you'd noted, removing the name is pretty worthless anyway, since people know who's writing letters for them. Given that known, finite, list, matching letter with author should not be difficult. I'd imagine that depts would fall back to some legally-justifiable defensive position if pressed... which may not include the best interests of anyone, but nevermind. I'm not a lawyer, but have seen enough of this stuff (in the U.S.) to see that it is muddled, and not as advertised, etc.

My personal solution to this and similar problems: I routinely show my letters of recommendation to the recommendee. Even if they have waived their right to see the letter, I have not waived my right to show it to them.
There are occasional instances when this isn't the right thing to do. It may well not be in the case you ask about.

Another different sort of answer, that may address one of the endless elephants parading through the various rooms of academe:
In the U.S., for example, if one has been asked to write a letter for a person who arguably/documentably has significant mental health issues, treated or not, the situation is tricky.
I note that over the years I've been the target of a few "grievance hearings" at my Univ, which, to my perception, amounted to students "with issues" deciding that I was the source of their problems... in some cases because I was the only faculty person willing to talk to them.
At a personal level, of course, this was very hurtful... but, um, was "educational" about what mental health issues can be.
It is important to not a-priori discriminate against people with mental health issues, of course. Um, and, how can we civilly and appropriately describe the potential dangers to other people? I don't know.
On a sappy/naive level, it was and is very disappointing that "being nice, being supportive, spending time, being encouraging" can still leave you as a target for threatened litigation.
(Again, I emphasize, this complication is NOT a reason to discriminate against people with mental health issues... it is just an issue that should be attended-to, if we all are to succeed collectively. And I do not know how to do it, myself.)

Firstly, how does this protect my identity, if the applicant knows whom he has invited to write letters?

The candidate has asked several people to provide letters, so there is still a possibility he will have a hard time distinguishing the letters of the different writers. It is a weak level of anonymity, but it’s something.
Also, the policy is the same for letters solicited for promotion cases, in which case the letter writers are not (or not only) those suggested by the candidates. So while in your specific situation it’s not particularly useful, it is quite useful in other cases.

Second, doesn't this policy lead to worse letters, without personal anecdotes and examples?

This seems impossible to answer. It might, or it might not, and even if it is, this policy exists for a reason, see below. (By the way, I still see plenty of letters with personal anecdotes and examples, and this is in a university that follows the same policy as UCSD.)

Third, the industry standard has been to allow applicants to waive their right to see the letter, and if they don't waive that right then the letter writer may refuse to write the letter.

I’m not 100% sure about this but I believe that at one time there was a court ruling in California that held that an employer is not allowed to keep confidential documents about an employee that the employee cannot review. Allowing the employee to see an anonymized version of the letters resolved that legal issue. By the way, as far as I know the right to view your letters only applies if you were in fact hired, so candidates that were rejected will likely never get to see the letters on their case.
As for waiving the right to see the letter, I don’t know the details, but I suspect that this right to know what your employer knows about you was seen as so fundamental that it would be illegal for an employer to require the employee to waive it. And not requiring it but only “allowing” the employee to waive it would create a kind of coercive pressure that probably amounts to the same thing. So...

Doesn't UCSD's policy remove this safeguard for letter-writers?

It does, and yet as I said this is done for legal reasons. In any case UCSD and its sister UC campuses that use the same policy somehow are still able to attract good faculty. So seemingly the policy seems to be working okay.

Does using an online system, to hold the letters for a short period of time, not resolve this issue?  The employer would never need to keep a copy of the letter.  The online site would act as a contract between the letter-writer and the asker.  If they don't agree to waive their right to view it, then the letter-writer can make a decision.

@PaceNielsen I don’t know, you’d have to ask a lawyer. We have quite a lot of those in California... I suspect the answer is no. But more to the point, the UC letters policy works well, so perhaps your premise that it needs to be reformed needs to be questioned. By the way, I remember being baffled about this policy in much the same way that you are in my first few years here and wondering why the system doesn’t break down in some catastrophic fashion. Eventually I realized that my bafflement notwithstanding, it just doesn’t.

Well, as a small counter-example to your "it works well" proposal, I'm refusing to submit my letter to UCSD.  That said, I wouldn't expect it to catastrophically break.  My personal objection to the policy, and my suggestions for possible changes, does not imply that it isn't mostly working.

@PaceNielsen I am not familiar with the details. I was told the reasoning is based on a court ruling about employers keeping (or maybe also having access to) documents about their employees that the employees can’t review. This is obviously problematic in various ways and was deemed to be not just problematic, but illegal. That’s all I know. And yes, I concede that as your example shows, the policy involves a trade off with some potential letter writers occasionally refusing to share useful information they have. But the alternative policy has other costs associated with it.

... so overall I don’t see a clear argument to decide which policy is optimal. Personally I have no opinion about this issue.

Thanks, and reciprocally I agree that some confidential letters unjustly prejudice employers.  Thus, by not keeping a permanent record of the letters, there would be no paper trail for redress.  (As an aside: I started reading some of the legal implications for letters of recommendation.  I didn't know that even if you get a signed waiver to include a students' grade in the letter, you are also supposed to include a statement reminding the employer that they may not share that information without written consent from the students.  Gotta love FERPA.)


text:
What is considered as the time since PhD degree granted?
In certain postdoc positions, the eligibility criteria says, "candidate's PhD has received their PhD within last 4 years."
So, if I defended on December 2019 and got my degree (convocation) on May 2020. Started postdoc from June 2020. So will my 4 years from now will be calculated on the basis of May 2020 or December 2019?

I think you can say you officially received your PhD in May, 2020.

Have a look on your full academic transcript - it should have a date that may be the viva date or the ceremony date or some other date. Mine is the date that the university committee agreed that I should be awarded the PhD, which was a few weeks after the end of defence matters and a couple of months before I actually got the bit of paper.

Major competitions for postdoctoral fellowships have detailed rules which answer this question, but in different ways.  Some use the date the degree was awarded.  Others use the date of the defense or viva.
If it is not specified, assume the later date is used.

It only depends on the date on your degree, not the date you defended. So if your degree was awarded May 2020, that's the date which counts.

This is often but not always correct.

That's sometimes not even that clear. In Germany, the PhD certificate is typically back-dated to the defense date.


text:
minimum GPA for top math phd programs
My question is pretty straightforward. I am just wondering what you think is the minimum GPA score that could keep me in good standing regarding my application for top math phd programs, such as Columbia, Princeton, MIT and Harvard, taking into consideration that I am currently enrolled at Columbia. Does the fact that I am attending an Ivy League school loosen up the implicit requirement of having a near perfect GPA? And what in general is considered a good median GPA to get into top math phd programs?

At that level, the only value for which there will be no issue is perfect marks, usually 4.0. But admissions, especially for top students to top schools doesn't work like that. More is considered than just GPA. Otherwise there would be no need for admissions committees.
You need a good, but balanced, application. And at the level you are speaking of, once you make the initial cut the non-quantitative things ae probably most important. What do your letters say about you? What research in field have you done? How is the quality of your insight? Do people actually like working with you. What do they predict will be your trajectory.
But "near perfect" is probably fine as long as the rest of it is here. At the margins, in selecting between a couple of candidates, it won't be GPA.
And coming from a good school doesn't hurt, but you need to do well there, just as you would at a "lesser" place. A "C" student from Yale isn't very impressive, I've been told. And lots of students are admitted from those lesser schools.

Actually, if you want better advice than you are likely to find here, ask any of your upper division professors whether you'd be likely to admitted to Columbia if you chose to continue there. Especially someone who has been involved in doctoral admissions in the past several years.


text:
Admission and advisor selection
I am an international student and I received admit from X university (USA) for PhD in computer science.
I reached out to all the professors who match my research interest and only one of them responded. Now when I am supposed to fly in a month he has notified me that he doesn’t want to commit to new students.
None of the other professors are replying to my mails. I have got my visa and I am left with no funding.
What should I do now? Should I drop my plan or should I simply go for a masters or anything else?

Do you have only a bachelors or are you entering the program already having a masters?

I only have a 4 years bachelors degree

You're flying to the US to start a program in December?

My program starts from January but before that I have to do a 14 days quarantine so I will be travelling in December only

Is there not some sort of initial funding for students when they first join the program and before they choose an advisor?

@bryan I asked my department about the initial funding but they mentioned they won’t be providing one

Does this answer your question? Implications of being accepted without funding to a computer science PhD in the United States?

It sounds like you've been admitted to a US PhD program in computer science without guaranteed funding.
While you will have to decide for yourself what to do, to me this seems like an unusual circumstance. As Buffy's answer mentions, it's common for students to not have an advisor right away in US PhD programs. However, it is not common to be completely unfunded.
I don't know what led you to being in this position, maybe there was a miscommunication between you and the program you applied to. Did they think you would have some sort of funding from your home country? Did they think an advisor had already committed to taking you on (in my grad program this would have been referred to as a 'direct admit' student)? Did you not have any conversations about funding during the application process?
I would not recommend moving to another country for an unfunded PhD unless you are independently wealthy and the cost is no concern. If you can arrange for a TA or RA position before the semester starts then that's fine. It seems like you're out of luck for now on the RA front, so find out from your program what the steps are to get a TAship.

Even if you are not moving, it would be a bad idea.

In the US a CS student entering a doctoral program with only a bachelors seldom actually starts out with their dissertation advisor. There is plenty of time to meet people, see what they do, and impress them. The program is normally heavy on coursework initially. You might wait until your third year or so to actually wind up with the professor who will guide you.
This can be different in other fields and certainly is in other countries, but I wouldn't be a bit concerned about the situation.
The other professors aren't replying because it is too early for them to even think of considering you. Your situation is completely normal here.
The required classwork can be quite extensive since most programs require that you obtain a broad education in your field as well as a deep knowledge of some part of it. Almost all programs have comprehensive exams (maybe three or four) that must be passed before you get too deep into specific dissertation research. These assure the broad knowledge expected of any PhD.
Also, most students in such programs have either a TA or an RA that supports them financially in return for various activities that also prepare you for a career in academia (primarily). And such students don't pay fees, though they have living expenses, of course. But that would be the case anyway.

But I will have to pay my tuition fees and living expenses

You won't be bored. There is plenty to do to get ready for comprehensive exams. You don't just wait around for several years.

@az10 Are you are sure about having to pay? U.S. stem doctoral program tend to pay your tuition, and you are either on a stipend or paid for TA’ing or RA’ing (which is sorted out after you joined if needed).

@gnometorule, yes. Forgot that part. Adding it also.

My department told that I either have to mail professors to get a RA or I will have to apply for a TA but they can’t guarantee if I will receive one or not

Yes, that seems normal. RA positions are controlled by those with grants. TAs are granted by the department.

This is an inadequate answer because it does not address "I am left with no funding."

When I got my acceptance no funding decision was made and after that the pandemic hit and even senior PhD students are having to fight for TA and RA’s

I did an unfunded MS, but I was getting in state tuition  and lived with my parents. I then entered a funded PhD program at the same university.
I wouldn't pay out of state tuition for a PhD where I had to rent an apartment.


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Reasonable Tutoring Rate
I am a graduate student considering tutoring another student in a challenging graduate level statistics course.  What is a reasonable hourly rate to charge?  This is a public university in the United States.
Thanks.

Any rate you can get the student you're tutoring to agree to is a fair hourly rate.  I've charged up to $80/hr for tutoring students in the US in the past (usually that rate paid for by a small group).  I've also tutored friends for just dinner or some beers.  Just make sure both parties agree, probably best over email or something with a paper trail.

Personally, under such a circumstance, I think it is fair to charge at least $30/hour. Going over this really depends on the student's ability to pay higher rates.